Persepolis and Graphic Novels

Graphic Novels

What is a graphic novel?  A graphic novel is basically a book that uses words in tandem with pictures to tell a story.  It is a novel in comic book form.

After the golden age of comics headed by Superman in the 1930’s and 40’s, comics writers started to experiment with forms other than the classic, short strip.  Naturally they tried creating longer, even book length comics stories.  By the 1960’s the term “graphic novel” had appeared to describe these extra long comics.  It was not until the late 1970’s (and the publication of Will Eisner’s A Contract with God) that the graphic novel became a commonly known genre distinct from the comic book.  A decade later, graphic novels had reached their summit.  Many of the most well known graphic novels (including Maus by Art Spiegelman, Watchmen by Alan Moore, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns  by Frank Miller, and Sandman by Neil Gaiman) were published about this time.

Persepolis

When I heard that we were going to be reading a graphic novel for my English class, I was I bit surprised.  I didn’t really know very much about graphic novels, and so I imaged that my teacher had assigned a comic book to the class to read.  I later discovered that Persepolis (the graphic novel assigned by my teacher) is not a comic book.  It is a novel about serious material presented in comic book form.  Persepolis is an autobiographical account of the human impact of war, revolution, violence and cultural tyranny in Iran.  In it, we get to know about Marjane, a young girl growing up in the midst of political and religious turmoil.  The brilliance of conveying her story in comic book form is that we learn about this history in a most poignant way:  through the eyes of a child.  The narrator is a child and telling her story largely with drawings and speech bubbles conveys her innocence and humanity.  Not only does this encourage us to trust her perspective but it is likely to reach a wider audience than it would if it had been written as a more traditional autobiography.  In particular, I expect this book would be much more likely to reach the hands of young people;  people who might not otherwise ever read about this important but of modern history.

One advantage of writing Persepolis in graphic form is that the images used can convey emotions and feelings in a way unique from words.

This picture shows what Marjane thought of
when she was told that her grandfather was a prince.
It shows a child's perspective
which might be difficult to illustrate in words.

When Marjane went on vacation,
it was like living in a fantasy world.

Here we see a political prisoner being tortured
 and finally executed.
This image gives us a strong emotional response
that letters do not communicate as well.

You have an appointment with the patrician...

I have a few quibbles with Henry's ideas.

If why did Marjane Satrapi write Persepolis in a form that appeals to children if the material she was trying to express is adult?  It seems rather a strange idea.

Also, words can convey any idea that a picture can illustrate.  In fact, the process of formulating ideas into words is the primary process by which we understand those ideas.  The graphic novel form seems to me a rather crude form of communication.