Joe Sacco is a cartoonist who has contributed to a wide range of comic magazines including Drawn and Quarterly, Prime Cuts, Real Stuff, Buzzard, and R. Crumb’s Weirdo; he continues to illustrate the semi-regular Painfully Portland cartoon strip for the Willamette Week. He was a recipient of the prestigious American Book Award in 1996 for his work Palestine (1996), which combines techniques of eyewitness reportage with comic strip storytelling. More recently Sacco completed a 240-page exploration of a small Muslim enclave in Serbia, entitled SAFE AREA GORAZDE: The War in Eastern Bosnia (1992-1995) (2002), based on his travels to the war-torn region.
Interview by Mark Pascale.