internationalkris's review
4.0
I was fascinated by Sarah Glidden's graphic nonfiction account of her time following a group of journalists as they chased stories in Turkey, Syria and Iraq. The extent to which the region was destabilized by the two invasions of Iraq is obvious. Of course there were some groups that benefited at the time but many more people lost their homes, livelihoods and even family members. The US and other invading forces believed that the middle class would rebuild a safe and independent Iraqi state but from what the journalists find, as much as 80% of these people did not feel safe enough to return and rebuild. The whole book becomes even more meaningful in light of the current civil war in Syria and one can imagine that the huge influx of Iraqi refugees from the wars would have been a significant contributing factor. The young journalists struggle with many issues as they select and shape the interviews that they record, among them war-guilt, and also choices involved in marketing the stories and developing angles that will sell. They have a true interest in helping people and bringing their stories to a wider audience but they know that their work rarely brings help to the individuals that they interview. Rolling Blackouts highlights a lot of complicated issues in journalism and aid work and presents it through a personal and authentic lens.
juliana_aldous's review
5.0
This book will make you think about war, journalism, and America's role on the world stage for the past twenty years.
hampton_reads's review
4.0
Great art style and storytelling. Appreciated the setting and the characters, too.
driedfrogpills's review
4.0
Considering we now live in a post-truth world, it was really refreshing to read about a group of journalists struggling with the demands and concerns of ethics and bias in journalism. Despite the very serious settings and reflections recorded by Sarah Glidden, it kind of made me a little more optimistic that there are these conversations are still being held around the world (but I'll be honest, my optimism is pretty low so I'm not exactly setting the bar high).
I did initially pick this book up because I wanted more on Syria and Iraq, and there's some of that in this, but it's really more about the group Glidden followed and the people they met. There is a lot of food for thought in this, though; I'll probably end up buying a copy just so I can flip through it from time to time and reflect. Glidden's quiet watercolors are wonderfully understated, adding to the air of quiet reflection even when dealing with charged issues. She also presents her friends and those they interviewed in a sympathetic way as possible, letting readers draw their own conclusions from the text.
I did initially pick this book up because I wanted more on Syria and Iraq, and there's some of that in this, but it's really more about the group Glidden followed and the people they met. There is a lot of food for thought in this, though; I'll probably end up buying a copy just so I can flip through it from time to time and reflect. Glidden's quiet watercolors are wonderfully understated, adding to the air of quiet reflection even when dealing with charged issues. She also presents her friends and those they interviewed in a sympathetic way as possible, letting readers draw their own conclusions from the text.
mschlat's review
5.0
The short take: a wonderfully fascinating take on independent journalism visiting the Middle East. If you have enjoyed any [a:Joe Sacco|32468|Joe Sacco|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1363002204p2/32468.jpg], any nonfiction work from [a:Jessica Abel|93963|Jessica Abel|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1424869623p2/93963.jpg], or Glidden's previous book ([b:How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less|13810051|How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less. Writer & Artist, Sarah Glidden|Sarah Glidden|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1356475358s/13810051.jpg|13937259]), you should read this.
The long take: Bear with me. In this book, Sarah Glidden is carrying out comics journalism by showing her trip to the Middle East with the independent journalism outfit the Seattle Globalist, led by Sarah Stuteville. Stuteville, with her compatriots, have set up a trip to explore refugees from Iraq in Turkey and Syria, as well as explore displacement within Iraq. Stuteville has brought a childhood friend of hers, Dan, who served in the U.S. military in Iraq to get his impressions on the impact the war had.
Thus, in one volume, we get the following issues: How will the Globalist access sources when shadowed by the Syrian government? How will Sarah Glidden cover the questions Sarah Stuteville has about her own profession and ethics? Will Dan, in visiting Iraq, change his opinion about his part in the war? If he doesn't, does Stuteville have a story? How should Glidden react when Dan talks more honestly with her than with Stuteville? Can Stuteville ask the tough questions of an Iraqi source (mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report) whose story sounds unbelievable?
Putting aside for now the issues of the Middle East, the whole work is a fascinating exploration into journalistic ethics, highlighted by the fact that the Globalist folk are truly freelance journalists who (in this case) build their work out of a relatively free-form visit. One contact leads to another, one encounter turns into a theme which builds into a story... And yet, there's always the issue of audience --- what can they write about that they know will get read (or even published)? How do you make the lives of refugees important to U.S. readers?
For me, two things stood out about the trip from a geopolitical stance. First, there's a lot about the Kurds and their seemingly endless search for independence. Glidden clearly shows the divide between Kurdish Iraq and the rest of the country (for example, highlighting the refugees who headed north to more Kurdish country whom the Kurdish leaders want to return so they have a better representation in the south). Second, the depiction of Syria here is pre-civil war, and its peacefulness and civilized nature (albeit still authoritarian) stand out in contrast to the 2017 reality.
Glidden's artwork and storytelling is several steps above [b:How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less|13810051|How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less. Writer & Artist, Sarah Glidden|Sarah Glidden|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1356475358s/13810051.jpg|13937259]. I think the line work is simpler but more emotionally effective. (She does a particularly good job of portraying Stuteville's turns from frustration and desperation to determination and curiousity.) And the coloring (which, if not actual watercolor, resembles it a great deal) is quite nice --- muted, but still effective.
One of the best nonfiction graphic novels I've read in a while and the best at depicting the work of journalism.
The long take: Bear with me. In this book, Sarah Glidden is carrying out comics journalism by showing her trip to the Middle East with the independent journalism outfit the Seattle Globalist, led by Sarah Stuteville. Stuteville, with her compatriots, have set up a trip to explore refugees from Iraq in Turkey and Syria, as well as explore displacement within Iraq. Stuteville has brought a childhood friend of hers, Dan, who served in the U.S. military in Iraq to get his impressions on the impact the war had.
Thus, in one volume, we get the following issues: How will the Globalist access sources when shadowed by the Syrian government? How will Sarah Glidden cover the questions Sarah Stuteville has about her own profession and ethics? Will Dan, in visiting Iraq, change his opinion about his part in the war? If he doesn't, does Stuteville have a story? How should Glidden react when Dan talks more honestly with her than with Stuteville? Can Stuteville ask the tough questions of an Iraqi source (mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report) whose story sounds unbelievable?
Putting aside for now the issues of the Middle East, the whole work is a fascinating exploration into journalistic ethics, highlighted by the fact that the Globalist folk are truly freelance journalists who (in this case) build their work out of a relatively free-form visit. One contact leads to another, one encounter turns into a theme which builds into a story... And yet, there's always the issue of audience --- what can they write about that they know will get read (or even published)? How do you make the lives of refugees important to U.S. readers?
For me, two things stood out about the trip from a geopolitical stance. First, there's a lot about the Kurds and their seemingly endless search for independence. Glidden clearly shows the divide between Kurdish Iraq and the rest of the country (for example, highlighting the refugees who headed north to more Kurdish country whom the Kurdish leaders want to return so they have a better representation in the south). Second, the depiction of Syria here is pre-civil war, and its peacefulness and civilized nature (albeit still authoritarian) stand out in contrast to the 2017 reality.
Glidden's artwork and storytelling is several steps above [b:How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less|13810051|How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less. Writer & Artist, Sarah Glidden|Sarah Glidden|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1356475358s/13810051.jpg|13937259]. I think the line work is simpler but more emotionally effective. (She does a particularly good job of portraying Stuteville's turns from frustration and desperation to determination and curiousity.) And the coloring (which, if not actual watercolor, resembles it a great deal) is quite nice --- muted, but still effective.
One of the best nonfiction graphic novels I've read in a while and the best at depicting the work of journalism.
tcoale's review
4.0
Great insight into both modern day journalism and the plight of Iraqi refugees in Turkey and Syria.
ria_brumbaugh's review
2.0
I read this for a book club being hosted by the high school library at which I'm doing fieldwork for my MLIS degree. That context of viewing the book on both its own merit and as a title we were marketing to a YA audience definitely influenced my takeaways.
I always like to read other reviews prior to writing my own, especially those which in the one- or two-star range. Such reviews bring up the point that this book is somewhat misnamed; the focus isn't necessarily on the titular regions or the residents thereof, but rather on the group of people undergoing this journalistic trip. Through this lens, the book engages with some fairly heady metatextual concepts of journalism, ranging from the extent to which intervention with a situation is desirable/inevitable/ethical to how personal histories and biases color the ways in which journalism is practiced. To me, that question - "what is journalism for?" - is the crux of the book.
However, the Middle East does NOT seem like the appropriate backdrop against which to engage with these questions. As several other reviewers mention, the main "narrative" of this book focuses on Dan the Marine - the child of old-school Seattle hippies who joined the Marines with the express goal of containing or decreasing the violence affecting Iraqi communities. I'll readily admit to not being especially well-read regarding the history of the Middle East, much less that of the USA's presence therein. However, Dan has clearly bought hard into the propaganda surrounding the USA's invasion of Iraq - that it was a good thing done with the sole (or at least main) purpose of ousting Saddam Hussein. His entire arc - or lack thereof - focuses on what appears to be his struggle with justifying his service. As Gildden comments in one of the last conversations had with Dan in the book, "Maybe he's not here to tell his story. Maybe he's come to hear something...something nobody here is going to tell him." This guilt response from Dan could be interesting in how it impacts his vlog-style reporting, but the full breadth of that interaction is never explored. The biggest crime of this book is how the subjects therein - crucially important stories of displacement, survival, and persecution - function as little more than the setting against which the drama of these four white American tourists unfolds. This doesn't feel or read like a story about the Middle East, just one that is set there.
That all being said, I do think that there's value in some of the conversations contained in this work. It left me with plenty of food for thought regarding sociopolitics, and in the age of widespread distrust with the journalistic profession I think there's a need for the type of introspection on display here. However, there's never an interrogation deep enough to make up for the painful marginalization of the people who this book is ostensibly about.
I'm definitely going to read Sacco's Palestine on the recommendation of all the reviewers who walked away from this book with a sour taste in their mouth.
I always like to read other reviews prior to writing my own, especially those which in the one- or two-star range. Such reviews bring up the point that this book is somewhat misnamed; the focus isn't necessarily on the titular regions or the residents thereof, but rather on the group of people undergoing this journalistic trip. Through this lens, the book engages with some fairly heady metatextual concepts of journalism, ranging from the extent to which intervention with a situation is desirable/inevitable/ethical to how personal histories and biases color the ways in which journalism is practiced. To me, that question - "what is journalism for?" - is the crux of the book.
However, the Middle East does NOT seem like the appropriate backdrop against which to engage with these questions. As several other reviewers mention, the main "narrative" of this book focuses on Dan the Marine - the child of old-school Seattle hippies who joined the Marines with the express goal of containing or decreasing the violence affecting Iraqi communities. I'll readily admit to not being especially well-read regarding the history of the Middle East, much less that of the USA's presence therein. However, Dan has clearly bought hard into the propaganda surrounding the USA's invasion of Iraq - that it was a good thing done with the sole (or at least main) purpose of ousting Saddam Hussein. His entire arc - or lack thereof - focuses on what appears to be his struggle with justifying his service. As Gildden comments in one of the last conversations had with Dan in the book, "Maybe he's not here to tell his story. Maybe he's come to hear something...something nobody here is going to tell him." This guilt response from Dan could be interesting in how it impacts his vlog-style reporting, but the full breadth of that interaction is never explored. The biggest crime of this book is how the subjects therein - crucially important stories of displacement, survival, and persecution - function as little more than the setting against which the drama of these four white American tourists unfolds. This doesn't feel or read like a story about the Middle East, just one that is set there.
That all being said, I do think that there's value in some of the conversations contained in this work. It left me with plenty of food for thought regarding sociopolitics, and in the age of widespread distrust with the journalistic profession I think there's a need for the type of introspection on display here. However, there's never an interrogation deep enough to make up for the painful marginalization of the people who this book is ostensibly about.
I'm definitely going to read Sacco's Palestine on the recommendation of all the reviewers who walked away from this book with a sour taste in their mouth.
worldlibraries's review
2.0
I was excited to read this book. After all, how often do you come across graphic novels that take place in Eastern Turkey, Western Iraq, and Syria? I am not sure though, what the goal of the book was. It is unclear to me. Even the title and how it was relevant to the story was unclear to me.
First off, I couldn't keep the two females in the story straight, who was who and which one was supposed to be the journalist and what the other one was doing. It didn't help that they shared a first name. It didn't help that they kept stepping on each other's toes journalism-wise. I think one was supposed to be the journalist and the other was along for the ride. They just weren't compelling characters and I realized after I finished the book I didn't engage with them. The answer 'why should I care?' went unanswered for me as a reader.
The idea for the book might have been, I think, 'let's go see who the people are whose country the USA invaded.' Now that's a good idea. But the first person the book focused on was a 100% unsympathetic character who told noncredible stories and was a footnote in the 9/11 report. I don't think he was a fair representation of the people of Iraq. Iraq wasn't even involved in 9/11 so to focus on this guy just muddies the water. Later, the book characters met plenty of professional Iraqis living as refugees in Syria who had beautiful lives pre-invasion, but their stories weren't explored. They are just noted as living 'destroyed lives.'
Another possible angle of interest was watching the Marine in the story justify the war to himself. He quite adequately regurgitated the propaganda as to why it was a good thing to invade Iraq and depose Saddam (even though he thought the invasion was wrong before it happened), but he never focuses on the individual lives destroyed. He says he wants to interact with Iraqis but avoids actually doing so. There wasn't any 'growth' there, so that story wasn't very compelling. He was the most fully-realized character in the book -- yet, it could be I thought so because all of the propaganda he spouted about why invading Iraq was a good thing is already familiar to the reader who has been fed the same propaganda.
In sum, although I hate to say it, and I say it gently, this book can be skipped.
First off, I couldn't keep the two females in the story straight, who was who and which one was supposed to be the journalist and what the other one was doing. It didn't help that they shared a first name. It didn't help that they kept stepping on each other's toes journalism-wise. I think one was supposed to be the journalist and the other was along for the ride. They just weren't compelling characters and I realized after I finished the book I didn't engage with them. The answer 'why should I care?' went unanswered for me as a reader.
The idea for the book might have been, I think, 'let's go see who the people are whose country the USA invaded.' Now that's a good idea. But the first person the book focused on was a 100% unsympathetic character who told noncredible stories and was a footnote in the 9/11 report. I don't think he was a fair representation of the people of Iraq. Iraq wasn't even involved in 9/11 so to focus on this guy just muddies the water. Later, the book characters met plenty of professional Iraqis living as refugees in Syria who had beautiful lives pre-invasion, but their stories weren't explored. They are just noted as living 'destroyed lives.'
Another possible angle of interest was watching the Marine in the story justify the war to himself. He quite adequately regurgitated the propaganda as to why it was a good thing to invade Iraq and depose Saddam (even though he thought the invasion was wrong before it happened), but he never focuses on the individual lives destroyed. He says he wants to interact with Iraqis but avoids actually doing so. There wasn't any 'growth' there, so that story wasn't very compelling. He was the most fully-realized character in the book -- yet, it could be I thought so because all of the propaganda he spouted about why invading Iraq was a good thing is already familiar to the reader who has been fed the same propaganda.
In sum, although I hate to say it, and I say it gently, this book can be skipped.