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Review of comic book "The Great War: July 1, 1916. The First Day of the Battle of the Somme" by Joe Sacco (2013) – from Stuart McMillen’s graphic novel recommendations.

Joe Sacco’s "The Great War", is a wordless battlefield scene that is 7 metres long.

This isn’t just a generic war scene that Joe Sacco has drawn: he is depicting the first day of the Battle of the Somme that the British Empire fought against the German Empire.

The scene is a timeline of 24 hours of events that stretch from left-to-right.

We begin by seeing the British Commander Douglas Haig walking in his garden, then we see the massive mobilisation of British troops that poured out onto the battlefield.

Further to the right, we see the massive numbers of British troops marching out towards the frontline, as the British Howitzer cannons blast artillery towards the German positions.

As darkness falls, we see the British troops packing their way into the trenches. On the First of July, when the sun rose, the British attack began at precisely 7:30 a.m., with the British troops walking across No Man’s Land.

30,000 British soldiers died within the first hour of the attack - with hundreds and thousands injured.

The thing that jumps out to me when I look at "The Great War" is just the huge scale of human effort that goes into warfare.

With this book, we get to see the whole sweep of the entire frontline all in one continuous scene. He shows the massive logistical efforts that are needed to transport the troops into battle.

He shows all of the sleeping quarters, and the catering departments that need to be established in order to feed the troops. All of the medical staff needed to treat the troops. All of the military police needed to be stationed in the trenches, to make sure that none of the soldiers run away in the middle of battle.

Joe also shows the aftermath of combat. He shows all of the wounded soldiers, whose lives are permanently scarred, who are now being treated by the medics. And he shows the people whose job it is to bury the dead bodies.

It really makes you think about the senselessness of war, and the enormous civilisation-scale effort that is needed for a country to wage war on another.

Joe Sacco's "The Great War" is a remarkable artistic creation. The book is totally overwhelming in its scale. There’s more detail here than anyone could possibly fully take in. But that’s the whole point.

Each of us will have a different individual experience as we read this book, in terms of the particular parts of the illustration that we focus on.

But all of us will have an identical overall reading experience. All of us – overall - will see that war is just a conveyor belt to misery and obliteration.

• "The Great War: July 1, 1916. The First Day of the Battle of the Somme" by Joe Sacco (2013)
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