Broken Frontier

The first step towards rehabilitation is to admit that you have a problem, and David Axe sure has one. 

In his graphic novel War Fix, illustrated by Steve Olexa and distributed by NBM Publishing, Axe makes a very simple and very real point: war is a drug.  It’s as addictive as anything you drink, smoke, snort, or shoot and it can get you killed all the same.  For Axe, the high that he gets sitting smack in the middle of a firefight, bullets whizzing over his head, his face in the dirt, is unparalleled and he can’t get enough.

This is an interesting idea to say the least, but it’s driven home hard by two elements that make this book stand out.  The first is the fact that Axe is a combat journalist, and War Fix is a prime example of graphic journalism from someone who has seen the sh-t hit the fan.  His story is true and his addiction is true and he emphasizes the fact that he is by no means the only journalist throwing his life on the line for the sheer thrill of it.  Axe is gritty and real in his writing style and he offers an extremely visceral perspective on the Iraq war. 

The second element that put this book at the top of my heap was the artwork by Steve Olexa, a beautifully realistic compliment to Axe’s narrative.  His images bombard you like mortar shells.  They are volatile at times and heart wrenching at others and always they lend a feeling that the book might actually explode in your hands.  Olexa sets a fast pace with his art and maintains it throughout the book, almost to the point where following Axe’s slow mental deterioration as he risks everything he has to be back in the combat zone becomes as action packed as any of the actual combat scenes. 

In fact the book is fairly brief, clocking in at a light (literally light—the content is no walk in the park) 96 pages.  I had to go back and reread War Fix almost immediately so that I could get the full effect of the writing and art instead of being shot out of the cannon right to the end.  And I don’t think that ‘shot out of the cannon’ is an exaggeration, this book holds that sort of power in its unassuming frame.

One thing that Axe and Olexa do remarkably well is offer good old-fashioned entertainment value to the violence of the Iraq war while at the same time making lasting points about its horrors.  There are scenes in which Axe is depicted entrenched in this violence, images of dead soldiers and civilians that get seared into your brain but, like any other visual account other than a first-person experience, when filtered through Axe’s journalistic eyes you feel safely detached from the chaos. 

The detachment is then nicely offset by Olexa’s stark and brutal imagery, which makes you think that you should be horrified by what you’re seeing when deep down you’re morbidly intrigued and certainly entertained.  In fact, this book furthered my own darkest desires to catch the next military convoy out to sandy ol’ Mesopotamia to see for myself what’s going on, and I can guarantee that it won’t be as easy on the eyes.  The violent entertainment is fitting for a book of this breed and I think it was partly Axe’s intention to seemingly exploit the war for entertainment value.  Let’s face it, the entire reason that he’s even there is because he gets a high from combat.  That is the ultimate exploitation of the war for entertainment.  But while he’s doing this, he does a great job of throwing jabs at the mass media interpretation of what’s going on. 

Olexa depicts the haunting scenes that are combat and then Axe sanitizes them for mass production, something that happens every day as the news feeds come streaming into the country.  The brilliance of it is that Axe and Olexa never come off as preachy or even moral.  Axe is simply there for the ride and he makes sure we know it from the very start.

War Fix found itself on a few ‘best of’ lists in 2006, from some major voices in the book industry.  Amazon.com placed it on its list of ten best graphic novels and the American Library Association’s Young Adult Library Services Association (which also might be the only outfit in history that has been able to work the word ‘association’ into its title twice) listed the book among its Great Graphic Novels. 

I, for one, fully agree with them.  Over all of 2006 I read many a graphic novel, and I enjoyed more than a few, but War Fix managed to jam pack great writing and artwork into a 96-page gritty, you-are-there adventure that’s not only a smooth read but also incredibly thought provoking. 

Bravo gentlemen, I look forward to the inside look into Axe’s next brutal addiction.