Comics Journalism Book Review: "Rolling Blackouts"

Book Review: "Rolling Blackouts: Dispatches from Turkey, Syria, and Iraq" by Sarah Glidden

Sarah Glidden's "Rolling Blackouts" is an essential exploration of what it means to ask questions and tell stories. You should experience it.

I say "experience," rather than "read." Or "view." Because "Rolling Blackouts" is what other people might dismiss as a comic book.

What should one call, however, a 304-page illustrated navigation of national identities and communications theory, one that crosses borders and shares private experiences, and that seeks concrete answers while also celebrating ambiguity and complexity? Is the preferred term "graphic non-fiction novel"? A work of "Comics journalism"? To the uninitiated, these terms seem dismissive, inadequate to the artistic and rhetorical accomplishments at hand.

Although it defies easy labeling, Sarah Glidden's second book is imminently accessible. Each page is designed on a 9-panel grid, and filled with elegantly drawn pictures, warmly colored with watercolors. Action and exposition is primarily driven by dialogue—interactions among characters—rather than by authorial narration. To put it another way: There more word-balloons more than text boxes.

The illustrations offer setting and mood, giving readers a more-immersive experience than what might be possible via text, or even photo.

The book relates the 2010 story of four friends who make up a Washington-based non-profit journalism enterprise called The Seattle Globalist, who travel to Turkey, Syria, and Iraq in search of stories regarding the Iraqi refugee experience.

Glidden goes along for the ride, intending to observe and report on the process itself. Dialogue and events depicted in the book are based on her recordings, impressions, and memories of events. She notably and explicitly avoids labeling the work as memoir.

Multimedia journalists Sarah Stuteville and Jessica Partnow are life-long friends, who also knew former Marine artilleryman Dan O'Brien from high school days. As a military veteran, O'Brien goes along to file occasional video impressions of what it's like to return to Iraq, having deployed with Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines to Ramadi in 2007. Alex Stonehill is the team's photographer.

Via Stuteville and others, Glidden learns about nuts-and-bolts journalism terms like "lav-mics" and "B-roll," and experiences first-hand the embarrassing, excruciating pain of transcribing interviews from digital recordings. Meeting other journalists in the field, she explores the limitations and advantages of embedding civilian journalists with U.S. military personnel, and how various types of sources are sometimes limited in their abilities to directly tell the stories of the refugees they're trying to help. Language is sometimes a barrier to effective reporting, a problem that Glidden's own visual, sequential medium seems uniquely able to depict.

Stuteville's standards of journalism are appropriate to all forms of non-fiction storytelling, whether blogging or Tweeting or writing for an old-school print publication. As such, "Rolling Blackouts" would be a useful text in journalism and communications classes:

• Is it informative? Is it trying to inform people about a topic or a time or a person?

• Is it reliable? Is it true and can we find out that it's true?

• Is is accountable? Do we know who did it, and if we find out that something was untrue, will they take responsibility for it?

• And is it independent? So did the person report this for no reason beyond getting to the truth, or did they do it because they were paid by an interested party?

"[Journalism's] not a medium and it's not a result and it's not a voice," Stuteville tells Glidden. "It's an expectation."

For the most part, Stuteville and her team are pragmatically idealistic, recognizing the freelance realities of marketing stories to editors. Some stories are necessary, because they'll help pay the bills. Other stories just won't sell.

Some of the dramatic tensions lay between individual team members as characters. Stuteville, for example, openly wants to leverage the powers of journalism to document a narrative change in her Marine friend O'Brien, but is repeatedly frustrated by her professional and personal inability to make that connection:

Dan O'Brien: "I feel a lot of pressure to give you good sound bites right now. I feel like the fate of your entire project is resting on me and I'm just blowing it and you guys are like, 'This guy hasn't said anything cool yet.'"

Sarah Stuteville: "Not at all. A good journalist doesn't go into a story already knowing the conclusion. People never say the stuff you want them to say … and the revelation that happens is never the revelation you were expecting. The story never goes the way it's supposed to. Which makes it kind of fun!"

Contrast this statement of editorial zen, however, with a later conversation between Stuteville and Alex Stonehill, the photographer:

Stuteville: "To me, the story of Dan is in the things he asserts that aren't true. The louder he says, 'I'm not that f---ed up veteran, the war didn't define me, I don't have bad dreams or anxiety …' the more I know it's true." […]

Stonehill: "Yeah, the best way for this to go from an editor's perspective is for Dan to meet some Iraqis and then have a nervous breakdown and be like, 'Oh, I'm so f---ed up over what I did and I have PTSD and war is so terrible.' That's the Hollywood narrative they want. But that's so f---ed up!" […]

Stuteville: "Dan was a little hippie kid from Seattle who was completely seduced by the bravado and romance of the military. He went in and he felt like he became a man, and some guys died, but he's glad he did it. And I don't get the sense that he will ever be un-glad that he did it. And you're not supposed to tell that story. No editor wants that story."

In a work full of professional trade secrets, clear-eyed self-examinations, and celebrations of ambiguity, Glidden has told a series of stories that is simultaneously behind-the-scenes, and insightful meta-commentary. She has effective captured the journalistic yin-yang by showing, not telling. As a non-fiction storyteller and as a military veteran, Stuteville's struggle is my own, as is O'Brien's. Glidden has provided a bridge, which privileges each perspective without judgement.

That's not just story-telling. That's art.

"Rolling Blackouts: Dispatches from Turkey, Syria, and Iraq" is available in hard cover via Amazon and other booksellers.

Lit Journal to Focus on Military Stories Beyond Service

Faculty editors at the University of Washington—Tacoma have announced "Collateral," a twice-annual on-line journal, published in summer and winter issues. The journal will feature creative writing and art that "explores the impact of the military and military service on the lives of people beyond the active service person." The editors seek fiction, poetry, non-fiction, and art that illuminate these "collateral" narratives.

Submissions are via the publication's website here. Microsoft Word or PDF files are preferred. The journal requests first serial Internet rights. All other rights remain with the author. Simultaneous and multiple submissions are acceptable. Notifications within an anticipated average of 8 weeks, depending on time of year.

The publication's mission statement reads:

Collateral explores the perspectives of those whose lives are touched indirectly by the realities of military service. Numerous journals already showcase war literature, but we provide a creative platform that highlights the experiences of those who exist in the space around military personnel and the combat experience. 

We feel these voices sometimes go unheard, and this journal captures the "collateral" impact of military service, whether it is from the perspective of the partner or child; the parent or sibling; the friend or co-worker; or the elderly veteran, the refugee, or the protester. In any issue, you might find the haiku of a seven-year old girl whose father is in Afghanistan alongside the short story of an award-winning fiction writer. Or the first-person essay of a military spouse alongside the critical essay of an academic.

Editors suggest submission of 3-5 poems or 1-3 pieces of prose, with no length requirements.

In addition to creative writing, editors plan to include feature articles and interviews in future issues. Query the editors via e-mail: submissions AT collateraljournal.com.

During Furlough, We Can Hold the Line on Values

Editor's note: In a week of politics and shutdowns and furloughs, Washington National Guard citizen-soldier Gabriel Russell posted the following essay to friends and family via Facebook. It is noteworthy for its clear voice, and articulation of values. He has graciously granted permission to present the essay as a guest blog. I didn’t know Russell before I read his words, but I'm glad to know him now. I hope you’ll feel the same way.

In his military job, Russell works as a senior enlisted soldier at 205th Regiment (Leadership), where he helps train future Army leaders. In his civilian job, he works as a government employee with a focus on security issues.

It goes without saying, of course, that the views he expresses are his own, and do not necessarily represent or reflect the official positions of any governmental agency.

*****

By Gabriel Russell
gabriel.russell AT takoubasecurity.com

A Safeway store before opening. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Perspective. Got stuck in the lone checkout line at Safeway behind a woman buying groceries with her EBT card (food stamps). She had her teenaged son with her and a huge stack of coupons. I’ve been having a frustrating week. I was wearing coat and tie and probably had a grumpy look on my face when I arrived. The woman working the register kept looking at me apologetically as time went on and the line grew.

The shopper had a coupon for almost every item. She went through that stack of coupons four times slowly because she was missing one. I think she had coupons for apples, soup, pasta, rice, beans, and bread. She was missing a 60 cent coupon for her two cartons of almond milk. She had a list and had calculated to the penny what she could buy, had $70 on her EBT card and $20 or so on a check she had written but she was $1.20 short to finalize the purchase.

I was tempted to pass the woman two bucks but she was already starting to radiate with awkward embarrassment. Her son stood behind her and stared at the floor. Finally the shopper asked the register worker if there was any way she could look through the weekly flier and find the coupon she needed and the worker started paging through it for her.

My irritation dissipated the longer I stood there. Its been a long time since I agonized over $1.20 for food. I’ve never had to do it with a crowd behind me. I could see the time and care she had put into her shopping trip, calculating the cost, clipping coupons, buying cheap healthy food.

I relaxed. I smiled. The coupon was finally found and the sale made. The register worker kept thanking me for my patience. I suppose these days most folks expect a certain amount of eye-rolling and grimacing when a customer is inconvenienced for a few minutes. We’re very busy people.

By Monday, the shutdown will have cost me enough from a plane ticket change fee and a lost weekend of National Guard wages that it will sting. But I won’t miss a meal, or even skimp. I won’t miss a mortgage payment. I won’t fear for my phone or electricity being shut off. I have friends that may. I’m grateful for all that America has given me. I’m glad my wife has a good-paying job.

Not everyone is so lucky. We have young National Guard soldiers here in Washington State that rely on their drill pay for food and lodging and on military tuition assistance to pay for college. They won’t be getting either due to the shutdown. Each of them volunteered to serve in their nation’s military during time of war, uncertain of the cost.

This will likely, hopefully, be resolved before my young soldiers or friends in federal service even have time to apply for food stamps or unemployment. But not, perhaps, before a few missed payments, missed meals, and sleepless nights. It bothers me to see them treated this way.

The legislative branch of our government has its work cut out for it. I’d like to see them take up that task with the same zeal, teamwork and selfless sense of service to nation and community I see in the young soldiers and law-enforcement officers that work for me. I’d like that a great deal.

All I did ... the best I did today ... was to stand patiently in line behind someone less fortunate than myself and not act like a complete ass. The woman at the register seemed appreciative. Almost like she expected me to be annoyed. Is this what we’ve come to? Is this what people expect?

Patience. Compassion. Persistence. Teamwork. I expect these attributes of my most junior employees.

I expect them of myself.

I expect them of my government.