My New York Diary by Julie Doucet

My New York Diary is an illustrated memoir of the author, Julie Doucet. Its about moving to New York with her "boyfriend" and reliving the events through her eyes. The story starts off in Quebec, in the art school Julie attended. Here we get to know the character better and can relate to her. Julie is a shy and anxious pessimist and is really only concerned in fitting in and talking to boys. Her character to me was of an immature and weak person and the dialogue was boring and simple as well. This is probably why i didn't really enjoy the book.
The drawing style was very cartoony, (big heads, little bodies, exaggerated features) and all of the drawings were crammed into the small panels which was confusing at first but then I became accustomed to it by the end.
Some of the more dramatic scenes of the book were the most interesting as well. The scene in which the boyfriend wants to kill himself by slicing his wrists is suspenseful and the most entertainment i got out of this book.

Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli

Asterios Polyp has to be the most sophisticated and pleasant comic to read. This was my second time reading it and it asserted itself once again as a phenomenal work in my opinion. The strong and interesting characters like Asterios, Ursula, Stiff, the hippie musician guy and Hanna had all unique personalities. They were opinionated and the differing opinions created great dialogue and scenes. One example i'm thinking of is when Ursual and Asterios were talking about the cosmos and astrology. There is so much to talk about this book but another great thing about it is the art itself. Mazzucchelli created and clean, and simplified caricatured world that had graphic impact and used a limited palette. The subtle purples, yellows, and precise line work give the work a modern look that is suiting to the content.

The question that is asked by Ignazio (Asterios's dead twin brother) above brings up a really interesting idea. I found the way that Mazzucchelli handled this visually was genius. Its simple but yet delivers the idea of different people experiencing life subjectively and thus creating their own realities. Using different styles he uses this technique throughout the book. For example when Hana and Asterios are arguing over something Hana becomes red scratchy marks while Asterios is portrayed as cylindrical and rectangular prisms. Also when they flashback to when they first met in the party Mazzucchelli uses this technique again to differentiate all the different people in the party.

Guy Delisle's Pyongyang: A Journey into North Korea & Persepolis(Movie)

This week i read and watched some works relating to two of the scariest places to live in the world currently.
Guy Delisle's Pyongyang was drawn like an editorial or political cartoon but was full of quirky and witty information about the totalitarian state. The lack of privacy and the total devotion and obsessive admiration of the brainwashed people of North Korea is portrayed in somewhat of a light hearted way. I think this is because of the style of drawing i mentioned before as well as the panel above. Overall the book is an easy read with some funny moments and good information of a current issue happening in the world today.

I also watched the film Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. It is a coming of age, autobiographical story of the author. The difficulties of being a girl in a fundamentalist Islamic country and just being a teen are the main focus of the film. The film does a very good job in teaching a bit of the history of Iran and it does so in a beautiful and powerful way.