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Bryan Munn on Satrapi and the Potential for Collaboration
posted April 25, 2005
 

Bryan Munn
Canadian Comic Art Centre

Tom, not quite sure why you chose to feature possibly the least informed and almost comics-illiterate review of Satrapi's new book so far. Satrapi is a cartoonist, not a writer in search of an illustrator. As such, it seems logical that her work should be compared to books by other cartoonists and similar singular or auteur creators of narrative art, hopefully with some sort of idea about how comics work and how they may combine words and pictures into an intrinsic whole, using a panoply of styles and techniques to achieve the cartoonist's desired effect. Her work would ideally be judged on those terms, not on some vague criteria of photo-realism or illustrative verisimilitude, as Crispin seems to suggest in her review of Embroideries. This sort of criticism makes as much sense to me as saying, "Segar should think about hiring a real artist -- doesn't he realize that Popeye's bulging forearms are anatomically incorrect?"

Atkinson's review in Saturday's National Post was generally more informative and informed -- maybe you can convince her to provide a copy since the Post requires a subscription to access its online archive.

Finally, maybe we should let Satrapi herself comment on what she is trying to do with her art, in these words from Pantheon's site:

"People always ask me, "Why didn't you write a book?" But that's what Persepolis is. To me, a book is pages related to something that has a cover. Graphic novels are not traditional literature, but that does not mean they are second-rate. Images are a way of writing. When you have the talent to be able to write and to draw it seems a shame to choose one. I think it's better to do both.

We learn about the world through images all the time. In the cinema we do it, but to make a film you need sponsors and money and 10,000 people to work with you. With a graphic novel, all you need is yourself and your editor.

Of course, you have to have a very visual vision of the world. You have to perceive life with images otherwise it doesn't work. Some artists are more into sound; they make music. The point is that you have to know what you want to say, and find the best way of saying it. It's hard to say how Persepolis evolved once I started writing. I had to learn how to write it as a graphic novel by doing."