Confession: I didn't actually have the physical copy of Persepolis until mid this week. So, for the first few nights, I used a PDF copy that I found online (hopefully legally...). Surprisingly, the PDF version was pretty hq, so I thought that I wasn't missing much by reading Persepolis digitally. However, when my copy of the book came (2 days late even after paying extra for one-day shipping), I realized that there was something about being able to experience the story fully in its physical form.
As we've been discussing in class, there is something very compelling and enticingly simplistic about the way Satrapi depicts her story through art. Without the extra white borders or distracting blue bubble-letter banners of scribd.com, the artfulness of Persepolis became much more clean and bold and important in its simple black-and-white. The first thing that struck me when reading the physical copy of Persepolis was how incredibly high-contrast she makes her pictures. In the past, when I'd ventured into the world of graphic novels, I'd been bombarded with colors and patterns, and frames that were difficult to follow. However, Satrapi creates beautiful, simple, high-contrast images that clearly reflect both the story and her youthfulness.
An idea was brought up in class that connected Satrapi's mind to her art. Satrapi is depicting events from the past when she was a child. 10 year old Satrapi, who is already reading Marx and becoming active in national revolutions, still has a youthful imagination, and I think she very accurately represents the images from her head through her pictures. I found the comparison of God and Marx's beard very relevant. And the way she decided to portray this idea in Persepolis created a very striking image: a black double-wide frame shows God and Marx facing off, while Satrapi comments on how Marx's beard is a bit curlier than God's. Such a bold picture/frame paired with such a bold (borderline sacrilegious to some) idea creates a very impressionable model of the going-ons in Satrapi's ten-year-old brain.
I am really enjoying reading through Persepolis so far. I think that the simple high-contrast way Satrapi skillfully depicts her story creates the perfect platform to reflect the youthfulness of the past she is reflecting on.
I'm still stuck with the PDF for now, because I'm waiting for my book :( I already enjoy the style of drawing in this graphic novel, so I'm excited to get the book and read it in its full glory. When I was younger, I used to read a lot of comic strips as a child and I definitely gravitated to the ones that were more simplistic and bold like Persepolis. I didn't really like reading manga, because each narrative box felt so crowded and complicated which made it seem like a chore to read every single box, so I agree with you that the high-contrast black and white style is very appealing.
ReplyDeleteI also like high contrast simple style of this book. A question about the online version versus the book, do you think the full page blocks are more or less powerful on the online version? I saw a glimpse of the PDF and I don't think it covers the entire page the way the book does, and I was wondering you noticed a difference.
ReplyDeleteI also had to use the PDF version until my book came, and it seriously is so much nicer to read the book in its physical form. I can definitely focus more on the images and text like you said. Also, because Satrapi's images are simple and high contrast, I can focus on the images and even the text without having to be distracted by any colors.
ReplyDeleteI also love the simplicity and clarity of the drawings in Persepolis. I also was reminded of The Giver in that they live in a black and white world because they only think that way. I think that Marji, as a child, sometimes only thinks of things one way or another.
ReplyDeleteI really like this idea that the high contrast drawings reflect the high contrast categories that the young Marji sorts things into. As pointed out in class, she does not use any shading or hatching which reflects Marji's lack of a grey area between groups.
DeleteFirst of all, I deeply sympathize with your Amazon one-day shipping frustrations. My copy of As I Lay Dying took like a week longer than promised. Anyway, as for the actual content of your post, your dwelling particularly on the panels comparing the appearance of God and Marx got me thinking. I had originally read it as relatively unimportant, if very comical. But really, these two characters will come to symbolize the two faces of the revolution: the Islamic Fundamentalists and the communists. I can't help but think this was intentional. If so, I wonder what the implication of having them drawn the same way is.
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