Paying the Land #[nn]

Joe Sacco's Paying the Land presents a striking cover that captures a tension at the heart of the work: above, a group of Indigenous people — men, women, and children — traverse a rugged, forested landscape, while below, heavy industrial machinery dominates the foreground, its pipes and valves rendered in the same meticulous linework. The visual contrast between these two worlds, drawn entirely by Sacco himself, sets a quietly powerful tone for this 2020 graphic work from Henry Holt and Co. From the creator of Footnotes in Gaza and Safe Area Goražde, this is literary comics journalism at its most thoughtful.