After 9/11: America's War on Terror (2001- )

It's been seven years since the fall of the Twin Towers, and seven years since the beginning of the War on Terror. Author Sid Jacobson and artist Ernie Colón dub this "an incomplete war" in their work of graphic journalism After 9/11, and while John McCain and Barack Obama may have different attitudes toward the war, clearly it's far from being over.

Jacobson and Colón previously collaborated on their graphic novel adaptation of The 9/11 Commission Report, a project that repackaged the report in an accessible, illustrated format. The duo has taken on a more ambitious assignment for this project, documenting the events that follow 9/11—conflict in Afghanistan, the entry of Hamid Karzai into the interim government, the capture of Saddam Hussein, the prisoners of Guantanamo Bay, various but specific suicide bombings—via exhaustive research, compiling reports from various news sources like The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times, as well as government reports. The result is a meditation on war, an evenly paced and sanguine presentation of America's reaction to terrorism, and the ensuing violence that trails behind the growing American and Muslim conflict in the Middle East.

Colón's illustrations are glossy, photo-realistic portrayals of American politicians interspersed with scenes of violence—explosions, gunfire, blood—not for the squeamish. Also included are cheat-sheet type pictures, detailing the ethnic breakdown of Afghanistan, and the make-up of Sunni and Shiite Muslims in the Middle East, essentially providing the background information for conflicts preceding current U.S. involvement.

In the Afterword, Jacobson and Colón write: "It is important...that we tell this story as plainly as possible." At its simplest, After 9/11 is an illustrated timeline, monotonous in tone, that acts as a flat, pictorial guide to the recent events that have led to now. At its most brilliant, Jacobson and Colón are cartographers, assembling a map of the terror that has since erupted around the world. Starting at the beginning, they sum up each individual part, as if to pinpoint a place in the chaos and say, "We are here."

—Kai-Ming Cha