This book analyses graphic novels which document social crises. It demonstrates that artists'
documentary use of this medium is a form of social realism inextricably bound up with politics
and ideology. Theoretical and visual approaches are employed throughout introducing the
principal themes of the graphic novels under scrutiny: political realism visual documentary
traumatic childhood ethnic discrimination state oppression and military occupation. The key
works examined are Keiji Nakazawa's Barefoot Gen Joe Sacco's Palestine Marjane Satrapi's
Persepolis W.G. Sebald's Emigrants and Art Spiegelman's Maus. Innovative techniques radical
methods of depiction sequence and text organisation are analysed throughout to explain how the
authors use visual realism to represent these social crises. The book is well illustrated as a
visual support for its exploration of this emerging and vital documentary medium.
