Joe Sacco's Kushinagar

Growing up, I loved comics.  I still do, but I’ve kind of left their usual subject matter behind.  The idea of Spider-Man still captivates me, but while the actual stories being told may be plenty creative, they just seem so irrelevant to my life as a twenty-something who’s curious about the wider world.

Enter Joe Sacco.  With a background in indie comics and journalism, Sacco combines detailed and appealingly stylized art with on the ground reporting to create some of the best nonfiction around.  Comics or otherwise.  His latest is called Kushinagar.  Since it focuses on rural poverty in a modern day India that is still ridden with caste divisions, some have called it a departure from his usual work which focuses on violence in such locales as the West Bank, Gaza, Iraq, and Bosnia.

If anything, Kushinagar represents a logical continuation of Sacco’s life’s work.  A study of poverty is the story of violence, even if there are no guns or bombs present.  The Dalits that populate Sacco’s latest piece are just as twisted and gnarled – both physically and psychologically – from their experiences as a Palestinian in the West Bank.  This form of violence is perhaps more insidious – more horrible – because of its pervasive invisibility.  Sacco’s storytelling, pacing, and art is better than ever, as is his evocative writing.  When Dalit mothers and father speak of keeping their emaciated children home from school so that they can scrounge in rat’s nests to find grain for the family to eat. 

Joe Sacco’s Kushinagar is not uplifting, but it is thought-provoking and eye-opening.  It stands with his best work as an exploration of oppression, resistance, and the more challenging depths of the human experience.


Whether you’re new to Sacco’s work or you are a longtime fan, check out Kushinagar now, online and for free.