After eight reprints in six years, it’s hardly noteworthy that there’s a new edition of Joe Sacco’s groundbreaking Palestine slated for publication in October. But anyone thinking about passing up Fantagraphic’s forthcoming special edition of this award-winning classic would be making a big mistake.
First published in periodical form in 1993, Palestine is the story of a visit to the West Bank and Gaza strip by Sacco and his interpretation of the lives of Palestinians under the Israeli occupation. What will the reader get in the new edition? Besides the hardcover binding, new cover art and slightly different trim size, this new version of Palestine features a treasure trove of new supplementary materials. First off, there’s a new essay by Sacco, in which he details the process of putting the book together, techniques he used when reporting and other odds and ends documenting the creation of the book. Then there are selections from Sacco’s journal entries, which trace the evolution of some of the passages that eventually made it into Palestine, as well as samples from Sacco’s sketchbook.
The idea for this special reprint came from Fantagraphics publisher Kim Thompson, Palestine’s original editor. “We’d had complaints, particularly from libraries, that Palestine didn’t exist in a hardcover edition,” Thompson recalled. “I knew Joe had quite a lot of interesting ancillary graphic material that no one had ever seen, and I thought he’d like to pen a new essay looking back at the creation and reception of Palestine.” Thompson’s idea was to provide readers with the kind of add-ins that appeal to customers of collector’s editions of DVDs—materials that would appeal both to existing fans and to new readers.
In the past, Fantagraphics has combined several earlier books by a single author into a single larger format book (for example, Tony Millionaire’s Premillennial Maakies and the recent Hernandez Bros. collections). But this deluxe edition of Palestine will be the first time that the house has added new supplementary materials to a collection.
Part of the push to reprint this special hardcover edition of Palestine was generated by the changes that have taken place in the comics market over the past 15 years. Palestine began its life as a periodical comic book that was later collected into a two-volume paperback. It was only after Palestine was collected into a single paperback volume that sales really took off. “By that time, we had a good general-bookstore distributor,” said Thompson. “And that made all the difference in the world.”
The only book on Fantagraphic’s list comparable to Palestine in terms of library and course adoption sales is, according to Thompson, Dan Clowes’s Ghost World—which, not surprisingly, is scheduled to be Fantagraphic’s second special edition reprint. (It will also include behind-the-scenes material as well as Clowes’s original screenplay for the film, previously published but now out-of-print.)
Thompson said Palestine has gone on to become one of Fantagraphics bestselling back-list titles, with more than 50,000 copies in print. It is also one of, if not the most popular library-ordered book on Fantagraphic’s list—in addition to being constantly picked for course adoptions.
Fantagraphics publicity director Eric Reynolds also pointed to changes in the comics marketplace, some of which were generated by Palestine’s publication. “There was nothing like it when it was first published as a serial in 1993,” said Reynolds. “Comic shops didn’t know what to do with it. Joe has had a tremendous impact in terms of getting respect for comics from mainstream media and booksellers. There’s no one else with his kind of skills who’s been able to do what he’s done with nonfiction comics.”
