The Wall Street Journal speaks oh-so-briefly with Marjane Satrapi about Persepolis, the animated adaptation of her comic books. Yes, comic books. Don’t call them “graphic novels”:
The term “graphic novel” has taken off here in the States. How do you feel about your work being described that way?
I don’t like “graphic novel.” It’s a word that publishers created for the bourgeois to read comics without feeling bad. Comics is just a way of narrating — it’s just a media type. Chris Ware doesn’t like it either — he says it sounds like Lady Chatterley’s Lover.
In case you’re wondering, Satrapi’s favorite animated film is Disney’s The Jungle Book.
December 17th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
That always irritated me. When Sin City came out Jessica Alba was on Jay Leno talking about it and Leno asked her some question like “This is based off a comic book right?”
and she replied something along the lines, “Oh no no it’s not a comic book at all. It’s a graphic novel.” and a little part of me died inside. The word seems to have been invented as way for people to legitimaize the aparent guilt they feel about their desire to read comic books. It goes back to that whole “Comics are for kids!” mentality.
December 17th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
Marjane Satrapi wins!
And Jesse, I’ve seen some version of that conversation play out in various forms of media and even in my own life so often that you’d think it would stop driving me nuts, but it still puts me on edge every single time.
December 17th, 2007 at 8:09 pm
“Graphic Novel”?? Always did get that sense of ‘upscaling’ with that re-branding of what used to be just plain “comics”… that it’s the sort of terminology that an adman would come up with to try to sell the things to an untapped buying market not into the underwear-on-the-outside genre.
But with that said: was never comfortable
with “comics” as a catch-all term, either—WATCHMEN? AKIRA? MAUS? PERSOPOLIS? A CONTRACT WITH GOD? I didn’t find those works to be FUNNY at all…
December 17th, 2007 at 8:20 pm
That’s true too Comment by sequential-illustrated-medium fan, comic doesn’t exactly apply either. Why don’t we stick with the late great Eisner and call it sequential art.
December 18th, 2007 at 4:06 am
sequential-illustrated-medium fan,
You have the most pretentious name I’ve seen on a board. Good job.
Just call it comics. If you call it sequential art, people have no idea what you are talking about, and in my experience, you seem slightly unapproachable.
December 18th, 2007 at 11:58 pm
Wow… coming from a guy who’s the “Super-2nd-best-3rd-STOOGES”, I stand pwned.
You may continue with your monthly floppy readings of those hilarious Steve-Martin-in an-arrow-hat picturebooks, and leave “Sequential Art” to those who DO understand what it’s about.