Rolling Blackouts: Dispatches from Turkey, Syria, and Iraq

This is an engrossing look at journalism, the Middle East, the consequences of war and the refugee crisis. Glidden raises uncomfortable questions as she confronts the American reader with the people who have suffered the most and the least in the fallout of our invasion of Iraq. This work raises her to the level of cartoonist/journalist Joe Sacco in my book.

Frankly, I had doubts about Sarah Glidden’s decision to use “comic panels” to tell the intriguing story of her visit to Turkey, Syria, and Iraq with her two journalist friends and a friend of theirs who just happened to have seen military action in Iraq as an American soldier. I have read two or three graphic novels and enjoyed the way that the panels added to the overall emotional impact of the novels, but Rolling Blackouts is my first experience with graphic nonfiction. I am happy to report that Glidden made it all work very well. Now I can’t decide which impresses me more, the sheer number of Glidden’s wonderful illustrations (I estimate there to be at least 2,500 of the comic panels) or the amount of information she packed show more into them.

Sarah Stuteville and Alex Stonehall, along with Jessica Partnow, created what Stuteville calls a “multimedia journalism collective” to cover the stories that the established news organizations never seemed to have time for, stories they never covered. The collective’s first venture was a six-month trip through Thailand, Cambodia, Pakistan, India, Israel, Palestine, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan where they covered almost thirty stories of their own choosing, stories that were often picked up by “news sites, magazines, and public radio stations.” Now, Sarah and Alex are embarking on a two-month venture into Turkey, Syria, and Iraq to speak with some of the people most affected by the Iraq War, those almost countless refugees forced to flee their homes because of the fighting. Sarah Glidden, armed only with a camera and a digital voice recorder, and Dan O’Brien, armed only with his memories of the Iraq War, join them.

Sarah Stuteville and Dan O’Brien were childhood friends who had not seen each other for a number of years. Stuteville expected that by returning to Iraq, the scene of his military service, her old friend would do the kind of deep soul-searching that would lend itself to a meaningful video documentary piece. What she found instead, and what deeply frustrated her, is that O’Brien simply refused to play that game. O’Brien figured out what she expected of him early on, and although he felt guilty about letting her down, he could never bring himself to discuss his experience in any meaningful way.

As the four young people cross various international borders, Glidden manages to illustrate a bit of each country’s history and political status. The group’s reception by the people they speak with and formally interview is exactly what one would hope for: friendly, but serious. The displaced people they approach are generally very willing (sometimes even eager) to speak with them despite the way they express anger at the U.S. government and blame America for the loss of homes, family members, and friends. Stuteville and Stonehall come home with the kind of stories they went looking for, but come to realize that journalism is not really about “changing things” and never was. According to Stuteville the important thing is to get the story “out there” and hope that it gets “passed along.” Then, according to her, “The way the reader uses that story to understand the world is up to them.”

Bottom Line: Rolling Blackouts manages to pack in more factual information than I expected from graphic nonfiction genre. It is more effective, however, when illustrating the emotions of the interviewer and those being interviewed. Sarah Glidden’s illustrations (she calls them “comics”) are truly wonderful and they greatly add to the book’s emotional impact on the reader. This one was a pleasant surprise. show less

An interesting and important take on the personal effect of the Iraq war on the population, Rolling Blackouts is even more interesting now that Syria has become the embattled nation it is today, especially when the fact that they accepted so many Iraqi refugees is brought up and then (implicitly) contrasted with how they treat their own people now.

Whereas it might have been more interesting to get all the details on all the stories the Globalist team was working on (at least we got Sam's heartbreaking yet totally frustrating story!), I appreciated that Sarah G. felt the need to spend time on the struggles that Sarah S. had with marketing the stories and how to decide on what was worth their effort.

It was maybe a little heavy-handed on show more the questions of how much an individual American citizen should feel guilty for the Iraq War, though it makes sense because the Sarahs, Alex, and Dan were confronting and being confronted with that question the whole time they were traveling. I thought Dan;s involvement with the trip added a really interesting narrative and ethical element: he was someone who people never would have expected to join the war, yet he claims that he enjoyed every minute and didn't ever question his presence there. In a way, that's believable, as he experienced it with some of his closest friends and knew that they were all there for the right reasons. But the fact that he refused to delve deeper into it, and Sarah S.'s frustration with that, was an incredibly interesting viewpoint into the psychology of soldiers and their loyalties, and how reporters can't always let themselves block any personal preconceptions they may have. show less

I finished [Rolling Blackouts] - this was fascinating reading, Glidden accompanied journalists on a trip to Turkey, Iraq and Syria, before the Arab Spring. Focused on the impact of the Iraq war, they were also accompanied by a friend, Dan, who served in the US army during the war. So part of the book is about how their particular brand of online journalism works, but it's also about how Dan deals with going back to Iraq. Some is positive: those in Kurdistan were happy with new freedoms and peace. However, Iraqis in refugee camps in Syria had very different views. Love the art: scenery is beautifully done, providing striking contrast to some of the horrors described by refugees.

I found this to be fascinating and informative comic-journalism, and I particularly appreciate that while the political situation has evolved significantly since the events in the book, the narrative thread that takes on the nature of journalism supports the continuing story. There are a lot of hard truths for Americans in this book, and I think Glidden's storytelling style delivers them with grace.

The boxes were quick to read and flowed so well that sometimes I felt like I didn't appreciate the watercolor drawings as much as I should've. Maybe that's what good comics do. It was a memoir of a trip in the middle east in 2011. Some of it dragged like a real trip would and some of it had me mesmerized. An honest portrayal of young journalists crafting stories about refugees of the Iraq War.

I feel like I learned a lot from this book, knowing very little about the Iraq war and other issues mentioned (I was very young at the time). I felt it explained things mostly well. The story kind of dragged at times though and the "plot" felt very confused at times. Overall, this was both a memoir about the trip and a sort of think-piece about journalism. The most interesting parts were about the stories the actual journalists were telling and I think I would have preferred hearing more about that than all the stuff about what it means to be a journalist. Don't get me wrong, a lot of that was interesting too. I liked hearing their perspectives as journalists, but... I wish the focus was a bit more... focused. I also appreciate that it show more must have been incredibly difficult to decide which conversations to include after such a long trip and then also illustrate it all. You can tell that it was quite an undertaking and I do think it was successful in a lot of ways. show less