War Is Boring

Starred review from June 14, 2010
War journalist Axe has been to some of the most volatile regions of our globe in the past decade, and since 2006 he has used comics to tell the stories he sees there. In his previous War Fix he expressed the drive that inspires him to return to war zone after war zone, in search of the truth about conflicts around the world. Axe founded the Web site War Is Boring, which gives war correspondents and cartoonists a place to report and react to modern-day warfare. At first glance, the combination of hard-hitting war journalism and cartooning is incongruous, but as those who have read Joe Sacco will testify, the graphic novel can be a potent medium in which to show both the fearful tedium and the violence of war. Axe and artist Bors (3 Car Pileup) are well on their way to mastering the balance, using a traditional six-panel grid to give the art a documentary feel. Bors's art has an indie vibe that will pull in readers from other genres, lending sympathy and depth to Axe's troubled protagonist. Like War Fix, this suffers a bit from Axe's ambivalence toward his calling, but his honesty sets it apart from other war narratives.

Starred review from May 1, 2010
This war correspondent's graphic memoir packs a smart-bomb blast, as powerful as the volume is slim and elliptical.

A follow-up of sorts to Axe's War Fix (2006, with illustrator Steve Olexa), the book doesn't waste a word, an emotion or an image. The illustrations by editorial cartoonist Bors capture both the terror and the tedium of life in the hot spots of international terrorism. Why does Axe feel compelled to go to war? It isn't for the money, as he scrounges together a living as a freelancer for C-SPAN, BBC Radio and the Washington Times—an assignment that opens doors more readily when confused with the Washington Post, as Axe happily discovers—while a military trade magazine subsidizes his expenses. It isn't even for the adrenaline rush, for the author repeatedly relates that the romance of being a war correspondent (which he"hates being called") is more of a fiction than a reality. The problem is that, having experienced the heightened reality of surprise attacks and corpses in the streets, he finds himself unfit for domesticity in America."As boring as war can be," he writes,"peace is much worse." Through his narrative and Bors's illustrations, Axe doesn't cut a very glamorous figure, as he drifts among ever more dangerous war zones, even having his credit cards cancelled in Somalia after resisting an order from his publisher to return home from what had been classified a"level-five security risk." Ultimately, the author wonders if"war [is] an aberration or the most basic human function, the thing we resort to when all our comforts crumble?...Had war chosen me or had I chosen it? And what did that say about me?"

Axe's ground-level perspective, as a free agent who is there by choice, makes much war journalism look like an aerial view in comparison.

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

August 1, 2010
Addicted to danger, freelance war correspondent Axe found himself irresistibly drawn to conflicts in Iraq, East Timor, Afghanistan, Somalia, and elsewhere. Each time, once his itch was scratched, he would return home, where his tolerance for smug, ignorant Americans grew slimmer and his relationship with his girlfriend became more and more strained. Then his death wish would resurface and the cycle would resume. The visuals and dialogue in this graphic noveladapted from his webcomic of the same nameconvey his harrowing experiences and encounters with soldiers and civilians in the world's riskiest war zones, while his growing internal distress is related in captions that serve as an anguished voice-over commentary. Axes tale is heartfelt and compelling; however, Bors awkward artwork does it a disservice. But if their collaboration falls short of the mastery of comics-journalist Joe Saccos war-zone reportage from Bosniaor, for that matter, the Afghanistan dispatches of cartoonist Ted Rall, who contributes an introduction to this volumeits nonetheless a convincing document of a daunting internal conflict.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)