Before Joe Sacco crafted his two major works of 'cartoon journalism', Palestine and Safe Area Gorazde, he created a number of shorter pieces, ranging from one-page gags to thirty-page 'graphic novelettes'. This book finally collects the entirety of Sacco's earlier journalistic and autobiographical work, plus a sizeable serving of his satirical strips, many of them never before collected in book form.

The centrepieces in Notes from a Defeatist are a triptych of war stories: 'When Good Bombs Happen to Bad People', a history of aerial bombing that specifically targets civilian populations; 'More Women, More Children, More Quickly', in which Sacco relates his mother's harrowing experiences during World War II in Malta; and, most personally (and closest to Sacco's later work), 'How I Loved the War', Sacco's impassioned but sardonic reflection on the Gulf War, the surrounding propaganda and media circus, and his own ambivalent feelings as both a spectator and commentator.

Notes from a Defeatist also includes a roadie's-eye view of an American punk band's eventful European tour, a reminiscence of an awful season spent in his native Malta, and much more.