Joe Sacco in our Winter Issue

The Observer has spilled the beans: we’ll be publishing new work by Joe Sacco. The journalist/artist is producing an original, 48-page comic for us, entitled “The Unwanted,” about the thousands of African refugees who have wound up in Malta in their effort to escape to Europe. Conflicts throughout Sub-Saharan Africa are driving refugees north to Libya, where they pay human traffickers to ferry them across the Mediterranean. Some who don’t make the crossing wash up on Malta’s shores, and the tiny, formerly-homogenous island is not happy to have them. Sacco, a Malta native, depicts the dangerous, terrifying experience of one Eritrean refugee’s journey to Malta. He talked to Maltese and Africans alike about how this culture clash has affected them, showing how bad that the situation is for everybody involved.

Here are a couple of panels to whet the appetites of Sacco fans:

The first half of Sacco’s work will appear in our Winter 2010 issue, the second half in the Spring 2010 issue (or so goes the plan). If you just can’t wait to get a copy of this in your hot little hands, you can pre-order our Winter issue now. And if you intend to buy both Sacco issues, save yourself a few bucks and buy a subscription instead.