Zograf and Images

In light of the podcast we listened to for Sarajevo Blues, I have been reading Zograf and thinking a lot about this idea of the power of images that Sontag discusses. In the podcast, Sontag mentions Jeff Wall's piece as having the power to make the viewer continuously horrified and shocked--that the viewer does not automatically revert to the cliched image of war.

While I think that she makes a valid point, it's interesting to think about her argument juxtaposed against Zograf's work. Can't Zograf's drawings, these comics, just as effectively create "a narration that can continue to startle us," and remind us that human beings are capable of doing just about anything to each other?

For me, the answer is yes, and in some says Zograf's work is, in fact, far more startling to me than Wall's piece. Who is to say that a repulsive image of blood and guts and gore is more warranted in horrifying a viewer/reader than an extremely detailed, well-conceived, black and white drawing of a man on fire next to a grandmother holding a watering can?

I think it would be worth it to visit this question tomorrow, and ask ourselves what Zograf accomplishes with this genre of literature that, canonically, is represented in a, more often than not, opposite context.