What comes to mind when you hear the word purpose? Some might say ones motivation to do something in particular others say that purpose is a mindset we have when we want to accomplish something. What is your purpose for working out? To get to an acceptable weight standard to live a healthy life. Why do we go to school? To expand our minds so that it correlates with our everyday lives. In John Sacco’s poem The Underground War in Gaza he writes the comic with many purposes in mind. Some we might not understand because we don’t know his past experiences or how he was raised but some we might be able to relate to.
I believe when John first wrote the poem his purpose was to inform people who lived outside of Gaza what was going on and how it was getting covered up by the American Government. People were losing their homes because of false accusations that there were tunnels underneath they’re homes being used for smuggling money and ammunition. He wanted to inform not only people on the outside but the locals also. I believe that this was his main purpose because in the comic he interviewed a woman that was losing her house because the Army assumed her house had tunnels underneath. As you read the comic you could really see by the context that he wrote it in a way that it sounded as if he was in a saddened mood and felt bad for the citizens of Gaza. He focused more on the victims and their firsthand accounts of what was going on. I think what affected him writing this comic is that the American Army has a past of mistreating other countries and being a bully in some way. Such as past documentation of torturing of accused terrorist. He now is seeing this unfair treatment up close and personal so he feels the need to let people know that it’s still going on and something needs to be done about it.
For the past ten plus years we have been at war with the Middle East. I believe that this comic goes along with what’s been going on for the past decade. We are living in a time period of war and violence so I believe that this era had an influence on John Sacco’s comic and the purpose of the comic. He wants to paint a picture of what’s going on in the middle east he just used a creative way to do it with using the format of a comic. A comic appeals to both an adult and also a younger audience of children who are young but are able to comprehend the comic in a way that they can get a somewhat clear understanding of what is going on. A lot of people are blind to what is going on with the war because we only know what the government wants us to know. Also we live in an era where social media is taking a toll on our lives and the ratings for news channels are going down. Twitter is the modern day version of the news and you will only find out about different events depending on who you’re following and let’s be honest who is following fox 6 news on twitter under the age of twenty?
With the idea of creating a comic I believe that another one of John’s purposes was to change how we take in information. By drawing up a comic he figured out a quicker more creative way to inform people in a news story format. As I stated