War Fix (Hardcover)

~ Steve Olexa (Author), (Author)

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: ComicsLit (June 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1561634638
• ISBN-13: 978-1561634637
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,035,830 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

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 (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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:

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

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.

3.0 out of 5 stars Liked it for the art, February 12, 2007

By	t-boogie "spokesman of the streets" (Brooklyn, NY United States) - See all my reviews

The art in this book is great, very crisp and a great sense of layout. I'd love to see the artist do something with Brian Wood if he hasn't already. The writing, while capable and competent, suffered for trying to sound "deeper" than it actually was. Not much new to say here, as another reviewer pointed out. A bunch of "newcomer to war" cliches are trotted out, with really banal, trite observations passed off as deep insights. Token shots at Bush, etc. I think a story that aimed lower and hit the mark would have impressed me more from the writer than a book that tries to be so philosophically and emotionally ambitious and miss the mark by a mile.