"Notes for a War Story is Gipi’s hard, human meditation on war and a society on the fringes of anomie, as witnessed by 17-year-old Giuliano. . . . With duotone panels thronging each page, and spidery line work ripe with menace, Giuliano tells of a life bereft of elementals — food, shelter and clean water, let alone family — where gangsters squat at the apex of the food chain. Ever so subtly, Gipi slips readers into the shoes of Giuliano and his two companions as they drift into the bad life. "During the war in Bosnia, during the siege of Sarajevo, during the dead in Sniper Alley," says the author, "I was in Italy, very few kilometers away as the crow flies. I was living my life without incident, without any sudden upset. Men and boys were dying in Bosnia, but they weren’t my brothers or countrymen. Why weren’t they? Because some bureaucrats had drawn a line on a map to divide the two countries. In the book, I erased that line. With that simple gesture, the war arrived in my home, in my country. I erased that line and let a nearby war take a step closer and become mine. Mine, and the three boys in this story, who have to learn how to grow up in wartime." —Kirkus

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In a nameless, wartorn, European country, three young men fall under the spell of Felix, a charismatic opportunist. Stefano, known as Little Killer, enthusiastically embraces Felix's lifestyle. Christian, an orphan, is just grateful to have a place to belong. Only Giuliano, an outsider by virtue of his more stable family, sometimes questions what they are doing. At Felix's behest, they engage in petty crime and profiteering, gradually escalating to violence. When Felix orders the three to head to the actual war zone, Giuliano realizes they have no idea why they will be fighting and slips away to return home. Trying to find his feet in a "normal" life, he still feels ambivalent about his decision to abandon his friends.

In this powerful graphic novel, award-winning Italian artist Gipi uses deceptively crude black-and-white panels to portray a world sliding into chaos. Young men — for women appear only as background — are left adrift as society unravels. Giuliano's recurring dreams of headless men is a powerful metaphor for both the failure of those around him to think for themselves and for their lack of inner resources. The final section of the book, in which a documentary filmmaker interviews Giuliano, seems frustratingly inconclusive, until the reader realizes that all parties involved are trying to piece together an understanding of what happened, that all anyone has are "notes for a war story." Far from the fantasy world of many graphic novels, this volume will surprise and challenge readers. —Kathleen Beck

Revisiting themes from his first American release, Garage Band, Italian writer and artist Gipi tells a much darker story of disassociated youth and the bonds of friendship. Giuliano, Christian, and Little Killer wander aimlessly about an unidentified Balkan country, avoiding the militia and the shelling that an ubiquitous war has brought to their homeland. When they get into the good graces of Felix, a charming dangerous war profiteer, they become embroiled in his crime operations and sent to the big city, where their friendship and mettle are put to the test. As grim as could be, from the bleak narration to the intentionally gruesome, black-and-white art, WAR STORY never loses track of the fact that these are children, swept up in a situation too difficult for most adults to grasp. Their youth — evidenced by their covetous enthusiasm for motorcycles and video games — exacerbates the class jealousies, which flair up repeatedly, and the braggadocio with which two of the trio head toward their disturbing and inevitable end.