Once and Future Riot

Description: "A graphic novel about the 2013 Muzaffargnar Riot in Uttar Pradesh, India, that expands to investigate the mechanics, dynamics, mythologies, and uses of riots writ large"--

Brief description: Joe Sacco is the author of Footnotes in Gaza, for which he received the Ridenhour Book Prize and the Eisner Award, as well as Paying the Land, Palestine, Journalism, Safe Area Gorazde, and War on Gaza, both also Eisner Award winners. His comics reporting has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the Guardian, and Harper's Magazine. He lives in Portland, Oregon.

Review Quotes:

Named a Best Graphic Novel of 2025 by The New York Times and The Washington Post
Named a Best Book of 2025 by Publishers Weekly

"Sacco's careful autopsy of a lethal 2013 riot in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh is one of the most compelling works of narrative journalism -- in any form -- I've read this year. The cartoonist assembles a record of an event in which only the liars agree on what happened. In the process, he asks a terrifying question: What is the difference between democracy and mob rule? And where does that difference begin?"
--Sam Thielman, The New York Times, Named a Best Graphic Novel of 2025

"Brilliant . . . A Masterclass in Visual Reportage . . . In an era when long-form journalism is under pressure, and political analysis filleted to morsels, Sacco's work is a lifeline."
--Adam Rutherford, The Guardian

"An astonishing success: as powerful and unvarnished a statement of journalistic truth and as thoughtful a meditation on political violence as comics has yet produced."
--The Comics Journal

"The Once and Future Riot is a new sort of book for Sacco, more philosophical than humanistic, its eye trained on larger social and political structures. Here, he's concerned less with the aftereffects of political violence and more with the future it might engender."
--Robert Rubsam, The Atlantic

"Meticulous and beautifully crafted . . . Paying homage to the importance of seeking truth, however elusive, this timely work is as powerful as it is artful."
--Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

"Nothing by Joe Sacco is less than remarkable. His comics-as-conflict journalism, described memorably by Edward Said thirty years ago as an art capturing a living history of history's victims, continues to amaze readers around the world. What the U.S. State Department and its counterparts in other nations would deny or evade, Sacco puts before our eyes."
--Rain Taxi

"Sacco delivers a searing account of religious conflict. . . . Graphic in all senses, this tale of sectarian hatreds . . . is a sobering warning to the world."
--Kirkus Reviews

"Sacco does not sensationalize the violence, letting you infer . . . the magnitude of destruction. . . . His linework is assured, with every sword, country-made firearm, garment, and vehicle reproduced in his signature style. The faces tell stories themselves, from dispirited Muslims in displacement camps to ineffectual Hindu civic leaders attempting to calm an incendiary gathering."
--The Slings & Arrows Graphic Novel Guide

Praise for Joe Sacco

"There is virtually no precedent for what he does. . . . Sacco is legitimately unique."
--David Hajdu, New York Review of Books

"Joe Sacco's brilliant, excruciating books of war reportage are potent territory. . . . He shows how much that is crucial to our lives a book can hold."
--Margo Jefferson, New York Times Book Review

"In just a few years, Sacco has created a body of work that includes some of the most important and relevant graphic novels of our time."
--Kirkus Reviews