ABSTRACT
In 1999, the University at Buffalo Art Gallery, New York, hosted an exhibition of the work of 'comics journalist' Joe Sacco. The chapter explores the ways in which Joe Sacco's work negotiates various paradoxes, including those opened up in the Buffalo exhibition and developed by Beaty. This chapter focuses on comic 'Kushinagar', displays Sacco's compulsion to depict the narratives of marginalized peoples while also highlighting the confusing racial politics circulating around such documentation. The narrative importance of this is reinforced by the fact that not only does Sacco begin his comic with the eviction from the scene of his anthropological work, but it is repeated at the conclusion. It is only in the final pages that Sacco explains 'what they were whispering in that cooking hut that last day', as Charan details the violence that is a part of everyday interactions between those of the hamlet and the ruling classes.
