In the 1995-1996 Sierra Leone Civil War, South African mercenary company Executive Outcomes was tasked with reclaiming the valuable diamond mines for the country’s government, and crushing the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), who were rebelling with support from a similar group in neighboring Liberia. The company, now defunct, operated efficiently and quickly brought the RUF to their knees, resulting in the Abidjan Peace Accords in 1996.

Executive Outcomes, by Nick Bicanic and M. Zachary Sherman, is a graphic novel retelling the company’s experiences in the Sierra Leone Civil War, based on Bicanic’s highly rated documentary Shadow Company. Bicanic told TFB about the graphic novel:

It’s based on a true story about a group of 150 mercenaries that were hired to take back diamond mines in Sierra Leone but ended up preventing a genocide.

I wrote the story (based on my award winning documentary “Shadow Company” narrated by Gerard Butler) – and the book is being published by Hermes Press.

The events happened in the mid 1990s – however they still ring true today – because many of the men depicted in the book are active in the Global War on Terror today. For example a number of them fought against Boko Haram as recently as a few months ago.

Graphic novels are rapidly becoming one of the most popular kinds of media today. Fundamentally an expansion of comic books, graphic novels typically tell more serious, dramatic, or epic stories. As graphic printing has become cheaper and more widespread, so too have graphic novels.

TFB has received a copy of Executive Outcomes for review. We look forward to reviewing it for our readers.