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Persepolis' Marjane Satrapi Will Never Make Comics Again

Published Thu, 17 Aug 2023 08:57:07 -0500

Persepolis remains one of the great graphic novels of all time and one of the best movie adaptations of a comic book. Created by Iranian expat French cartoonist, now movie director Marjane Satrapi, it told the tale of the Iranian revolution and subsequent exodus from the point of view of a child, first published in French in 2000 and in English in 2003 at a time when media was trying to sell a much more simplified version of Middle East/American politics.

Now that Pantheon has put out a 20th-anniversary edition of the English language version of Persepolis, with a new introduction by Satrapi. But talking to Publisher's Weekly, she won't be going back to the medium that made her name. "Comics is good, and I've been making lots of drawings. But I will never make comics again. That chapter of my life is behind me. And I've always been like that—I'm like a car that you can't pull back. The problem with comics is—and it will sound like I'm sending myself flowers, but—from the first comic I made, I got all this press and hoopla, hoopla. I made a couple more, and it was the same. It's something I know how to do. It's not that I know a secret ingredient—I can't give a formula to someone else. But it's not challenging anymore because I know how to do it. My life is about the search, not getting comfortable. I like the chaos. I'm not going to live another 300 years. I have to explore everything I can before dying."

As for Persepolis returning to banned books lists in the USA, "First it was all these stupid Republican parents because they claim it has "sexual scenes." I don't know how these people made children themselves, because if there is sex in there, show me where? And "scenes of torture"—a frame where, as a child, I imagined what torture could be like. Kids of these same families play war video games. Then the liberals banned it as Islamophobic. The shift between the conservatives and the liberals, that was amusing, because it was the same kind of stupidity. What are they scared of? Don't they count on people to have any intelligence?"

You can read the rest of her interview, with a view choice comments regarding Iran, George W Bush and Donald Trump, right here.

The Complete Persepolis: 20th Anniversary Edition Hardcover
by Marjane Satrapi, translated by Anjali Singh

20th ANNIVERSARY EDITION • Persepolis is a classroom staple, a feminist manifesto, and one of the most beloved graphic novels of all time. For the first time in hardcover, this stunning edition examines the Iranian political landscape in the context of global politics today. • WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY THE AUTHOR

"A stunning graphic memoir…a wholly original achievement in the form." —The New York Times

"Persepolis stands in defiant resistance alongside other classics of its kind, from A Vindication of the Rights of Woman to 'Letter from a Birmingham Jail' and Memoirs of a Revolutionist. Twenty years on, it remains urgent, necessary reading."—Kirkus Reviews

Here, in one volume: Marjane Satrapi's best-selling, internationally acclaimed memoir-in-comic-strips. Persepolis is the story of Satrapi's unforgettable childhood and coming of age within a large and loving family in Tehran during the Islamic Revolution; of the contradictions between private and public life in a country plagued by political upheaval; of her high school years in Vienna facing the trials of adolescence far from her family; of her homecoming–both sweet and terrible; and, finally, of her self-imposed exile from her beloved homeland. It is the chronicle of a girlhood and adolescence at once outrageous and familiar, a young life entwined with the history of her country yet filled with the universal trials and joys of growing up.

Edgy, searingly observant, and candid, often heartbreaking but threaded throughout with raw humor and hard-earned wisdom–Persepolis is a stunning work from one of the most highly regarded, singularly talented graphic artists at work today.

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