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A review by mezzosherri
The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation by Ernie Colon, Sid Jacobson
4.0
Jacobson and Colon offer a strong distillation of the 500+ page 9/11 Commission Report in "graphic novel" format, in hopes of making the commission's finding more widely disseminated among the American public. (An effort I was glad to see sanctioned in a forward by the Commission's Chair and Vice Chair, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, in their forward to this "graphic adaptation."
There is much that is praise-worthy about this book. The opening depiction of four simultaneous timelines showing the fates of the four hijacked flights is a chilling reminder of both how quickly the events unfolded while also pointing to those moments where quicker analysis/action might have been possible. The book then moves back in time to show the background context of 9/11: both the rise and actions of Al Quaeda, as well as the bureaucracies and priorities in U.S. Government and Intelligence that left us unprepared. I admire the authors for doing such an ethical job in taking direct quotes from the actual Commission Report, but must also observe that the resulting narrative is dense and does not always lend itself to presentation within such a visual medium. This problem is made worse by several pages where the flow of frame to frame, text box to text box, is FAR from clear, leaving the reader unsure as to how information is meant to be organized. Still, even with those flaws, an important contribution towards civic and historical knowledge.
There is much that is praise-worthy about this book. The opening depiction of four simultaneous timelines showing the fates of the four hijacked flights is a chilling reminder of both how quickly the events unfolded while also pointing to those moments where quicker analysis/action might have been possible. The book then moves back in time to show the background context of 9/11: both the rise and actions of Al Quaeda, as well as the bureaucracies and priorities in U.S. Government and Intelligence that left us unprepared. I admire the authors for doing such an ethical job in taking direct quotes from the actual Commission Report, but must also observe that the resulting narrative is dense and does not always lend itself to presentation within such a visual medium. This problem is made worse by several pages where the flow of frame to frame, text box to text box, is FAR from clear, leaving the reader unsure as to how information is meant to be organized. Still, even with those flaws, an important contribution towards civic and historical knowledge.