Meet Guy DeLisle

Time's been going fast with wrapping up Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea. That is why I decided to introduce Guy DeLisle. So what could account for DeLisle's dark sense of humor and insight pervading through Pyongyang?

DeLisle was born in Quebec, Canada. After studying plastic art, DeLisle eventually found a job at CinéGroupe in Montréal. When the company shut down, he moved to Europe and worked in another animation studio in Munich, Germany. DeLisle later settled into Monpellier. His comics career kicked off at L'Association. DeLisle's initial work in comics appeared in Lapin.

DeLisle earned recognition in the comics world through his his experiences working as an supervising animator in Asia with Shenzhen (Which is set in China) and the more recent Burma Chronicles. Both books, like Pyongyang, deal with Asian countries each possessing troublesome quirks.

With Pyongyang, DeLisle recounts the time he spent in North Korea. His sharp observations and sharper sense of humor reveal a country that is so mysterious, so ridiculous and so deep into an economic and spiritual decline that DeLisle relied on his humor to keep himself sane. We get to know a lot about DeLisle through his humor and personality driving Pyongyang.

One of the funnier bits was when DeLisle was working in the animation studio. A North Korean employee kept talking to him in North Korean, a tongue DeLisle had no clue about. He shot back in his own language, playing around with the employee who had no clue about DeLisle's language.

DeLisle's knowledge of North Korea before arrival helped counter the lies North Koreans were giving him to inform readers how backwards the regime truly is. Here are a couple of fun facts DeLisle gives out that North Koreans did not know or were ashamed of:

- Kim Jong-il was actually born in Siberia.

- A group of North Korean commandos tried to slip into South Korea to destroy several key structures but were caught with no objectives achieved. The government counters this failure with a display of an American ship captured earlier.

Without any humor whatsoever, Pyongyang would provide a dull trip for the reader. We also would never know DeLisle's wit coinciding with satirical and well designed artwork making up the graphic travelogue.

On a personal note, DeLisle and I would get along well in the area of music. Any guy listening to Aphex Twin and other techno groups would be my friend on a trip through a communist regime.

- Kristopher