Books: The Photographer

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The Photographer
By Emmanuel Guibert
2009





Available now from Islington Libraries
You can reserve this item for free here:
http://www.library.islington.gov.uk/TalisPrism/

With a laudatory quote on the cover from UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie ("A breathtaking journey through the best and worst humanity has to offer in times of war.") and even more praise from dignified luminaries on the back (everyone from Khaled Hosseini to Boing Boing) I was expecting a worthy, boring, stagnant book with nothing much to offer beyond obvious platitudes and trite "circle-of-life" type stuff. I was wrong. Following the journey of Didier Lefevre a naive French photojournalist who joins a group from Doctors without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (or the "MSF" as they're referred to in the book) on an eventful trip into Afghanistan - 1986 at the height of the Soviet occupation this is a comic that is inventive, informative (but not in any kind of preachy way) and - especially in the last third - as exciting and heart-pounding as anything else out there. With a unique style that stitches together the hundreds and hundreds of photos that Didier took during his trip with Guibert's clean, simple artwork (that looks like real life posterized) that and - strangely enough recalls the work of Tintin (who gets a shout-out! woo!) - this memoir brings you closer to the reality of the story than any other comic out there. It feels a bit like watching an animation when you have the photos taken in close succession following one after each other: and even better is when the good photos explode in size and fill the page. Like Guibert's previous book Alan's War there's also loads of good advice: from the right way to pee and poo in the desert and what to do if an enemy helicopter spots you (hide those thumbs). For anyone into serious comic books (and even for those that think they aren't) this is a beautiful, powerful book that is totally worth sticking with and guaranteed to reward you back tenfold.

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Links: New York Times Review, Boing Boing Review.

Further reading: Alan's War, Palestine, Maus, Tintin: Seven Crystal Balls / Prisoners of the Sun, Logicomix.

All comments welcome