In 2013, in a small village in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, a confrontation between two Hindu cousins from the Jati caste and a Muslim boy ended with all three young men dead: the Muslim from a stab wound and the Hindus at the hands of a vengeful mob. The incident triggered a chain reaction of altercations and violent clashes between the Muslim and Hindu communities, which the cartoonist Joe Sacco (Malta, 1960) analyzes in The once and future riot (The eternal disturbance (in the Spanish edition from Reservoir Books), a new and extraordinary work by the father of journalistic comics. With patience, tenacity, and empathy, Sacco draws a complex web of hatred, xenophobia, corruption, sexism, and electoral interests—a cycle of violence and death that, despite the distance that separates us from India, feels disturbingly familiar.