RECLAIMING SPACE IN AREAS OF CONFLICT: A SELECT READING OF JOE SACCO AND SARAH GLIDDEN

Abstract

germ of the idea behind the synthesis of the following thesis lies in the disquieting statement of Baudrillard— “the Gulf War did not take place.” The ideation of the statement inextricably aligns with the intervention of the television media in reporting the Gulf War, seamlessly framed within the advertisements and sponsorships, tailored by the capitalist market. It became the ‘video game war’ served for the entertainment of the viewers, thoroughly ripped of its reality. Hence it was quite theoretically potent for Baudrillard to drive home the idea of the non-occurrence of the Gulf War which was then being aired in the television back then. It is here, that I put forward my intervention through the present thesis, which will argue that even in this age of simulated hyper-reality, where every aspect of human existence has been encroached by the virtual world, where reality is eternally deferred, one of the emergent categories of non-fiction comics—Comics Journalism, newly re-capacitates readers/viewers to perceive the reality of an event. This is majorly, as the thesis shall argue, due to the change of the medium. Comics as a medium has an inherent compulsion of visualising the narrative through sequences of panels bearing first-hand witnesses and pictures from the loci of action. Comics Journalism, a new entrant into the league of Comics Studies is a category of non-fiction comics that indulges in a complex matrix of narrative as it amalgamates two distinct genres— Comics and Journalism. However, the creative craftsmanship of the graphic artist effects a synthesis of both the genres, creating a third autotelic and independent category that demands its own techniques and skills of interpretation from the readers. The emergence and the eventual popularity of Comics Journalism can be read as nothing but a natural antidote for the overwhelming visual media. Drawing from the theoretical framework of postmodern geographers like Henri Lefebvre, Edward Soja, and Michel de Certeau, the thesis shall argue that the comics journalists ‘routes’ back to the loci of action and categorically ‘roots’ their works in those places and spaces, thereby affecting a re-animation of the events finally tappinon the multiple reality and perspective of events. The thesis will study ‘space’ as a major component of comics journalistic works as it is the very portrayal of the triad of the ‘perceivedconceived- lived’ spaces that reality comes through. Building upon the comics journalistic works of Joe Sacco and Sarah Glidden which report the volatile situation of the Middle East, the present thesis will attempt to look into the incessant production of space and its consequent reclamation by the common users of the city space.