We are on the side of the lions, and thus our focus much more on the lions than what is more similar to us, humanity. This causes us to be detached and consequently alienated from them. While choosing to use a true story to talk about the problem of the Iraqi War, why this chose one? Despite the story being about humanity, human beings barely feature in the comics at all – and we know this is an important point, because Vaughan has chosen to emphasise this for when we do catch a rare glimpse of a human, we never have a view of their faces.
While this is a very interesting tale, there are many heart-wrenching real stories of real people that would also make excellent comics. Once we have established that the overall theme is the Iraqi War, the main question that rises is why did Vaughan chose this particular story to talk about this subject? The Pride of Baghdad is a true story of a pride of lions who, after a bombing on their zoo, escaped their enclosure and walked around the city for days, lost. By using certain tools best achieved by the genre of comics, Vaughan and Henrichon skilfully dodge societal barriers and show a new perspective to their readers. The Pride of Baghdad can be viewed as an attempt to reach these, mostly Western, individuals and show them the greater picture of the situation in Iraq. Consequently, it is especially hard to obtain the truth in places that have been brainwashed by “official” sources on clichéd phrases such as “war against terror”. The consequent war is a controversial one, with too many sides to the story to know the actual truth. Vaughan and illustrated by Niko Henrichon that is based in Iraq, in its period of occupation by American forces. Pride of Baghdad is a graphic novel written by Brian K.
(Essay assigned by Mehmet Emin Adanalı during his class FA 489: Graphic Novels, Boğaziçi University)
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