The Great War: July 1, 1916: The First Day Of The Battle Of The Somme

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From “the heir to R. Crumb and Art Spiegelman” (Economist) comes a monumental, wordless depiction of the most infamous day of World War I.Launched on July 1, 1916, the Battle of the Somme has come to epitomize the madness of the First World War. Almost 20,000 British soldiers were killed and another 40,000 were wounded that first day, and there were more than one million casualties by the time the offensive halted. In The Great War, acclaimed cartoon journalist Joe Sacco depicts the events of that day in an extraordinary, 24-foot- long panorama: from General Douglas Haig and the massive artillery positions behind the trench lines to the legions of soldiers going “over the top” and getting cut down in no-man’s-land, to the tens of thousands of wounded soldiers retreating and the dead being buried en masse. Printed on fine accordion-fold paper and packaged in a deluxe slipcase with a 16-page booklet, The Great War is a landmark in Sacco’s illustrious career and allows us to see the War to End All Wars as we’ve never seen it before. 24 plates

Hardcover: 54 pages

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1 edition (November 4, 2013)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0393088804

ISBN-13: 978-0393088809

Product Dimensions: 11.5 x 1.2 x 8.8 inches

Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)

Best Sellers Rank: #220,736 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #131 in Books > Comics & Graphic Novels > Graphic Novels > Educational & Nonfiction #132 in Books > Arts & Photography > Photography & Video > Military History #220 in Books > Comics & Graphic Novels > Biographies & History Graphic Novels

Joe Sacco is a journalist and comic book artist. Born in Malta, he is now a citizen of the U.S. living in Portland, Oregon. He has gained a reputation for reporting on some of the world’s top hot spots in the manner of a comic book style. He has written books on the Bosnian War, the Gulf war and the Palestinian situation. This book, which I received a couple of weeks ago, is somewhat of a departure from his previous subjects. It is a continuous drawing of the battle as it develops from the evening of June 30th to the evening of July 1st, folded concertina style into 24 plates (or pages). Beginning with Haig leaving church that evening it then shows in the minutest detail how the preparations for the battle unfold. The initial bombardment by heavy guns, thousands of troops moving into position with horses, men, wagons and piles of munitions are all meticulously portrayed in line drawings. Night falls and leads to dawn as men take up their positions and prepare for the assault. When they start going over the top, Sacco correctly portrays the men with arms at the port as they expected little resistance. There then follow several pages of the battle … shells bursting … the men struggling to advance … falling, dying … dead. It ends with the return, the roll calls, advanced dressing stations and burial.His research of the subject was extensive. Having spent fifteen years in Australia before he moved to the States in 1978, he became fascinated by the Great War, especially of Gallipoli and the Dardanelles and it apparently never left him. He has amassed a large library on the war and he states in the forward that his inspiration for the work was influenced by the authors Martin Middlebrook and Lynn MacDonald among others.This is a fascinating work.

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