Comics,
as it turns out, are not juvenile books that are read purely on the basis of
ones own geekiness. As I’ve recently discovered,
comics can be solely informational. As a matter of fact, they can be about
serious political and emotional events. The 9/11 Report, a “graphic adaptation”
of the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, is (as the title
states) a chronologically organized report of what went wrong that day. Now, there are two contention points when it
comes to this graphic novel: the form, and the content. As we’ve learned via illustration from the
always-colorful comics textbook, they must be taken as separate entities.
As
I’ve explored the first chapter of the report, it’s been intriguing to find a
balance between the information being delivered, and the pictures being
shown. As a rookie comic book reader, I
have no choice but to completely digress from the content when looking at the
pictures— taking a momentary step into the world of Batman or Tintin— and
then returning to the tragic events being described. For instance, there is a picture depicting
the fight between the terrorists and the passengers of Flight 93. In the text bubbles, the tone of braveness
and severity is portrayed clearly: “Hold on! He’s not going to stop us!” On the
other hand, the illustration shows a gory and extremely bloody fight between
the two parties, where it is hard to distinguish the Arab terrorists from the
American passengers. I’m not suggesting that the author racially profiles to
make a clear cut visual depiction of the Middle Easterners, but, taken by itself,
the picture could be placed in the above mentioned Batman or Tintin, and
look natural. Furthermore, in my close-minded interpretation of 9/11, there are
no illustrations that can fully encompass the pain felt by an entire nation
that day.
By
no means is this a critique to the book.
It is simply my initial reaction to a comic dedicated to serious events:
awe.
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