Persepolis: All About the Title

So why is Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis named...Persepolis? Satrapi was referencing the title to the ruins of an ancient Persian city of the same name. From my interpretation, because the title was based on the ruins of a city, Satrapi used the title to illustrate the decay that was running rampant in Iran during her time. Iran was going to ruins with the Islamic revolution surging with backward policies and religious fundamentalism dominating the society.

Here are a few images from the city itself. Quite a sight, huh?


This link tells about the city Persepolis. Enjoy!

- Kristopher

Meet Marjane Satrapi

The creator of Persepolis is a survivor of a conflicted nation. Yet like most survivors recalling horrible moments she inserted a good sense of humor. Marjane Satrapi delivered her stories successfully by exploring her childhood and covering the emotions during the most critical points of her life. But who is Ms. Satrapi? And is she close to her graphic memoir counterpart? This post is both a character study and a biography of Ms. Satrapi so expect both interpretations and facts about Satrapi to collide.

When you were a kid, did you ever idolize anyone? Did you dream of becoming great, powerful and influential? That's what Satrapi did: she idolized communist rebels such as Che Guevera who fought to end imperialism (not heeding the fact he killed many people to do it). Satrapi desired to become a prophet, to be "...justice, law and the wrath of god all in one." Those dreams dissolved once the revolution was over; Satrapi appeared to lose her faith in god after her uncle Anoosh was executed for being a communist.

Satrapi, though fairly precocious and good hearted as a kid, had her dark side during her childhood love affair with communism. She whipped up a mob of kids to follow her in a pursuit of a boy whose father executed communists armed with nails. I was thinking "What a brat! She reminds me too much of girls who would do that, manipulating people for all the wrong reasons!" Yet she is harshly lectured by her mother with the question of how she would like it if her ears were nailed to the walls. "Wow," said young Satrapi. "It would hurt a lot." So I was "All right, Satrapi was a kid even though she repeats what she hears!" Satrapi appeared aware (and embarassed) of this fact, writing the dialogue and story with the perspective of a child in mind. Satrapi was just your average Iranian girl living on the eve of the revolution while indulging in punk metal, Kim Wilde and the idyllic childhood dreams we used to have.

The violence depicted in the book is cartoonish like the book itself, which was appropriate suiting her experiences growing up. People are depicted whipping themselves, being cut and shot in darkly humorous was which are not darkly funny at all. There was one scene at the end of Persepolis masking the horror of violence intentionally because Satrapi saw it with her own eyes. At a house where a Jewish family lived, Satrapi saw a bracelet, most likely attached to an arm. But Satrapi never confirmed what was attached to the bracelet, leaving the idea to the reader:

"I saw a turqouise bracelet. It was Neda's. her aunt had given it to her for her fourteenth birthday. The bracelet was still attached to...I don't know what...No scream in the world could have relieved my suffering and my anger."

No cartoony bloody limbs showed, no teenage Satrapi going crazy in the image. The effect of the author as a teenager holding a hand to her mouth and bowing down in horror was enough to tell us. Satrapi probably did not want to recount the whole experience herself. Not all of us will ever figure out what it was like to live in a country undergoing a revolution and into a theocracy but we can imagine the horror behind a person's eyes.

Let's focus on the biographical standpoint. Satrapi was born in Tehran, Iran with parents who were part of communist and socialist circles (which explains her tastes for Guevera as a kid). Much like her comic book self, Satrapi witnessed person freedomes becoming squelched by the Islamic revolution in Iran. When Satrapi was 14, she was sent to Vienna, Austria so she did not have to live through more turbulent conflict that followed. She completed her high school years in Vienna and went to college in Iran. Satrapi studied Visual Communications, eventually obtaining a Master's Degree from the School of Fine Arts in Tehran Islamic Azad University. She moved to Strasbourg, France. Satrapi borrowed the art style she used in Persepolis from David B., a French comic book artist. Satrapi currently resides in Paris where she is an illustrator and author of children's books.

On an interesting note, Satrapi is a great-granddaughter of Nasser al-Din Shah, though Satrapi comments that "...the kings of the Qajar dynasty...had hundreds of wives. They made thousands of kids. If you multiply these kids by generation you have, I don't know, ten to fifteen thousand princes and princesses. There's nothing extremely special about that."

On a personal note, any girl who listens to Iron Maiden and punk/metal overall would have been my pick as a teenage boy. Today, I would find Ms. Satrapi rather attractive for having listened to Iron Maiden, Iggy Pop and putting together a highly acclaimed graphic memoir!

- Kristopher

Persepolis Trailer

Since we will be covering Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis very soon, I decided to post up a trailer of the film adaptation we will be viewing in class. I'm for one am looking forward to seeing it!

- Kristopher

Meet Alan Moore

The writer of Watchmen, V for Vendetta, From Hell and The League of Extroadinary Gentlemen possesses a large beard to make any wizard envious. He is also a practicing magician and worships a snake entity named Glycon. Alan Moore is one of the United Kingdom's (and the world's) most iconic comic writers alongside Neil Gaiman. Moore is an interesting (and controversial) figure whose ideologies of anarchy have made its way into his work.

Moore started his career with Embryo, a magazine he started with some friends. The magazine was a link to the Northhampton Art Lab. In 1979, Moore was a cartoonist for the music magazine Sounds. His cartoon was Roscoe Moscow, working under the pseudonym Curt Vile.

After deciding cartooning was not his forte, Moore focused on writing. His early efforts were submitted to Doctor Who Weekly and 2000 A.D. These efforts were The Ballad of Halo Jones, Skizz and D.R. and Quinch. Moore later worked for the anthology magazine Warrior, where he penned V for Vendetta. Moore's story of a one-man battle against a fascist dystopian British government earned him the British Eagle Awards and the Best Writer of 1982 award.

Moore would become an icon with Watchmen, which was released in 1986 alongside Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. Watchmen's complex characters, plot and setting in which superheroes existed in an alternate history of our world not only sealed Moore's place in the comics hall of fame but was also the only graphic novel to earn the Hugo Award.

Today Moore has his own publishing outfit America's Best Comics. Under ABC's line is The League of Extroadinary Gentlemen, Tom Strong, Promethea, and others. He currently lives in Northhampton, England.


I was looking into Moore's political views to find he is an anarchist, someone who sees government as a problem than the solution. For those who read V for Vendetta, making sense of the extremes of facism and anarchy is a key to understanding the plot. For Watchmen, the main characters struggle to stop a plot to destroy the world. Ironically, the plot for destruction saved the world than destroyed it. Moore may be addressing that the stress to keep order (much like what Rorshach and the Comedian tried to do) should not be emphasized. Chaos and destruction is inevitable and this resulted in Russia and the United States no longer interested in nuking each other.

This interview reveals Moore's views on anarchism:

"Fascism is a complete abdication of personal responsibility. You are surrendering all responsibility for your own actions to the state on the belief that in unity there is strength, which was the definition of fascism represented by the original roman symbol of the bundle of bound twigs. Yes, it is a very persuasive argument: “In unity there is strength.” But inevitably people tend to come to a conclusion that the bundle of bound twigs will be much stronger if all the twigs are of a uniform size and shape, that there aren’t any oddly shaped or bent twigs that are disturbing the bundle. So it goes from “in unity there is strength” to “in uniformity there is strength” and from there it proceeds to the excesses of fascism as we’ve seen them exercised throughout the 20th century and into the 21st.

"Now anarchy, on the other hand, is almost starting from the principle that “in diversity, there is strength,” which makes much more sense from the point of view of looking at the natural world. Nature, and the forces of evolution—if you happen to be living in a country where they still believe in the forces of evolution, of course —did not really see fit to follow that “in unity and in uniformity there is strength” idea. If you want to talk about successful species, then you’re talking about bats and beetles; there are thousands of different varieties of different bat and beetle. Certain sorts of tree and bush have diversified so splendidly that there are now thousands of different examples of this basic species. Now you contrast that to something like horses or humans, where there’s one basic type of human, and two maybe three basic types of horses. In terms of the evolutionary tree, we are very bare, denuded branches. The whole program of evolution seems to be to diversify, because in diversity there is strength."

Below is a video of Moore talking about Watchmen for Comics Britannia. He even narrates as Rorschach from his story so sit back and enjoy.



- Kristopher

Meet Scott McCloud

Because I had not yet commented on Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics, I will begin by introducing you to Scott McCloud himself and his works. Understanding Comics is a fun read, no doubt! It explains everything about comics-from sequential art to different mediums, and careers-in the "comic" medium it uses to explain comics!

McCloud graduated with a degree in graphic design from the University of Sycamore in 1982. He worked for DC Comics a short while before turning to Eclipse Comics for his proposal of Zot!, a character driven comic about a superhero who transports a thirteen year old girl into his crime-free world. McCloud also created Destroy!!, a superhero parody about two highly muscled superheroes beating up each other and Mahattan. McCloud also pioneered the "24 hour Comic," which is creating twenty four pages of comics in twenty four hours. The Creator's Bill of Rights, Story Machine, Five Card Nancy and Big Triangle are inventions credited to McCloud.

So what's the reason for McCloud's inventive nature? I was reading this interview from The Comics Journal and found out McCloud's father was an inventor who designed the guidance system for the Patriot missle among other inventions. As the old saying goes, the apple did not fall far from the tree!

McCloud is aware of his acclaim as a comics artist, inventor and comics scholar. Doonesbury creator Garry Truedeau deeming him the "...Baedaker of the toons:"

"Depending on who you ask, I'm either comics' leading theorist or a deranged lunatic, but life continues to be very interesting for me and the ideas that I've raised continue to provoke reactions throughout the comics community and -- increasingly -- beyond it."

I'm sure we all would like to thank him very much for it!

- Kristopher

Doomsday Smiley Face - Looking Beyond the Smear

Ah, the blood covered smiley face. For anyone who's read Watchmen, the icon is instantly recognizable. More than just a logo, the smiley face represents the Doomsday Clock, originally conceived in 1947. The Doomsday Clock measures time for the human race facing the threat of nuclear arms being unleashed. When the "minute" hand reaches "midnight," catastrophic annihalation is represented. For those curious enough or dreadful of a nuclear apocolypse starting anytime soon, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists state the clock is at five minutes to midnight. In Watchmen's case, the clock also starts at five minutes to midnight. The blood smear represents a "hand" moving over to midnight. There is a "clock" throughout the comic that gets closer and closer to midnight as the conspiracy behind the Comedian's death unravels.

Given the violent nature of the notorious Comedian, there is a dark sense of humor involved when the smiley face takes place of the Doomsday Clock. The human race's time limit of five minutes to midnight, do people think about nuclear arms detonating everywhere in sight? No. We watch TV, play video games, go to the movie theatre, etc. to get away from life's darker nature. I believe Alan Moore penned Watchmen as a wakeup call to nuclear apocolypse. Nuclear arms still exist and present a serious hazard to Earth's future. Try thinking about that when watching American Idol.

- Kristopher

Watchmen Parody

I never thought Alan Moore's Watchmen would be referenced in a mainstream animated sitcom like The Simpsons. Watchmen is critically acclaimed enough to be the first graphic novel to win the Hugo Award, I'll give it that. But I always thought the comic had an "underground" quality to it, since unlike other comics it has never been heavily commercialized (Which to me was a good thing.).

That perception changed when I was browsing for images and came across this image taken by an episode of a Simpsons rerun. Then again, creator Matt Groening is a comics geek so it's no surprise!

- Kristopher