Press

Recent press and reviews, etc.

December 15, 2023

Comicstories: Mon Parrain La Bonne Fée

Profondément marqués par les chemins troubles empruntés ces dernières années par les Etats-Unis, les auteurs se nourrissent de leurs expériences personnelles pour livrer une chronique douce amère. . . .

May 11, 2023

Radio Comics: Coup de Cœur pour WINDOWS ON THE WORLD

January 14, 2022

Planete BD: Book Review: “Windows on the World”

C'est donc un récit dense et riche, à vrai dire aussi passionnant que touchant et le noir et blanc sobre de Jon Sack laisse toute la place aux émotions. une fenêtre qu'on referme sans avoir envie de quitter ses protagonistes.

January 8, 2021

Juxtapoz: Book Review: "Windows On The World"

But of the undocumented immigrants who perished, there were no photos that appeared on walls and no one to comfort their families. Robert Mailer Anderson, Zack Anderson and Jon Sack have collaborated on a graphic novel, Windows On The World, published by Fantagraphics, that tells one such story of an undocumented worker working as a dishwasher at Windows of the World atop the World Trade Center.

September 6, 2020

Views Re. Books: “A Book Washed Up on a Wave of Death”

This is a beautiful essay and review of Roberto Bolaño’s novel 2666, which includes a discussion of La Lucha and their respective approaches to the femicide in Mexico.

July 24, 2020

Solrad: Charting The Downward Spiral From 9/11 To “Build The Wall” : Ryan Carey Reviews WINDOWS ON THE WORLD

Popular mythology has it that “America was never more united” than in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001, and that we’ve somehow devolved into a divided and fractured nation in the years since. The simple fact, though, is that almost no other country sugar-coats its own past the way the United States does, and that a very direct line can be traced from the “fortress America” nationalism that took hold after 9/11 to the openly anti-immigrant sentiments that are all all too depressingly common today. It’s just that no one talks about it — or, rather, no one talked about it until now.

June 22, 2020

Vix: “Películas que tienen novela gráfica (y no sólo V de Venganza) que son superiores a todo lo demás”

“Esta poderosa historia, galardonada como mejor película humanitaria en el Sedona International Film Festival, fue la inspiración perfecta para Robert Mailer Anderson, Jon Sack y Zack Anderson, quienes crearon una poderosa novela gráfica que ilustra la compleja y dolorosa experiencia inmigrante latina en EUA.”

June 15, 2020

Comics Beat: “WINDOWS ON THE WORLD offers a view of America’s invisible people”

“What his journey reveals is a country in chaos and the implication is that while 9-11 escalated that aspect, it was really already there. But more than that his journey reveals the human toll of that chaos and eventually gets to the core of it so directly that the rage and frustration it creates erupts out and reveals how being demeaned, being broken, being othered all result in a form of desperate self-preservation that can manifest in personal behavior, which creates shame and in turn leads to self-destruction.”.

April 10, 2020

Publishers Weekly: Review of Windows on the World

STARRED REVIEW!

“This heart-wrenching 9/11 drama draws back the curtains on American myths, revealing a global and complicated world.”

April 26, 2018

Catalunya Plural: “Uno acaba naturalizando la violencia porque en caso contrario no saldríamos de casa: Entrevista con Ruth Fierro”

“Para hacernos una idea de la pesadilla de la violencia en Chihuahua (México) se ha publicado 'La Lucha, la historia de Lucha Castro y los derechos humanos en México' (Icaria, 2018), libro ilustrado por John Sack y que la portavoz del Centro de Derechos Humanos de las Mujeres (CEDEHM), Ruth Fierro, ha venido a presentar a Barcelona.”

December 1, 2015

The Village Voice: "The Outstanding Comics of 2015 Bring It All Back Home"

"No matter what you're accomplishing in your life, you'll realize it's not enough when you read La Lucha (Verso, $17). Artist and writer Jon Sack tells the real-life saga of Mexican human rights lawyer Lucha Castro, who braves death threats and battles extravagantly corrupt officials to call the world's attention to the murders and mayhem endemic to a country ravaged by drug lords on one side of the border and an insatiable appetite for their product to its north. Sack's documentary-style drawings capture vistas of villages emptied of fearful residents and details of grief and determination on the faces of activists and family members, even as the criminals and the federal police who ineffectually pursue them remain anonymous behind black masks."

 

November 23, 2015

Proceso:  "La Lucha de Lucha"

"Lucha Castro es, como bien dice Lydia Cacho en el prólogo de una impactante “novela gráfica” que los Front Line Defenders acaban de publicar, una heroína. También es mi heroína, y me resulta muy reconfortante que los Front Line Defenders, una organización dedicada a la seguridad y protección de los defensores de derechos humanos en todo el mundo, haya armado esta publicación: La lucha: la historia de Lucha Castro y los derechos humanos en México. Se trata de una historieta, tipo cómic para adultos, con varios capítulos donde se relatan algunos de los casos impresionantes que ella ha acompañado, defendido o resuelto".

 

November 13, 2015

Bitch Media: "A Powerful Comic Profiles Women Working for Human Rights in Mexico"

"Front Line Defenders is an international human rights group that has begun using comics to tell the stories of powerful activists. The first comic book in their series about human rights activists focuses on women who are advocating for rights and safety in Mexico. . . "

 

November 11, 2015

Televisa: Marta Lamas discusses the Spanish version of La Lucha, published by Mexico based Editorial Resistencia, on Mexican TV show El Mañanero.

 

October 16, 2015

The Mirror, UK:  "Misery Stripped Bare" by Ros Wynne Jones

This appeared in the print version of the Mirror, about stories I illustrated for Voluntary Action Islington.  The stories are from residents in Islington, a borough of London, who have been affected by the latest rounds of welfare cuts in the UK.  Read the full report (pdf) with illustrations here. 

 

August 21, 2015

GQ: "Why comic books are helping us process human rights issues" by Flora Carr

"And while graphic novels like La Lucha are available for individual purchase in bookshops like Waterstones and Amazon, Shapiro is also keen to stress their educational credentials. "We have a few university professors set to use La Lucha in their curricula in the US and UK.. . ." 

 

August 13, 2015

Ms. Magazine:  "The Lawyer Battling Human Rights Atrocities in Mexico" by Kat Kucera

"Sack offers tales of personal loss, mingled with empathetic portrayals of the activists’ lives behind their fight for justice, to paint a holistic picture of bravery, tragedy and hope. The illustrations are a stylistic clash of realism and noir, giving the narration a serious undertone. . ." 

August 5, 2015

Upside Down World:  "Mexico: A Lesson in Defiance Amid the Carnage"

"It is difficult to extract anything positive from the carnage that is the recent history of the Mexican border state of Chihuahua and its city Juárez, but “La Lucha: The Story of Lucha Castro and Human Rights in Mexico” attempts to do just that. . ." 

 

August 5, 2015

Guardian:  "Mexico: the graphic tale of Lucha Castro's struggle to defend women's rights" by Jo Tuckman

"Sometimes Lucha Castro finds herself overwhelmed by the horror stories she hears almost every day. The human rights campaigner in the notoriously violent state of Chihuahua, northern Mexico, was struck by that feeling recently, as she listened to an indigenous woman tell of being displaced from her village by organised criminal violence fuelled by corruption and negligence. . . “

 

June 2, 2015

writing.ie: "La Lucha: The Story of Lucha Castro and Human Rights Defenders" by Selina Eagney

"Graphic novels often illustrate the trials and tribulations of fictional superheroes, but the characters of La Lucha: The Story of Lucha Castro and Human Rights Defenders are starkly real.

Recently launched by Front Line Defenders and published by Verso, La Lucha offers an innovative and compelling depiction of the challenges faced by women human rights defenders (WHRDs), and demonstrates the profound importance of their work. A nonfiction graphic novel written and illustrated by Jon Sack, the book tells the true story of Lucha Castro, a lawyer and human rights defender in Mexico whose work supports families that have been ripped apart by crime and corruption.  .  .”

 

May 31, 2015

La Jornada: “Trazos sobre defensores en la primera línea”

“Este proyecto, promovido por el organismo irlandés The Front Line Defenders, es un importante aporte para dar a conocer la situación de riesgo en que trabajan los defensores de los derechos humanos en México . . .”

May 29, 2015

C-SPAN Book TV:  Book Discussion about La Lucha

Lucha Castro talked about her book, La Lucha: The Story of Lucha Castro and Human Rights in Mexico, about the violence and human rights violations occurring in Chihuahua and the city of Juarez and her efforts to bring attention to the perpetrators. She was interviewed by Amy Goodman, host of “Democracy Now!”  Watch video here.

 

May 18, 2015

Warscapes.com: "La Lucha and Human Rights in Mexico" by Michael Busch - Interview with Jon Sack and Adam Shapiro

"Since the 1980s, lawyer and activist Lucha Castro has been one of Mexico’s most prominent human rights defenders. In a country where violence against women has soared to unprecedented heights Castro’s work on behalf of women and communities at risk—along with that of her colleagues—has attracted international attention and acclaim, not to mention threats against her life.  Her organization, Centro de Derechos Humanos de las Mujeres, offers support and advocacy on behalf of women victims of violence, and has been a leading force in bringing state-sponsored human rights violations to the attention of international monitoring bodies. . . "

 

May 12, 2015

Medium.com: "Mexican Everyday Heroes (a graphic novel)"

“An average of 6 women are violently killed in Mexico every day. The cities of Chihuahua and Juarez consistently rank among the top 20 most dangerous cities in the world for women — they are just over 200 miles apart from one another on the United States border.

Despite the shocking numbers, Mexican police and military authorities rarely carry out full and transparent investigations into women’s deaths.

In 2009, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled that Mexico failed to investigate the murders of eight young women whose bodies were found dumped in a cotton field. Last year, Reuters reported that “so many teenage girls turned up dead in a vacant field on the outskirts of Mexico City that people nicknamed it the ‘women’s dumping ground.’” In March 2015, the body of a Mexican woman running for mayor was found dead in northern Guerrero less than two weeks after launching her campaign. A sheet with a narco-trafficking group’s logo was laid over her body. . .  “

 

May 11, 2015

New City Lit:  "Graphic Novel Review: “La Lucha—The Story of Lucha Castro and Human Rights in Mexico” by Amy Danzer

“All that is best in human nature—resiliency, courage, capacity to love, loyalty and idealism—is demonstrated by Castro and the other activists. Several of them have had family members killed by the Mexican army or drug cartel, and these stories of grief turned to constructive action are particularly moving. Chilling statistics come alive. A sampling of the numbers: 8,000 to 20,000 people reported missing or disappeared from late 2012 to May 2014; 2,764 women murdered in 2012; 85,000 people estimated to have been killed since the 2006 launch of war on drug cartels. . . “

 

May 6, 2015

Times Literary Supplement:  "Book Review – La Lucha"

“By using black and white comic book art – arguably more effective at drawing the reader in than a block of text describing the violence – Jon Sack immerses the reader in his subject; his representation of shootings and torture powerfully conveys that violence is commonplace in Mexico. Employing light and shade to great effect, he presents the killers as shadows – a chilling reminder of how Juárez’s faceless murderers continue to escape justice. . . “

 

April 20, 2015

Mexico News Network:  "La Lucha: Una novela gráfica sobre una defensora de derechos humanos" by Fernanda Duque Hernández

"Lucha Castro, una heroína de la vida diaria.  La organización irlandesa sin fines de lucro, Front Line Defenders, ha lanzado su primera novela gráfica que relata la difícil tarea de uno de muchos defensores de derechos humanos en este mundo. En su primer volumen, el cual se titula La Lucha, relata la historia de una mujer, una heroína de la vida diaria que se ha enfrentado a un sistema de justicia plagado de corrupción: ella es Lucha Castro.  .  . "

 

April 15, 2015

Oximity:  "Violence Against Women In Mexico: 5 Things You Need To Know" by Erin Kilbride

"1. Violence against women has increased by over 400 percent since 2008.  An average of 7 women are violently killed every day. In Chihuahua, Mexico, the rates are even higher: 10.1 murders per 100,000 women. That means Guerrero’s murder rate among women is about five times higher than the global average.

2. Crimes are committed with impunity. The government and police not only fail to investigate violence, they perpetrate it. Just a few miles from Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto's home is a vacant field nicknamed the “women’s dumping ground” because so many female bodies have been found there, dumped in piles of garbage. . . . "

 

March 30, 2015

Comics Grinder:  "Review: ‘La Lucha: The Story of Lucha Castro and Human Rights in Mexico’" by Henry Chamberlain

“La Lucha” is an exemplary example of the comics medium. A book like this one proves how complex issues can be presented in a clear and concise manner that can benefit people in a myriad of ways. It can jump start conversations that require a number of facts that are not always easy to follow. It can make a difference. It can even save lives. ."