I was really taken aback by the quote we looked at in Tuesday’s class. I cannot imagine how anyone could say something so pretentious and just plain wrong. Then again people never fail to surprise.

Needless to say that I defiantly think the art of Persepolis is capable of standing on its own. As I looked through the pages picking panels that I found would look particularly good in a frame on some art exhibit wall I started to analyze the style Satrapi choose to use.

I am no stranger to black and white comics because I am a major fan of manga which is mostly black and white with some gray shading. It seems to me that there a few different reasons why Satrapi choose to black and white. First of all I just don’t think color would have been appropriate for something as serious as this. Color while pretty is just too cheerful, and it would have been more so considering the abstract art style would take on a child’s picture book look if it were rendered in color. The abstract pared down style is essential to Persepolis because like McCloud said the more abstract something is the more people can identify with it. Satrapi’s target audience are non-Iranians, so this style allows the reader to better identify with the main character and her life in Iran. More detailed illustrations while potentially more faithful to the story would only serve to alienate the audience.

I think the monochrome is also a play on irony. Many people will go into Persepolis with a very stilted media biased view of what Iran is like. The first thing that crossed my mind when I thought Iran before reading Persepolis was terrorism and the extremist fundamentalists. Persepolis breaks down this view built up by mass media and really makes it more personal. In short Satrapi lures the reader in with the black and white they are expecting, but then the only place they really find it is in the ink and paper.