Staff Picks (April 13): Beirut 1990 — Snapshots Of A Civil War

Publisher: Humanoids INC.

Lovers of comics journalism and comics travel documentaries, rejoice!  Award-winning creator Christophe Gaultier’s Beirut 1990: Snapshots of a Civil War has been translated and will be available in a stunning Humanoids hardcover treatment.

Following in the brilliant tradition of titles like Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City, Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea, Footnotes in Gaza, and The Photographer: Into War-Torn Afghanistan With Doctors Without Borders, this title is sure to please historians, biography fanatics, and current events junkies alike.

This kind of person-to-person history in comics is a powerful read.  The creators are able to convey the visual nuances of film with the intimacy of a novel and the truth of a documentarian with the controlled framing of a classical artist.  Beirut 1990, a graphic novel documentary, follows a pair of young brothers working with a relief organization in Lebanon during the last years of the Lebanese Civil War.

The landscape and people depicted here suffered war for 15 years without any predicted end, torn between religious and ethnic factions.  When Sylvain and Bruno arrive, every building bears marks of conflict, and entire generations of children have grown up knowing only bombings, deaths, and grinding poverty.

Yet, even with all that, life goes on—both in Beirut and in the world beyond Lebanon.  Gaultier, the artist, and the Ricard brothers, the authors, capture that life—nothing big or sweeping or heroic, just necessary, at times frantic, but always very human.