SALE, TIM 539
eight issues, 1987–88) he focused on his own work in Ya h o o (six issues, Fantagraphics,
1988–92), shifting from humor strips to autobiographical and documentary material,
including accounts of Sacco’s travels with a rock band in Europe and stories exploring his
fascination with war. Issue #4, “Airpower through Victory,” is a fully annotated history
of modern military air attacks, followed by a vivid account of his mother’s experience of
World War II on Malta. Issue #5, “How I Loved the War,” points towards Sacco’s work
in the next decade, while issue #6 sympathetically illustrates Susan Catherine’s story of
her life as a stripper.
His turn toward both autobiography and accounts of war confi rmed Sacco as the
most prominent artist employing comics as journalism or reportage. Palestine, his fi rst
major work, chronicled Sacco’s trip to Israel and the Occupied Territories in the winter
of 1991–92: serialized in nine issues (1993–95), Palestine was issued in a two- volume
edition in 1994 and 1996 (winning an American Book Award), and in a collected
edition featuring an introduction by Edward W. Said, in 2002. A 15th-anniversary
“Special Edition” with valuable supplementary material, was published (like all previ-
ous versions, by Fantagraphics) in 1997.
Infl uenced by New Journalism, Sacco’s comics allow his point of view to color the
stories he gathers, although he often presents himself unfl atteringly. While relying on
photographs as sources for his drawings, he often employs visual distortion and jarring
panel designs, with images eluding conventional borders, or humans drawn as if viewed
from above or below through a fi sh-eye lens: the overall eff ect of Sacco’s work, balanced
between representation and interpretation, is to acknowledge the subjectivity inherent
in even the most responsible attempts at objective journalism.
Some of Sacco’s shorter pieces were collected as Wa r J u n k i e (Fantagraphics, 1997), fol-
lowed by three powerful books on the Bosnian war, including Safe Area Goražde: Th e
War in Eastern Bosnia 1992–1995 (Fantagraphics, 2000), Th e Fixer: A Story from Sara-
vejo (Drawn & Quarterly, 2003), and War’s End: Profi les from Bosnia 1995–96 (Drawn &
Quarterly, 2005). Notes from a Defeatist (Fantagraphics, 2003) reprints autobiographical
material; some of Sacco’s early and recent work on music, including posters and album cov-
ers, is collected in But I Like It (Fantagraphics, 2006). More recently, his stories on the Iraq
War have appeared in mainstream publications, including Th e Guardian and Harper’s.
Selected Bibliography: Groth, Gary, “Joe Sacco, Frontline Journalist.” Th e Comics
Journal Special Edition (Winter 2002): 55–72; Marshall, Monica. Joe Sacco. Library of
Graphic Novelists. New York: Rosen Publishing, 2005.
Corey K. Creekmur
SALE, TIM (1956–). Born in Ithaca, New York, Tim Sale is a prominent comics illustrator
and occasional writer. He attended New York’s School of Visual Arts (SVA), in addition
to participating in a comics workshop led by John Buscema. Before completing his
degree at SVA, Sale returned to Seattle (where he grew up), and worked a variety of odd
jobs while partnering with his sister to start a small imprint called Grey Archer Press.
