The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion [Paperback]

There are lies, damn lies, and then there are the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Perhaps no other single document has been responsible for more bloodshed than the Protocols. A thoroughly nasty hoax and complete forgery the Protocols reputed to be the minutes of a secret meeting of world Jewry that took place in conjunction with the first Zionist Congress in Switzerland in 1897. The minutes detailed a conspiracy by these "Elders" to take over the world. Despite being revealed repeatedly as a hoax the Protocols have taken on a life of their own and continue to be brought up in areas around the world.

Will Eisner, perhaps the most creative and influential cartoonist, graphic artist, and/or sequential artist (whatever term one finds applicable), spent the last twenty years of his life trying to unravel the origins of this deadly hoax. Bit-by-bit over the last twenty years Eisner read up on the Protocols and did significant amounts of research, including a review of files released in Russia (most of which dated to Tsarist and early revolutionary days) after the fall of communism. Eisner complete this graphic history book one month before he died, at the age of 87. The compelling art and narrative in "The Plot" helps to make Eisner's last work a wonderful epitaph for a creative giant. The year 2005 also marks the 100th anniversary of the Protocol's introduction in Russia in response to the 1905 Revolution. The bloody pogroms that followed bear stark witness to the horrid power of the Protocols.

After a brief but moving introduction by Umberto Eco, Eisner lays out a sequential history of the birth and strange life of the Protocols. The story begins with the creation of a book entitled "The Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu" by a French writer named Maurice Joly. Joly's book was a thinly-disguised attack on Napoleon II rule. The story continues and Eisner takes us into the life and less than wholesome career of Mathieu Golovinski. Golovinski, in conjunction with the Okhrana (the Tsar's version of the KGB) creates the Protocols by plagiarizing Joly's book almost completely. From there we see the Protocols exposed as a hoax by The Times of London in the 1920s. Yet despite that expose the Protocols are then used by both Adolf Hitler and the American car magnate Henry Ford. It is still being distributed today.

A significant portion of the book consists of side-by-side comparison of Joly's Dialogue In Hell and Golovinki's Protocols. The results are both compelling and conclusive. There may be some who feel that this rather lengthy insert is not appropriate for a graphic work such as this. I tend to think it both necessary and effective. Mere claims of fraud are not sufficient. It is important to set it out in black and white. Eisner does this to great effect.

It has been said that a graphic novel may not be the best method for discussing such a serious topic. I disagree. I think that the information provided by Eisner is absorbed very well by the reader. It is not an academic treatise to be sure but it was not intended to be. The information is easily absorbed even if one takes time to admire Eisner's graphic art which is powerful and compelling.

Eisner's last work is a fitting tribute to his life for at least two reasons. First, it provides an excellent overview of a publication that has caused havoc over the last 100 years. As Umberto Eco says in his introduction, "one must fight the Big Lie and the hatred it spawns". Eisner has done this to great effect. Second, "The Plot" provides yet one more piece of supporting evidence for the assertion that the graphic arts is a serious, provocative medium that need not play second fiddle to what may sometimes be referred to as pure 'literature' or 'the arts'.. Eisner's legacy in this field is secure and The Plot serves as a fitting grace note to a long, distinguished career.

I must admit that when I pondered which book to buy to learn a bit about The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, I was looking for the actual protocols and possible comparisons.

What I did purchase is a very clever history lesson of how the Protocols came about, in the form of a comic strip. At first I was surprised and unsure but warmed to it very quickly.

Although there is very little detail about the protocols and you don't get to compare and see what the accusations are in depth, the lesson in this is how the work came about and how it was used before, during and after the holocaust up to the 21st Century.

It is a good read for those who are wanting a background to the origin of The Protocols but for study and in-depth research I would not recommend it.

Had I known Will Eisner's work I may have looked at others for what I really wanted, however I am very pleased with the purchase because after reading it I verified the content elsewhere I found that I have learned the history quicker than reading a paperback with flattering chapters of sophisticated rabble.

Way back in Tsarist Russia, a propagandist, wishing to divert the monarch from a liberal path, concocted a forged document which purported to show a Jewish Plot to take over the world. The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion was in actual fact a slightly rewritten plagiarism of a French work of fiction which had been published 40 years earlier. Jews were simply inserted as the villains of the piece. Imagine if you will someone taking a James Bond novel and substituting the evil cat-stroking mastermind with world Jewry. Ever since, and despite being debunked as a fraud on numerous occasions, most notably by The Times newspaper in the 1920s, the protocols have gone on to be taken as fact by Nazis, rednecks, Islamists and bigots the world over. Its pretty much never been out of print (Amazon supply it in a number of formats) and there is always at any given time some knuckle-dragging politician somewhere in the world prepared to quote it as truth.

As the opening pages of this Will Eisner book state: "Whenever one group of people is taught to hate another, a lie is created to inflame the hatred and justify a plot."

Academically the Protocols have long been shown up for the crock of ordure that they are. Comics genius Will Eisner set out to present the facts to a wider audience, and through an easy to digest medium - the comic strip. His artwork is flawless, and his storytelling (sequential art was how he thought of his work) is well paced and thorough. A good deal of time is spent comparing passages from the supposedly factual Protocols, with the fictional work it was adapted from. This section is very "un-comic strip" but is the nub of the debunking. The comic strip around it puts the context so well and then you are presented with the raw evidence. You are shown how it is rubbish, but also how the lie has lived on down the years.

I don't personally think the Protocols have led to racism, or directly to the Holocaust as some argue. I think rather that those already racist, already inclined to act like the Nazis, leap to them for justification. The protocols are a nasty little work, and it would be nice to think of a world where they had never been written. However, I don't think the 20th Century would have been markedly different without them.

They do excist though and its important that the lie is nailed whenever it is repeated. Eisner's book is the best hammer you will find to drive those nails in.

Will Eisner was a colossus of the comic book, and transcended the artforms's teen revenge fantasy outpourings to invent the grown up graphic novel. This final work, completed just before his death, serves as a very fitting, if chilling farewell.