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David Axe

Matt Bors

War is Boring: Bored Stiff, Scared to Death in the World's Worst War Zones Paperback – Illustrated, August 3, 2010

by David Axe (Author), Matt Bors (Author)

3.8 46 ratings

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Read David Axe's blogs and other content on the Penguin Community.

The war memoir as graphic novel-an utterly unforgettable and highly original look at war in the 21st century.

Street battles with spears and arrows in sweltering East Timor. Bone- jarring artillery duels in Afghanistan's mountains. Long patrols on the sandy wastes of southern Iraq. For four years, war was life for David Axe. He was alternately bored out of his mind and completely terrified. It was strangely addictive.

As a correspondent for The Washington Times, C-SPAN and BBC Radio, Axe flew from conflict to conflict, reveling in death, danger, and destruction abroad while, back in D.C., his apartment gathered dust, his plants died, and his relationships withered. War reporting was physically, emotionally, and financially draining-and disillusioning. Loosely based on the web comic of the same name, with extensive new material, War Is Boring takes us to Lebanon and Somalia; to arms bazaars across the United States; to Detroit, as David tries to reconnect with his family-and to Chad, as David attempts to bring attention to the Darfur genocide.

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Print length

144 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Berkley
Publication date

August 3, 2010
Dimensions

5.97 x 0.39 x 8.94 inches
ISBN-10

0451230116
ISBN-13

978-0451230119
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David Axe
26
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18 offers from $14.06
Matt Bors
34
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Mr. Matt Bors
15
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12 offers from $5.42
David Axe
2
Hardcover
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Matt Bors
12
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Kevin Knodell
7
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. 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.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

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 novel—adapted from his webcomic of the same name—convey his harrowing experiences and encounters with soldiers and civilians in the worlds riskiest war zones, while his growing internal distress is related in captions that serve as an anguished voice-over commentary. Axe’s 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 Sacco’s war-zone reportage from Bosnia—or, for that matter, the Afghanistan dispatches of cartoonist Ted Rall, who contributes an introduction to this volume—it’s nonetheless a convincing document of a daunting internal conflict. --Gordon Flagg

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Berkley; Illustrated edition (August 3, 2010)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 144 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0451230116
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0451230119
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 7.2 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.97 x 0.39 x 8.94 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #2,983,394 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #713 in Iraq War Biographies
- #1,188 in Educational & Nonfiction Graphic Novels
- #1,842 in Biographies & History Graphic Novels

Customer Reviews:
3.8 46 ratings

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David Axe
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David Axe is a journalist, graphic-novelist, nonfiction author and filmmaker in Columbia, South Carolina.
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Matt Bors
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Matt Bors is a cartoonist, writer, editor, and the founder of The Nib. He was a Pulitzer Prize Finalist for his political cartoons in 2012 and 2020 and is the co-creator of the dystopian satire Justice Warriors with Ben Clarkson. His cartoons have appeared in The Nation, The Guardian, CNN, The Intercept, and were collected in the book We Should Improve Society Somewhat. He also drew the graphic novel War Is Boring written by David Axe
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3.8 out of 5

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Patrick Truffer

Youth Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was

Reviewed in the United States on September 3, 2010

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"War is Boring" could be the unofficial successor of David's first graphic novel "War Fix", drawed by Steven Olexa. The story in "War Fix" impressed me but I didn't like the drawing that much. This is different from "War is Boring": David and Matt are together a great combination. I like David's stories and Matt's drawings. The question first arose in "War Fix" is still the same: why is David that addicted to war zones? Did he choose war or was he chosen by the war? Maybe he regularly needs a kick of adrenaline, by the way a typical syndrome, also known in other jobs with extreme peaks of danger, pressure and uncertainty. Like a firefighter needs serious fires from time to time or a paramedic has to have a major disaster, David is attracted to war torn countries. It's not because he loves war, it's because in situations of deadly danger, he feels alive. An excellent expression of such a situation is displayed on front cover of his book: he is the quiet eye of the storm in the middle of a battleground. In his graphic novel he describes the thrilling experiences reporting from the middle of an ongoing war. This excitement has its price: back home he noticed the boring normality. By carefully reading this novel, you will recognize that the situation can not only be described in terms of "black or white". Most part of the time in Iraq he felt bored. In Libanon the situation was calm and back then the UNIFIL troops were more interested in easy lifestyle then in their duty. East Timor seems to have been a very depressing experience, in Afghanistan the corruption was disillusioning and to take the girlfriend to Somalia wasn't maybe the best idea. David tells us: "War is Boring", but peace is stultifying.

I would recommend "War is Boring" to all who are thinking about going to a military or civil mission abroad because David and Matt give you a good first impression about. The story shows you an inside view of a "Youth Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was". I've already heard that when someone takes part in a dangerous mission or witnesses an assault, their personality could change. Perhabs David's story in this graphic novel will finally prove that to you.

2 people found this helpful

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Post-Traumatic Stress Reporter

Reviewed in the United States on August 19, 2010

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A vanishingly small percentage of Americans -- on the order of one percent -- have any direct experience of what life is like under our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They're wars behind walls, and only under rare circumstances do Americans get to see an unfiltered, uncensored presentation of what life in those warzones is actually like. Even more rarely do Americans get access to the lower-profile conflicts that dot the developing world, too far outside our political aims or our military interests for most first-world reporters to even bother with them -- places like East Timor, Darfur, Somalia, places off the edge of the mental map for most Americans: the "Here Be Dragons" of the 24-hour-news-cycle age.

David Axe has spent the past few years going to those places first hand. In this comic, he gives us a retrospective on what he's seen and the reactions he's gone through, taking us with him as he confronts, both physically and mentally, the hollow brutality of modern warfare.

Matt Bor's spare, iconic art provides an excellent substrate for Axe's text, and together they show us a view of modern conflict that might not be possible in a more mainstream medium -- too ruthlessly realistic for hollywood, too graphically violent for television news, too strongly emotional for a newspaper.

If it has a flaw, it's that it's a little too personal -- the focus of the story is slightly more on what the experience of these conflicts has done to Axe's mind than it is on the conflicts themselves -- but that might be a necessary function of this kind of personal narrative. If you want a first-hand account of what it's like "over there" -- and you want to know more about what going "over there" might do to your mind and your worldview -- you won't go far wrong reading this.

13 people found this helpful

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A little too thin; lacks a solid punch or anything new

Reviewed in the United States on June 18, 2012

Verified Purchase

I expected to be more impressed with this...I read The Accidental Candidate: The Rise and Fall of Alvin Greene by Axe and Corey Hutchins, which I liked, and I think they did a better job humanizing the subject of that book than Axe does here in humanizing himself.

Ultimately, this was well put together, but lacked the depth it needed. I've travelled as a freelance photojournalist myself and I recognized most/all of the emotions and disconnects that he described - but I don't think I learned anything new. A reader coming to this brand new will surely be intrigued by Axe's story, but if you really stop and think, most of it will seem pretty obvious. Yes, of course real life is boring compared to war. I totally agree...but was that a mystery? Who didn't know that already?

The drawing's by Matt Bors are excellent but a little spare, and I think that adds to the emptiness, both on the page and with Axe's conclusions.

It was okay. A quick read and priced right, but not a book that left me with any memorable moments that stuck with me when I was done.

4 people found this helpful

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Andrew

Read this if you’re thinking about chasing down combat in whatever form.

Reviewed in the United States on May 7, 2022

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I gave it five stars because it didn’t follow a traditional arc of a story, but there is a clear story nonetheless. I think this book successfully captured both how disjointed conflict can be, while simultaneously hitting on the similarities and banalities of these ancient traps that the “cleverest of monsters” keep creating for themselves. There is also a lot of implicit communication through the excellent illustration work.

One person found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Amarendra

Matt bors/awesome

Reviewed in Germany on December 29, 2016

Verified Purchase

one of the few poltical cartoonists who has the guts to joke about what needs to be told. Brought this book to show support to his great work

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