Review: Fax From Sarajevo: A Story of Survival

Joe Kubert is one of the legends in the world of comics and he earned his place amongst the pantheon of comics legends in a variety of ways. He was (and remains) one of the most influential artists of the comics genre and the school that he founded, The Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art, has produced some of the most popular contemporary comic book artists. And yet, amongst his extraordinary contributions to this literary art form that so many of us love, Kubert“s FAX FROM SARAJEVO: A Story of Survival (Dark Horse), is singular in its significance to the industry and fandom of comics as well as to history itself.

FAX FROM SARAJEVO is an historical account of an epistolary exchange between Ervin Rustemagic and Joe and Muriel Kubert, during the Siege of Sarajevo which began in April of 1992 and lasted until February of 1996, over 1400 days. The communication between the Kuberts, Ervin Rustemagic, and other friends chronicles the brutal genocide that took place as Serbian forces targeted civilians and terrorized the population of Sarajevo, the capital city of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The history of this region of Europe is complex and the complicated emergence of nationalist ideologies in the latter part of the 20th century became kindling for a fiery mix of war and genocide.

But FAX FROM SARAJEVO remains laser focused on the humanity of the civilian victims of this global tragedy. Ervin, his wife, and their two young children are trapped in a hellscape where women are kidnapped for rape camps, snipers target children and mortar shells and grenades rain from the skies like snow in the winters of Eastern Europe. The most effective way for Ervin to communicate with the Kuberts and his other friends and colleagues in the world of comics is through faxes. Many of these missives are printed in their original entirety in this harrowing narrative that will haunt readers well beyond the time spent engrossed in its pages.

Ervin is desperate to get his family out of Sarajevo and the Kuberts exhaust all options to aid him in what seems to be an impossible feat: getting out of the city alive. Joe Kubert“s art and testimonial styled writing is gripping. He proves, through the form of comics, the immeasurable power of comics and graphic and/or sequential art storytelling. More often than not the industry of comics is viewed as a low stakes art form. Fantasy, superheroes and science fiction dominate comics“ content. But one of the many gifts that Kubert has left to us all is FAX FROM SARAJEVO. Comics literally save lives in this graphic retelling of genocidal history. But sadly, you will only need to read it, experience it, to understand just how hollow our global slogans of “never again”“ have already become.

SCORE: 5/5

(W) Joe Kubert (A/CA) Joe Kubert
DARK HORSE COMICS