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Israeli warplanes have been targeting Gaza in recent days claiming retaliation for increasing rocket and mortar attacks, and raising fears of a second war on the heels of last year’s ferocious assault. While such news seems hardly out of the ordinary among the decades of occupation, two incidents in 1956 that left hundreds of Palestinian men dead, captured the curiosity of graphic journalist Joe Sacco, and led him on a journey to Gaza that is expressed verbally and visually in his latest book, Footnotes in Gaza. Along with his partner Abed Elassouli, Joe Sacco traveled through time via the fading memories of an aging generation in cities like Khan Younis and Rafah to patch together a grim history that was all but forgotten by the outside world. Totally unique in journalism Joe Sacco expresses his high-caliber investigative work not just in words but in pictures as well. His detailed drawings transport the reader onto the streets and into the homes of Gaza. Sacco’s earlier works include Palestine: A Nation Occupied, Safe Area Gorazde: The War in Eastern Bosnia, The Fixer and Other Stories, and Notes from a Defeatist. Chris Hedges has said of Sacco’s work in the New York Times, “His drawings are stark, realistic visionsof the gray, depressing world of a land mangled by artillery shells and deformed by poverty.”

GUEST: Joe Sacco, cartoonist, author of Footnotes in Gaza.

Joe Sacco will be reading from his book and signing copies at Skylight Books on Tuesday January 19th at 7:30 pm, 1818 North Vermont Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90027

Read more about Joe Sacco at http://www.fantagraphics.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=267&Itemid=82