Saturday, November 12, 2011

A graphic novel about Medz Yeghern

I've found that if anything, there's a graphic novel out there based on the Armenian Genocide by the Islamic Ottoman Empire of Turkey during WW1. Trouble is, Broken Frontier, in reviewing the comic, may have handed it a negative take deliberately. I can't really understand what they're driving at when the reviewer says:
There's an attempt at a storyline where a friendship is formed between an Armenian on the run and a young Turk who does not agree with the minister of Internal Affairs' genocidal policies but even there, motivation is left to the side in order to just get the story going. The story of the German soldier [Armin T. Wegner], rebelling against Germany's involvement also misses its mark due to the lack of motivation; the German soldier going against the grain simply because it is the 'right thing to do'. Throughout the whole book there's an incessant need for to infuse character motivation.
Just why is it that when someone does a good deed because it's the right thing to do, that only registers as black and white? Point: if the German soldier who did pictorial reporting is based on one from real life, is that not enough to figure that here was one of the few people in Germany at the time with common sense? I suppose there's even a problem with making a bio of Oskar Schindler because of "lack of motivation"? Or maybe they're obscuring the possibility that the GN does allude to how the soldier was raised on a decent education?

The only problem I might have with this GN is whether it fails to acknowledge that jihad played a role in this horror of the early 20th century. Beyond that, the GN's Italian writer is doing us all a favor by working out even a comic book about the subject, and BF should be ashamed of themselves if they're trying to sabotage this (I don't think this was ever covered by most other comics sites, and we can only guess why).

If you can find this GN, I'd say to give it a look and see just how successful or not the scripting is (it's published in Dutch and sells for almost 20 euro). Broken Frontier isn't doing many favors if they're trying to undermine it.

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