The Once and Future Riot
Creator: Joe Sacco
Publisher: Metropolitan Books
Publication Date: October 14, 2025
The Once and Future Riot, the latest investigative journalism project by powerhouse Joe Sacco, out now from Metropolitan Books, is one of those rare books that makes you feel like you might have come away from the experience a better, more enlightened person. It examines the layers of tension that built up slowly in the Uttar Pradesh region of India to culminate in an explosive riot in 2013 between two main groups, the Hindu Jats and the Muslims.
As an outsider to the culture, Sacco is the perfect detective to guide other outsiders through the anatomy of a riot and lasting divisions, showcasing parallels to political machinations and fraught relationships happening in other places. He lays out the context of this region methodically, without assuming the reader knows anything, and is measured in his introduction of the diverse factors at play: political forces which seem to play religious groups off of each other for their own benefit, class divides which aren’t universal, communities with widely varying beliefs.
We learn that some Muslims in the area are very poor and work as laborers for wealthier Jats, yet some Muslims in other regions are not in this role and receive seeming favoritism from political forces to further those forces’ electoral aims. At first, the community seems to live in relative harmony, but over time, resentments from political jockeying, class struggles, misinformation (possibly active disinformation in some cases), favoritism, and other tensions add up to a powder keg environment waiting to blow.
Sacco is measured, yet he is not without a perspective. He smells falsehoods when they surface and seeks hard evidence to validate stories and assertions. Not only is he a detective, he is something of an archaeologist, coming into the region over a year after the conflict has happened to unearth the story. He capably questions and assesses key witnesses on multiple sides of the past events, which include a violent riot, subsequent killings, burned homes, and what looks like a long-term scattering of communities.
We see the stories of numerous narrators and follow his journey to piece together what really happened. It’s really fascinating to see the information as Sacco discovered it, follow the investigative process of untangling the stories, and witness the misinformation and erroneous beliefs that fly around on both sides.
The Once and Future Riot zooms in on different elements of the conflict, like how women become pawns in the political narrative and are used to fan the flames of outrage, how police can be ally or foe depending on who you are, how government may be selectively helping some (especially those who are willing to bribe) while ignoring others, and how neighbors can attack neighbors when under the spell of belief. Very often, the victims seem to be hapless bystanders who happen to share the same sect as those who are being blamed for a crime.
We also see the ways that journalists are participants in the society they observe – Sacco shows Indian journalists who at times get caught up in the whirlwind or become victims themselves. He shows himself as human and limited in his attempts to find more witnesses to confirm or disprove stories, to break proverbial bread with sources, to conduct interviews in limited time windows under inhospitable conditions while trying to show respect, and to present the information he is given while resisting the urge to over-claim an idea of the truth. He maintains high integrity in his anonymizing of some witnesses to protect their safety.
The story contains cultural elements like panchayats (assemblies of people) and India-specific leadership roles, and the violence is sometimes conducted with swords and fires rather than guns, but the scary impact of a mob will be relatable to most humans. As an American watching my own government fan similar flames, it’s a story that feels all too familiar and relevant.
It’s truly unimaginable how much time and effort Sacco’s stories must take, both in their research and in their unique visual nature. His work is always painstaking. In an interview from a few years ago with The Nib, he shares how he asks questions and listens carefully, and seeks to provide context for everything he hears. He’s open to new threads surfacing while he is in discovery mode. To remain accurate in the comics medium, he researches in visual archives and runs his drafts by subject matter experts. His black and white art style is realistic and expressive. It’s also meticulous, with intricate hatching work that, based on his notes in the back of the book, I believe is still done in ink, which makes the detail and clean style all the more impressive.
Sacco told The Comics Journal that this may be his last long-form journalistic book, saying he has had his fill of certain topics and wants to explore other types of cartooning. If this indeed becomes his last such book, it sees him at the height of his journalistic prowess.
The Once and Future Riot is visceral in its visuals. With comics journalism, he’s more able to show what’s at stake, and scenes of violence and assault hit like gut punches. It’s hard not to imagine the pain of losing one’s loved ones in a single, senseless moment, just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The higher level effect of Sacco’s examination is the impression of deep tragedy, and the sense that once political forces light a match, there is no telling how far the damage can carry – boundless, misguided flames of rage, fear, and reprisal cannot easily be put out again. The Once and Future Riot is a compelling inquiry into cycles of violence, one well worth your time and attention.
The Once and Future Riot is available now from Metropolitan Books.
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English (US) · 