War Fix [Hardcover]

Steve Olexa (Author), David Axe (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 2006

War can be addictive. So testifies journalist David Axe who’s been there, in the middle of the action in Iraq. The high is potent no matter how much you know how dangerous it is... Here’s Axe’s journal of dealing with his addiction, the high, the sheer excitement of being in there, in the battle, the cost to his life, never mind the threat. A new form of visceral self-analyzing comics journalism starts with this book... An allegory for the US?

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

When smalltown newspaper journalist David begs an assignment to Iraq, he's supposed to be covering the national elections; actually, he's attracted by the persistent threat of carnage and an urge to get close to violent death. David doesn't want to take part in any battles personally, but he can't stop watching as car bombs explode and bullets punch through bodies. As the title suggests, war can be an addictive drug, and there are people who will take any risk for a fix. Axe himself is a freelance newspaper writer who has been to Iraq six times, so his firsthand observations of episodes in combat are fresh and vivid. Beyond his role as observer, however, David remains a cipher, like most of the characters here. The book fails to develop its pseudo-autobiographical story enough to let an audience decide whether David is a helpless, innocent geek or a perverted voyeur of bloodshed"or an even more disturbing combination of those roles. Olexa's black and white art is technically proficient, but it lacks the intensity that would make us identify with David's addiction enough to recognize how much we media-saturated readers share it. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Later this year, young war reporter Axe will publish a prose-only book to which this striking collaboration with Olexa, a cartoonist and designer making his graphic-novel debut, may be reckoned a prologue. It tells how Axe got into war reporting, abandoning a county-politics beat in South Carolina and, without having asked or told her about it, his live-in girlfriend, for the conflict in Iraq in 2003. Beginning with a flashback to a preadolescent Axe absorbed in TV coverage of the 1991 Gulf War, the book proceeds with a text that is a montage of naturalistic dialogue, excerpts from letters, and smidgens of Axe's first-person self--explanation. Olexa's artwork sets the words primarily within brilliantly designed one- and two-page compositions in which temporally and spatially discrete images often overlap or are visually linked by the placement of the words to create and sustain narrative momentum. The sparseness of Axe's text, which elides most external specifics, and the complexity of Olexa's realistically rendered pictures unite to communicate powerfully Axe's fascination with war and induce readers to share it. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 96 pages
• Publisher: NBM Publishing (June 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1561634638
• ISBN-13: 978-1561634637
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,501,824 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Far more than journalistic reporting and provides striking images to capture experience, July 7, 2006

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: War Fix (Hardcover)

Before you get excited, realize that this is a graphic novel, not a military action nonfiction piece. As such, it's a striking representation in black and white pictures of journalist David Axe's journey to Baghdad and war, using artwork to describe an addiction to war's excitement. Axe's written on Iraq for other top publications; War Fix is far more than journalistic reporting and provides striking images to capture experience.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Familiar Themes Treated Graphically, June 7, 2006

By 

A. Ross (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: War Fix (Hardcover)

Although the subject code on the back of this book designates it as fiction, it's hard not to read it as highly autobiographical -- maybe even as a borderline memoir. Freelance writer David Axe has been to Iraq six times to cover the current war, and has published articles about it in a variety of publications, including The Village Voice, The Washington Times, Popular Science, Salon.com, and various regional free weeklies. The main "character" in this book is a young, rumpled smalltime journalist who feels a compulsion to travel to Iraq on his own dime to see what the war's like, so it's not hard to believe this isn't about Axe's experience. A prologue shows him watching Gulf War I live on CNN as a kid, so maybe the notion is that he's always been attracted to war. In any event, the book walks through the standard scenes of a newcomer to war -- for example, when a shell lands in the distance, he hits the ground when no one else does. Other stock scenes include the wariness of the soldiers to have anything to do with him, the boredom and banality of it all, and the meeting of an "old-timer" who's seen it all.

This last character appears about 2/3 of the way though, and is BBC reporter who's spent his whole life covering combat zones. This war junkie is a vehicle for introducing the notion that one can get physically addicted to the stress and excitement of war. The story gets a little creepy in the voyeuristic sense that the protagonist is fascinated by observing the war and loves to write about it, and yet is removed from it -- he can leave any time he wants to. On the whole, the book doesn't really break new ground in terms of message. We all know that war is fascinating and can be addictive, and that 99% of it is spent waiting. Axe is actually writing a regular book called "War Is Boring" about his experiences in Iraq -- that may prove more insightful. Olexa's pen and ink artwork is striking for its balance of realism and dynamism. In keeping with the chaotic nature of war, he's eschewed traditional paneling in favor of more free flowing collages which sometimes span across both pages. While these can be compelling, they are also often confusing when trying to follow the narrative and one can be taken out of the moment in trying to figure out where to look next. In a sense, this works nicely in the sense of paralleling the chaos and uncertainty of war, however, I would have preferred slightly more order. On the whole this is an interesting and ambitious effort which doesn't have much new to say but is worth a look for presenting the material in a different way.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars War Fix is Boring, March 6, 2011

By 

Ricky Pooski "cool" (Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: War Fix (Paperback)

I wonder if I would have liked this book better if I hadn't read War is Boring: Bored Stiff, Scared to Death in the World's Worst War Zones first. The other book so thoroughly presented David Axe as a suicidal mess addicted to the war reporting and the excitement that provides his only excitement. In that book he goes over the messy relationship with his girlfriend and his sense of discomfort in civilian places so thoroughly that there really isn't much need to read anything else by David Axe. We got the point in that book but this book is simply a lot more whining about his girlfriend and his addiction to danger.

I know this one was written first, but it still doesn't change the fact that he did a marginally better job of presenting himself in his next book - and his story wears a trifle thin after two volumes.

Maybe if he actually talked about the kind of things he was reporting from these places it'd be a slightly more interesting book. However, that remains academic and what we got is the tale of depression.