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The 9/11 Report:
A Graphic Adaptation
by Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón
Reviewed by
Rusty McCain
Have you ever watched a Three Stooges episode? The hilarious exploits and fumblings of our three heroes, the irritable Moe, the zany Larry, and the goofball Curly (and sometimes Shemp), will make you smile, laugh out loud and leave you wanting more.
Now imagine that every time Moe smacks Curly, 100 people die. Every time Larry blocks Curly from poking his eyes out, 100 people die. For every bop on the head, every dented paint can, every fuming Fuhrer, 100 people die. That’s what reading The 9/11 Report is like.
The 9/11 Report by Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón (a graphic adaptation of The 9/11 Commission Report by the Naional Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States) reads like it should be funny—you should be laughing. The various intelligence agencies (CIA, FBI, NSA, DOD, CTC, etc.) all fumbling around with information that clearly stated (if they’d worked together) for years before the 9/11 that a terrorist attack, somehow involving the hijacking of airplanes, 747s to be specific, was imminent. It’s funny—it’s like a beautifully choreographed comedy routine where no one sees the big picture until 9/11.
The purpose of The 9/11 Report is not to lay blame at the feet of anyone (other than the Al Queda operatives who trained for years to be able to do what they did), but rather to analyze the situation and events leading to 9/11, so that future attacks on American soil might not occur. It’s amazingly unbiased, portraying national characters such as President George W. Bush as uninformed and unconcerned (a la Fahrenheit 9/11), but also brave and determined (a la his re-election campaign). The faults of the FDNY and the NYPD are given as reasons that people died; there's no hero worship simply because men and women died saving lives. The author simply states the facts and things that are known, not judging. They leave the judgment to the reader.
The report questions the security policies that had kept attacks from the mainland for so long, and shows how the very idea of war was changing in the 20th century, in fact, how it has changed today. The report is an important tool, a thought-out guideline to help prevent tragedy like 9/11.
So why am I talking about it? Why are you reading this in a science fiction magazine?
The 9/11 Report is a graphic adaptation of The 9/11 Commission Report—it’s a comic book. In the short history of comics, 99.999999% of them are speculative. Horror, SF, fantasy, surreal, mythology, western—none of it’s real. I dare say that most people haven't and won't read the actual Commission Report—it’s a big book, it’s dry, and its implications are terrible. The comic, though, is easy on the eye, and for a while, you can pretend you’re reading the Adventures of Usama (INSIDE: The origins of our Hero! See him flee Saudi Arabia! See him build Al Queda! Laugh as the U.S.A. misses its chance to finish him again and again!) and that the U.S. intelligence agencies are clueless because it’s not real. It’s a comic book. It’s Batman and Mickey Mouse.
But it is real. This comic joins the precious few (Superman: Deadly Legacy, for example, was a comic given to children in Bosnia-Herzegovina to teach them how to detect and avoid forgotten land-mines) in which real, concrete advice is given on how to make the world safer, better, less like it is in the funny books.
Jokes are made about the constant ‘threat of terror’ and how it’s BS. The 9/11 Report will make you ask the question: Which is worse—that the government and corporate entities capitalize on a State of Terror that’s not real? Or that the threat of terror is real—and that it’s up to us to protect ourselves? You decide. Read the Report, either of them, and when you watch the news and the terrorists are arrested, their plot foiled, you’ll know how it happened. Or, if the TV shows the smoking rubble and body parts because their plot succeeded, you’ll know how it happened.
You won't be laughing; it won't be funny, and it won’t be speculative.
The 9/11 Report is available for purchase at Amazon or Barnes & Noble, or at any Rabies' Rusty Meatbooks & Literature Emporium.
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