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84th out of 96 books
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Macedonia
“Pekar has proven that comics can address the ambiguities of daily living, that like the finest fiction, they can hold a mirror up to life.”
–The New York Times
For years Heather Roberson, a passionate peace activist, has argued that war can always be avoided. But she has repeatedly faced counterarguments that fighting is an inescapable consequence of world conflicts. Indeed...more
–The New York Times
For years Heather Roberson, a passionate peace activist, has argued that war can always be avoided. But she has repeatedly faced counterarguments that fighting is an inescapable consequence of world conflicts. Indeed...more
Paperback, 160 pages
Published
June 26th 2007
by Villard
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Pekar attempts to stuff too much extraneous information, via massive self-referential speech bubbles which have nothing to do with the action of the panels themselves, into this informative but awkward non-fiction comic about Macedonia's lasting peace through the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s. The history of the conflict is shown through the most tenuous of threads, the studies of an affluent white college girl from Berkley.
Notes:
Pekar packs too many words into each frame. ...more
Notes:
Pekar packs too many words into each frame. ...more
Estaremos condenados a não conseguir evitar guerras? Quando os interesses étnicos ou políticos colidem nas exíguas fronteiras de um país, estaremos condenados a repetir os ciclos históricos de derramamento de sangue? A personagem principal deste livro atípico de Pekar pensa que não. Para defender a sua tese, desloca-se à Macedónia, ex-república Jugo-eslava que apesar da intensidade do caldeirão étnico pareceu evitar o mergulho na guerra civil com auxilio das instituições internacionais. Baseada ...more
This is a must-read for anyone who read Joe Sacco's tale of war in the former Yugoslavia, "Safe Area Gorazde". "Macedonia" is the chronicle not of war in the Balkans, but the tenuous job of preventing armed conflict in an ethnically diverse Balkan state. Told through the point of view of an American graduate student, we follow her progress in trying to uncover how Macedonia has kept the peace. That this country has managed to keep the peace is surprising, as her visit find...more
Nicholas Whyte
added it
http://nhw.livejournal.com/980610.html[return][return]This is the story of peace activist Heather Roberson, who went there in the summer of 2003 to find out how the 2001 conflict had been prevented from escalating into another full-scale Balkan war, and acquired an obsession to match my own. She and Pekar portray well her fascination with this paradoxical, contradictory country, exploring Skopje and Tetovo with excursions to Belgrade and Pristina, and I found much to agree with - the curious mix...more
Harvey Pekar co-authors this non-fiction graphic novel, Macedonia, with student of peace and conflict studies at the University of California, Heather Robeson. The book mainly focuses on Robeson's research into the events in Macedonia after the Kosovo conflict in the late nineties. It involved Albanian soldiers going into Macedonia after the Kosovo conflict. Most thought war was inevitable but NATO went in, disarmed the soldiers, gave the rebels amnesty, and many of their issues were addresse...more
Another book I brought with me to Macedonia. I read this during PST and it was nice to read during that time since I kind of understood some of the things it talked about. I'll read it again shortly as well. A very fast read and it does a nice job of discussing the conflict in 2001 and some things you might expect while in the country as a foreigner. Although, it sometimes makes the country sound much worse than it is, but this was shortly after the conflict, so that might explain why.
I love Harvey Pekar, he's even a bit of a personal hero to me.
That said, I'm torn on this book. It is heavy handedly didactic, something which is generally anathema to me, but I found myself exceedingly glad I read it. The recent political developments in Macedonia are something I was completely unaware of, and the insight this work provided did me a great deal of good.
That said, I'm torn on this book. It is heavy handedly didactic, something which is generally anathema to me, but I found myself exceedingly glad I read it. The recent political developments in Macedonia are something I was completely unaware of, and the insight this work provided did me a great deal of good.
According to GoodReads, one star means "I didn't like it." Although I did not like Macedonia (it focuses way too much on dialogue and ultimately sacrifices emotion for information), I wouldn't say it's a "one-star" book. I'm sure to some it's very enjoyable and interesting (as evidenced by its rating on GoodReads), however, i found it to be neither.
While I love Pekar, and graphic novels, this one was definitely written for the text-lover. Not that I minded, it just relied *heavily* on the written word for explaining the complicated history of Macedonia, as opposed to Joe Sacco's work or [link:Pyongyang] by Guy Delisle.
I mainly read this book due to the its subtitle, "what does it take to stop a war?" and how peacemakers worked to help the constant destabilization in the Balkan arena. Fascinating--complex and underst...more
I mainly read this book due to the its subtitle, "what does it take to stop a war?" and how peacemakers worked to help the constant destabilization in the Balkan arena. Fascinating--complex and underst...more
Full disclosure: I picked up this book thinking it was about Macedonia, Ohio. It's not. It's about the country. Which everyone else already knew. It was informative, but not a super effective graphic novel.
Learned more than I thought about the mess of Macedonia. Harvey teams with Heather Roberson to tell her tale of her trip and what she discovers.
The opening few pages let's you know directly from Pekar himself that this is meant to be a follow-up piece to Joe Sacco's work such as Safe Area Gorazde. Unfortunately, it doesn't achieve the same balance between the narrator's fish-out-of-water-story and the story of the Macedonians being interviewed. Reads far more like an extended "American Splendor" slice-of-life story as we follow the main character's problems renting rooms and dealing with cabs. The epilogue is really infor...more
This book should be called "Heather Goes to the Balkans and is Harassed by Drunken Louts: as told by an artist who obviously has a thing for her."
This book gives a fairly comprehensive history of Macedonia and the more recent peace process, both the positive aspects and the current challenges the country faces.
The choice to frame all of the information through the eyes of the traveling student, Heather Roberson, is at times frustrating. I found the focus on Roberson to be somewhat distracting to the story of the Macedonian peace process. Regardless, I certainly know more about the history of the Balkans and have a new cont...more
The choice to frame all of the information through the eyes of the traveling student, Heather Roberson, is at times frustrating. I found the focus on Roberson to be somewhat distracting to the story of the Macedonian peace process. Regardless, I certainly know more about the history of the Balkans and have a new cont...more
One thing I've always had a problem with Pekar's work is that the distribution of text to image always seems a little off, never quite working as comics consistently, despite some real nice pages accentuated by Piskor's art. Also, I felt like this particular story suffered from being a factual essay revealed through a narrative, but the narrative itself seems lacking. Still, a nice try, and I would probably like it more if Joe Sacco wasn't already the absolute master of this kind of comics.
Fantasic book that brought up some great memories of my time in Macedonia. However, the co-author spent all of her time in Skopje, the capital, and her experiences very much mirror the life of any international worker living there. The village life, on the other hand, is much different. This gives the idea that all of Macedonia is like Skopje, when really, everyone knows that Skopje is like a completely different country. Maybe I should do a comic about the village life :)
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Both a cool travelogue, and an interesting exploration of war. Serious, but with a great sense of humor.
Though I learned a great deal about Macedonian political history and the nature of conflict, the dialog was painfully didactic and, often, unnatural. I've read few graphic novels, so perhaps this conforms to a standard writing style adopted by the genre with which I'm unfamiliar. It felt highly edited; subtlety, nuance were sorely lacking.
My first graphic novel. It was very informative and an enjoyable way to read about something that could be just dry reading. I sometimes felt that some connecting information was missing so i found myself turning back pages thinking I missed a part. Maybe this is what graphic novels are like?
not terrible, but not what one would expect of a pekar work. reading about the eastern european situation is interesting, and the whole thing reinforces the idea that there are no rights, only privileges.
two stars.
two stars.
This was a very interesting "graphic novel," for once non-fiction, recounting a grad student's journey to Macedonia to find how the country avoided war in the wake of Kosovo and similar anti-Albanian clashes.
I may have only been interested in this because I did my undergrad thesis on the Balkan wars of the 90s. It was okay - points for the graphic novel format but minuses for the dry storytelling.
Insightful political look into Macedonia. Excellent read. If you want an interesting way to be informed on such political affars I highly reccomend this read.
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Harvey Lawrence Pekar was an American underground comic book writer best known for his autobiographical American Splendor series.
In 2003, the series inspired a critically acclaimed film adaptation of the same name.
More about Harvey Pekar...
In 2003, the series inspired a critically acclaimed film adaptation of the same name.
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