After all, here is a master of the form, with award-winning work that had delivered difficult conflict zones – Paying the Land, Palestine, Safe Area Gorazde – thoughtfully, and with candour to his readers. Meticulous reporting, detailing and brilliant sketching made each book a work of art, a treat and a source of learning. Things he captured and wrote about enabled an understanding beyond borders. They invoked empathy for those affected by war, displacement and division. If Joe Sacco had bothered to travel to Muzaffarnagar, a year after the riots and violence there that shook India’s largest state, surely, we would want to see his work? Hum dekhenge?

Bookstores in Delhi took bookings and Penguin Random House India assured the sellers that the book would arrive “by October” last year. Cut to June 2026, we hear from a spokesperson of Penguin Random House India that there is an ‘objectionable map’ in it. Earlier governments, while prickly about maps showing Kashmir off, would stamp on it, stick black labels or just blot them out. For this publisher, the 2×2 map was good enough reason to throw the book out – with the lone source of objection, its depiction of the LoC boundary outline.

‘The Once and Future Riot’, Joe Sacco.

Perfectly strange until Joe Sacco revealed in his conversation with The Wire’s Sidharth Bhatia that it wasn’t just one map but five pages of things that the publishers wanted changed. Sacco said he “got fed up” and refused to make any changes.

Not having an Indian edition hobbles a book’s reach. An expensive foreign edition (a UK edition costs 20 pounds) immediately limits its readership, although some........

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