I came across these graphic illustrations when i was looking through the book called visual storytelling and information graphics. They are created by Lorenzo Petrantoni.

Orenzo Petrantoni: Piece was commissioned by the Wall Street Journal for an article about the countries, themes, and characters involved in the Gulf crisis

Lorenzo Petrantoni effectively uses text,images and illustration to create these timelines. The black and white works very well with the coloured images and text. The detailed shapes are very interesting and elegant to look at, they really do help to make the images look effective.His work brings life back to the events and people and words.