Home > Letters to CR

Luke Przybylski on Satrapi and the Potential for Collaboration
posted April 25, 2005
 

Luke Przybylski
Via the Internet

I think the criticism put forth in the article you quote reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of comics by Satrapi, which do not seek to wow the reader through "accomplished draughtsmenship" or dynamic rendering.Instead, the value of her work is dependent upon the home-spun, simple iconography she has developed; it is the logical manifestation of the intensly personal narrative voice.

So much of Satrapi's work is about remebering the past; I can only speak for myself, but when I remember stories of my own past, I don't conjure up detailed scenes, I remember how certain things felt and how occurances and feelings related to each other. I remeber the essence of what occured. I can't think of a better way to get that experience across in comics than with simple icons, ones the reader can easily project themselves into, or the ramifications of events upon. That the drawing is so clearly done by her hand (not the hidden hand of the cinematic appraoch) makes it that much more personal, that much more immediate, than any other "illustrator" could possibly come up with. It would defeat the purpose of her comics to have another artist "illustrate" them.

The authors bit about the "child-like" drawings working well in a story about childhood rang false; Even if it were true, to praise it on that level is to praise novelty as ingenueity. Satrapi's work is not child-like, but it is simple. People who don't draw ( and some that do, even) tend to look at any drawing that they believe they could recreate and assume it's because the artist can't draw "better".

To one who approaches her work as literature, unable to recognize the synthesis of text and image that good comics seek, it might not make a difference; they read the text, then look at the drawings to see how well they "illustrate" what is happening. If "A" and "B" don't jibe, it's because "B" is deffecient to the more prized "A".

Anyhow, Satrapi clearly does miss-step in her usage of the icons she's developed. Occasionally it's stiff, or off in a slightly jarring way (sometimes I find it endearing,I admit).Sometimes it fails to convey what I imagine she intends to convey.Go ahead and critique that, I say, but to dismiss her drawing on the level the author in question has, is to dismiss the form of comics on a fundamental level, leaving all but novelty.