anderswolleck

After finishing the graphic novel War Fix, I immediately jumped on my computer and emailed the publicist to schedule an interview with the writer, David Axe. I was that impressed by the book. Axe and his artist Steve Olexa have taken Axes account of his first trip to Iraq as an embedded journalist and turned it into a compelling tale of why these same journalists keep going to these dangerous war zones and how it affects them on a daily basis and once they get back home.

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Daniel Robert Epstein: What are you up to today?

David Axe: Im at the Book Expo of America in Washington, D.C.

DRE: Are you there with NBM?

Axe: Yeah, tomorrow I get to meet Harvey Pekar.

DRE: Harveys great.

Axe: Oh you know him?

DRE: Ive interviewed him a few times.

Axe: Hes moderating this panel were doing. Publishers Weekly is hosting a graphic novel memoir panel and Harveys headlining it.

DRE: Thats cool.

Axe: Yeah Im looking forward to it.

DRE: Whose idea was it to do War Fix as a comic book?

Axe: Mine I guess [laughs]. But the artist, Steve Olexa, and I seem to have a pretty close collaboration. Its not like Im feeding him real precise instructions for what to do and also the book evolved out of our discussions. When I was headed to Iraq for the first time, in the fall of 2004, I knew I wanted to put some things into motion for a book. So Steve and I sat down and we said that assuming that this whole Iraq adventure pans out a certain way, how can we make this into a story? We actually started shaping the thing before we even knew exactly what was going to happen which is a funny way to write non-fiction. But since I knew I wanted to turn these experiences into a graphic novel it provided me a filter by which to look at events and my surroundings. So I spent a month in Iraq on that first trip and it was a really rich experience. Far more happened than youll see in War Fix but knowing that I wanted to turn this thing into a graphic novel helped me mine the material as it was happening. The actual writing of the book was done pretty much by filing dispatches from the front. I sent Steve emails, postcards and letters from Iraq. Then together we figured out the main story. Then Steve actually started a proper script while I was still in Iraq and when I got back in February 2005 we sat down and produced a polished script based on the material. Hed also been doing concept art which helped me shape the writing.

DRE: How did you hook up with Steve?

Axe: I knew Steves brother. Id heard that Steve did a strip for a college paper at University of Tennessee called Everyday Joe. I could see that his style could evolve into something to tell a bigger journalistic story. It took some persuading because hes a picky guy. Hes got high standards so he wont tell just any story. But I worked on him and by the time I was at the end of the final planning stages of my first Iraq trip he was on board and that was the beginning of our collaboration.

DRE: I was blown away by Steves work. Its outstanding.

Axe: One of my favorite pages of his is the nightmare sequence. Its horrifying and when Steve first delivered that spread for me to check, we ended up not changing it one bit. It was perfect from the outset. I slapped that thing up as my wallpaper on my computer for a while and the damn thing would startle me whenever I looked at it. Thats borne out of real nightmares that I was having in Iraq. Every time I looked at it, I would be reminded of that stuff and it was just horrifying. The most amazing thing about Steve is that with limited material he produced something that is truly journalistically accurate.

DRE: What made you think the graphic novel format in the first place?

Axe: Ted Rall is one of my journalistic heroes. I read To Afghanistan and Back when it was out in hardcover. I wanted to do something just like that and its great that I wound up with NBM because thats Teds publisher too.

DRE: The book seems to imply that youve been waiting to do something like going to Iraq your whole life.

Axe: Thats not wrong to say, but to a great extent my own motives are a mystery to me. In War Fix I offer some potential explanations for why I do what I do, but I dont feel like theyre definitive. Im still on the Iraq beat and Im headed back in the fall. I simultaneously loathe and love the place and I dont exactly know why I cant quite shake it. I can look back on the first trip and it makes more sense, but thats probably because Ive turned it into this thing I can hold in my hand.

DRE: Are you addicted like the journalist Pratt whos been covering wars for 20 years?

Axe: God I hope not. He seems like a miserable fucker.

DRE: Yeah, but who knows what will happen to you if you do this for 20 years.

Axe: I really hope not and I dont think so. Im not real good at this Iraq thing because it hurts. Maybe that I keep doing it is a testimony to my gluttony for punishment but every time I go its harder and its harder to fit back in at home. I dont know how much longer I can keep this up and what scares me is that the itch will be there but my willingness or ability to scratch the itch is going to go away.

DRE: When did this idea of going to war as an embedded journalist as addiction strike you as a good theme for the book?

Axe: There is a scene in the book where I wake up and Pratt is powwowing with an army psychologist in our room. He was a med student at some Ivy League university who got commissioned and thrown into uniform and shipped out to Iraq but is bewildered and out of place. He was interested in how journalists deal with combat stress because they dont have the support infrastructure that soldiers do. Soldiers belong to big units and everyones all in the same boat and they spend a lot of time together so youve got a lot of folks watching your back. But journalists dive into a situation largely unsupported and they deal with all the same dangers but theyre essentially alone and they dont get a long transition period to the next dangerous situation. They just go from danger to danger to danger. So he was interested in the war correspondent stress as a subset of soldiers combat stress. He was interviewing Pratt and diagnosing him there and I woke up right in the middle of this conversation. I ended up sharing a couple of meals with him and talking about the idea of war correspondent and why people do it and why they tend to get hooked.

DRE: Did you find that you had all the symptoms?

Axe: It was a bit early for that. But he did say some things that I think have become true for me. He really had a chemical basis for his theories on stress. He believed that the adrenaline and the chemicals associated with danger and excitement are truly addictive and if you get them in large enough doses over a long enough period you would suffer withdrawal and then crave it. I didnt know if that would be true for me until I got home from my first trip to Iraq but it didnt take long for me to get antsy. I never really intended to do this Iraq thing forever. I went the one time and I thought, Hey itll be a nice boost to my career. But I couldnt help it. Id get home from Iraq and Id immediately start planning the next trip and while Im in Iraq, Im like, God this sucks, I cant wait to get home, Im never going to do this again. Then I do [laughs]. My last trip was miserable. I ended up getting kicked out of Iraq by the army for supposedly publishing military secrets and it was just a huge mess. I came home pretty badly traumatized and just swore up and down that I was not going back, but here I am just a few months later and already looking forward to getting back.

DRE: Some people would say that youre suicidal.

Axe: Well, lets be realistic. Plenty of journalists have died in Iraq, but their death rate is lower than the death rate that soldiers suffer. I dont think Im facing certain death. I just got to know when to quit because if I make a career at this, it will it kill me.

DRE: Are you and your girlfriend still together?

Axe: No, were not.

DRE: For the same reasons she left you the first time?

Axe: I dont know.

DRE: [laughs] Hey, listen, you write an autobiographical comic, youre going to get these kinds of questions.

Axe: I know. My love life is a fucking mess and I dont know whether to blame Iraq or blame myself because Im not sure that Iraq is the cause or a symptom. When Im in Iraq, I feel useful and I feel like everything makes sense. As miserable as I am, as filthy as I am, when Im in Iraq Im happy. I know why I exist, everything makes sense, Im useful. In the terms of the skills that I have, Im right for it, Im good at it and its blissful.

DRE: Are you planning on doing another graphic novel?

Axe: I am. Im currently planning it to be a three book cycle. From my perspective the shit only got worse and more interesting so I headed right back to Iraq. I was up in the north in December for another election. I spent a great deal of time in southern Iraq with the British army in the summer of 05. Then I got arrested by the US army and booted out this year. The shit only got worse and by worse, I mean better in terms of the story. The trick is getting Steve on board because I dont want to work without Steve. Hes too good not to work with. Book number two would be called Love and Terror and book number three would be Iraqniphobe.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

SG Username: AndersWolleck