Reading comics for the field of International Relations: Theory, method and the Bosnian War

Hansen
595
ridiculed as inconsequential wagging fingers balloons that are mocked and easily shot down by the Serbs. This use of a visual metaphor within an otherwise realist style of drawing creates a vivid, absurd mixing of the real and the imagined. The visual construction of the impotence of the UN Secretary General is tied in with an embodied impotence on the ground through the depiction of the UN peacekeepers, colloquially known as blue helmets, with blue caps akin to those worn by the children comics characters, the Smurfs. The complacency of Western citizens is also attacked through them being drawn with heads in the shapes of animals and footballs, passively consuming television news on the war and the absent international response.
Overall, the discourse articulated through Sarajevo Tango is consistent in assigning culpability to the Serbs and complicity to the international community. Yet, there is one reply from Isteriko that deconstructs the constitution of Serbian fighters as inhuman Others. On the question of why he became a sniper, Isteriko replies that Those bloody Muslims They beat up my sister And that was not the only thing they did It took her several months to recover. I have never forgotten that This allusion to Isteriko’s sister being raped literally hangs in the air in a speech balloon over the house never to reappear. There is no visualization of this instance of violence, a striking absence in the light of the numerous, graphic depictions in Sarajevo Tango. Thus, where Hermann draws the limit to representation is with a depiction of a (Serbian) woman being raped.
Le Sommeil du Monstre
The second comic, Le Sommeil du Monstre/The Dormant Beast by Enki Bilal, was published in 1998 and illustrates both a different set of comics practices and a different approach to the representation of the Bosnian War. Bilal has been a key figure in the

Download 1.29 Mb.

Share with your friends: