Secondly, this book is a remarkable ragbag of responses to the attack. One of the striking thing about the 9-11 attack is that it was the first time in nearly 200 years that the US mainland had been attacked. (Pearl Harbour doesn't count because, at the time, Hawaii was not a state of the US, it was still a "dependency" - shorthand for "ex-colony".)

The best responses in this book are the ones that take a, shall we say, dialectical response to the attack - those that at once focus on the innocent victims (cause it was a terrorist attack, and terrorism by nature is aimed at targeting the innocent in order to make the guilty feel guilty) and that also have a longer historical perspective. Because, and I'm almost embarrassed to point this out - the 9-11 attack did not happen because some deluded lunatics somewhere took it into their heads to be mean to Americans. It was the ultimate suicide attack, the nec plus ultra of the recent bombings in Jerusalem.

The best pieces in this book do not merely recognise the heroism of New York firefighters and police personnel - which is a sort of heroism that I, for one, don't doubt. But the facts are, this kind of heroism has been displayed around the world by populations under attack from US-funded or US-trained forces. It's not a very nice fact to have to face, but unless it is faced, there is little chance of events like 9-11 never happening again.

The sad thing is, much of the more ambitious pieces in here rely on "private" tragedy (as if these events had no more significance than the deaths of people in New York) and public jingoism - witness Stan Lee's asinine allegory about sleeping elephants. Stan, if the elephant's population was happy, it's because it had stolen so much from other countries already. Learn a little history.

Those of us who have learned to live with the potential for terrorist attacks on a daily basis are a little less naive than much of the authorship of this book. I grieve as much as anyone else for the dead of 9-11. But I cannot pretend that it isn't the kind of thing that happens around the rest of the world, as a result of the insanely inequal distribution of wealth.

This is a good book. But it is as much symptom as it is diagnosis.


This is really very disappointing   May 1, 2002
 17 out of 46 found this review helpful

There are a few really compelling stories here - mostly the ones that focus on the victims and the rescue workers. But there is also, sadly, a great deal of garbage.

There's actually a fair amount of America bashing here. Some stories are patriotic, but, for the most part, the people holding or displaying American flags are protrayed as ignorant bigots.

Now, the artists and writers have every right to express their views. If that sort of thing is your cup of tea, I suspect you'll regard the more anti-American stories as provocative and stimulating. To me, they seemed like more of the same tired cliches I used to hear all the time before 9-11.

There's also a fair amount of the mushy-headedness about Islam which seems popular in this country these days. ...

The worst stories were those that tried to make some sort of political point. In one, an alien shows up and explains why we are all doomed if we don't adopt the Democratic party platform. (I'm really sort of neutral on abortion, but I always have to shake my head when someone starts preaching about the need to take care of the poor, the weak, the children, the elderly, the fish, the birds, the dung beetles, and then insists, even by omission, that destroying a human fetus is just fine.)

I guess what I'm trying to say is a lot of this felt very contrived. The more powerful stories and pictures were the ones where the author/artist was writing/drawing from the heart. The worst were the ones were the author was "moralizing," for a lack of a better word.


some people need to take it for what the book was for   September 12, 2002
 15 out of 33 found this review helpful

I am using these two volumes to do my senior thesis and have read the other reviews and am convinced that some reviewers need to BACK OFF. This was written in commemoration for those who had a hard time dealing with the tragedy, not for you to criticize. The artists and comics who made these works did so as a way to understand and as a way to vent. I am sorry, but if you are going to criticize a creative effort to release you have no compassion. Some stories are disturbing, but the whole event was and has been disturbing. I am sure someone is going to think I am waving my flag a little to wildly, but you know what I am just calling it as I see it. Until you spent the day watching from your window as the towers fell down and smoked up the whole city to tell them how to do there job!


Chicken Soup for the 9/11 Soul   March 11, 2002
 13 out of 14 found this review helpful

Some of the works in this collection are quite good...I especially enjoyed Will Eisner's contribution ("Give me real, people!") and the single panel work of a woman touching the other side of her half empty bed. That was an excellent demonstration on how subtlety can have a much greater impact than a sledgehammer.

By contrast, there's the story written by Stan Lee ("The Sleeping Giant" I believe it's called) which uses a simple animal metaphor to retell 9/11 past, present and possible future. It starts out interesting but never elaborates on 9/11, only simplies it and assumes we can't figure things out for ourselves (such as the terrorist mice wearing "666" T-shirts).

Most of the stories were in between the ones I mentioned. Sometimes the tales are clever and subtle, but usually there's just a small bit of creativity per story.

Granted, I don't think I'm the target audience of this book. If you're looking for stories of hope after the attacks, you might enjoy this book more than I did.


Amazing cumulation of GREAT work on a very tough event.   March 3, 2002
 6 out of 7 found this review helpful

To be honest, I have not been in any rush to purchase any books that deal with September 11, 2001, or its aftermath. In bookstores and news stands, I have quickly passed by with little more than a cursory glance at the cover photo(s). However, this one caught my attention. Superman, the Man of Steel, standing in front of a mural of America's current heroes: firemen, policemen, doctors, construction workers, EMTs, and business men and women. I had to pick it up. I'm glad I did.

What I found was an amazing collection of comics and other art about the events of 9-11. This volume is broken up into three sections: Nightmares, Heroes, and Recollections. All the works are amazingly well-done. Each has a different color, tone, and message, but all are touching. I spent a good couple hours just looking at these stories, with my heart pounding and tears streaming down my face. No, these are not real photos, but the fear, anger, and all the other emotions that I and others felt on that day all came flooding back through the colorful stories presented here.

For those people, like me, who may have difficulty with that time still, or who just don't want to read one of the thousands of books and stories out there, this might be a good choice for you. At times it's light, presenting children's dreams of superheroes and real heroes. At times it's harsh, dealing with bias, hatred, and America's internal struggles with "what's an appropriate response?" But above-all, it's a wonderful collection of amazing work that will allow you to remember the heroes of that time, along with the goodness that began to surface in our nation after the fact.