Joe Sacco says he has drawn people more representationally over time because he believes journalistic comics need that approach. But he has not abandoned cartooning: in a 2024 interview with Scroll.in, he describes using more lifelike depictions alongside stylization when it better conveys movement and expression.
Why has Joe Sacco moved toward more representational drawing?
“I mean, over time I’ve drawn more representationally. That’s because I think if my work is going to be journalistic, it needs that,” Sacco told Arunava Banerjee in a Scroll.in interview published December 14, 2024.
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Requiem for Gaza | $24.99 | Buy on Amazon |
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Palestine | $28.22 | Buy on Amazon |
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Palestine | $29.16 | Buy on Amazon |
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War on Gaza | $12.08 | Buy on Amazon |
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The Once and Future Riot | $22.09 | Buy on Amazon |
He connects that shift partly to criticism of earlier depictions of Arabs and Jews. The feedback, he said, made him think more carefully about how he represented people. This is Sacco’s account of his own choices, not a universal rule that every comics journalist must draw in the same way.
Does representational drawing mean giving up cartooning?
No. Sacco says drawing the human form more representationally takes effort: he is continually checking whether he has drawn it correctly. He also says he is glad he cannot draw “totally representationally,” asking, “then what’s the point of even drawing at all?”
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For Sacco, stylization can do work that literal realism may not do as clearly in a still image. It can make a person’s movement legible or heighten energy—for example, in a scene of people headbanging or playing air guitar. He wants a cartoony quality to remain available when the scene benefits from it. His comments describe a balance: greater representational care in journalistic depiction, without treating realism as the only valid visual language.
How does Sacco combine words and images on a page?
Sacco describes comics as a synthesis of writing and drawing, rather than text laid over an independent illustration. He often starts by deciding where the words will go: “For me, the first question is: ‘Where am I going to put the words?’ I’m putting the words down first.”
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He writes and cuts out captions, arranges them across facing pages to guide the reader’s eye, and then fits the images around that structure. He prefers captions to interact with the artwork, even to obscure part of it, instead of keeping all text in a separate strip above or below the image. In his account, words and pictures can create counterpoint, irony, emphasis, and a sense of movement through the page.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What else does the interview reveal about Sacco’s comics?
The conversation ranges beyond his approach to depicting people. It touches on the visible presence of the author in reported work: Sacco’s author-character can complicate the impression of a detached observer. It also discusses how a comics page can organize history and time.
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The Great War and a continuous image of the Somme
Sacco discusses The Great War (2018), a continuous left-to-right illustration representing the first day of the Battle of the Somme. The unfolding image shows troops moving toward the front, entering trenches, attacking, returning wounded, and heading toward hospitals and cemeteries. Its continuous panorama lets the reader follow collective movement and the passage of time across a single work.
Books named in the conversation
The interview refers to Palestine, the nine-issue series later collected as a book, and names Footnotes from Gaza among Sacco’s best-known works. It also mentions his collaborations: From the Folks Who Brought You the Weekend (2002), Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt (2012, with Chris Hedges), and Global Warming and the Sweetness of Life: A Tar Sands Tale (2018).
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Read the full interview with Joe Sacco by Arunava Banerjee at Scroll.in for his discussion of drawing, lettering, collaboration, and the choices behind his pages.
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