While the hard cover format and comics pages may suggest that this is a graphic novel, it's actually something that has never been done before: a first-person documentary in comics form. Reporter/artist Joe Sacco traveled post-war Bosnia in the company of reporters who phoned in sound-bites to CNN. He was no doubt seen as an oddity -- a guy who is going to spend months DRAWING his report as a comic book. But in the end, Safe Area is something far more valuable than a CNN sound-bite. It gives one an overview of what has gone on in the region in this century, what was happening during the Dayton accords, and collects the harrowing stories of civilian survivors who are now trying to reclaim the normal lives they once lived.

David Lasky