Pride of Baghdad
Saddam Hussein: The Power is down Pride of Baghdad, drawn by Brian K. Vaughan and Niko Henrichon, tells a story of group of lions escaping from the zoo after the U. S. army starts invading Baghdad. In order to show how cruel consequences that the war brings, the authors try to portray humans by drawing the lions, the bear, and other animals. Due to its gorgeous drawing style and its concise dialogues, the novel only has 100 pages but contains various meanings.
In 2003, the Iraq war was triggered because of Hussein’s violent suppression on the people, who have their own political views, but also his possession of the large amount of illegal weapons. The novel not only presents the consequence of dictatorship, but also satirizes the interference of U. S. army because the public opinion says that the reason of U. S. involving the war is impure since no evidence has been found to prove that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. The main purpose of U. S. army invading is the oil resources in Iraq; however, by coincidence, Hussein is on the reign, which causes the U.
S. ’s excuse to invade. In this book, the authors stand at Bagdad’s civilians’ point of view to tell the story until they get shot by the U. S. army. More specifically, a fighting scene between the lions and the bear is not interpreted as the surface meaning but is created because the authors want to embody that even though the civilians overthrown the power of Hussein, the U. S. army is the one who eventually takes over their government power and causes the war. The lions and the bear both represent the civilians and Saddam Hussein.
Towards almost the end of the story, referring to a specific page, a bear who shows up trying to block the lions’ way to freedom says “Don’t get up”(where the page’s background is the huge bear standing up with Noor and Safa looking up). The authors purposely creates a giant black bear when the story almost reaches the end to show the power that Hussein holds during the his presidency. By looking at the expression on the bear’s face, readers can clearly see the anger through its bloody eyes and sharp teeth with opening mouth.
The shrewdest part of this graphic novel is its drawing style, using animals to portray humans. Throughout the idea of visual images, when readers first look at the bear, a sense of fear is emitted from its giant black body; however, the lions, comparing the size with the bear, are much weaker. The authors apply not only the visualized details, but also the literal ones in every single character. For instance, the names of the bear and the lions who is prisoned, Fajer and Rashid are both originated from Arabic language, which is also the official language in Iraq.
Fajer means wicked and Rashid means rightly guided, which are opposite to each other; however, the justice can’t beat down the evil since Fajer already kills Rashid. According to the previous page, the authors purposely use special-effects lettering, a method of drawing attention to text of highlighting the words, on some of the words while the bear is speaking, “PET”, “HIS”, “FAJER”, and “MAN”(the page where the bear first shows up with only its eyes and mouth).
The “PET” represents the weakness of the justice under Hussein’s dictatorship, and oppositely, the “MAN of the house” implies the formidable power that Hussein holds. In addition, in order to describe the difference between good and evil, the authors use graphic weight to focus on the drawing of colors between the bear and lions, which are black and white.
Even thought this particular page only contains one panel, it really embodies the representations between the civilians who are under suppressed and Saddam Hussein. Nonetheless, as the story reaches the end, the lions successfully kill the bear, but the U. S. army shot all of the lions. The authors are trying to indicate the idea of how the civilians play the most important role during the war. Millions of lives are lost because of the war, and most of them are innocent civilians.
