Review: Brought to Light: Thirty Years of Drug Smuggling, Arms Deals, and Covert Action

The other day I read Brought to Light: Thirty Years of Drug Smuggling, Arms Deals, and Covert Action, by Alan Moore and Bill Sienkiewicz. It’s available for free in the Internet Archive.

It’s a short (64 pages) comic book on basically some of the dirty work by the CIA in the XX century. I can see 2 big groups of people reading it: those that already know most of the story, and those who don’t.

For the first group, like me, it was a nice refresher. Although, due to the time it was written, it sometimes focus on certain individuals which were relevant at the time, which by now doesn’t seem that important. From a 2023 perspective, we want to know the high level story.

For the second group, of those that don’t know much about it, it can get overwhelming. The text expects you to know about the events, at least in a high level, adding a “did you know this also happened? feeling to it”. But if you are not a geopolitics/history buff, it may be difficult to expand on a subject you don’t already know.

Regarding the illustrations, it follows a more surrealist approach, which I appreciate some of its ideas, but don’t personally like it. As a complete noob on the matter, it feels like jazz: it’s cool as it’s shaking an existing formula, but you have to understand the formula first.

Overall, it’s an interesting read. As a follow up I recommend the Historia Publica (a brazilian communist channel) on Laos. Also the hook Drugs as Weapons Against Us, although take that one with a (huge) grain of salt.

My final review is a Liked it, but wouldn’t read again.