Persepolis author Marjane Satrapi passed away on June 4. This week, Tim and Kumar recall their initial reactions to that book and talk a bit about her life and legacy.
Then, we revisit segments of past episodes in which Tim and Brandon discussed Satrapi’s work:
Brought to you by:
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
FLASHBACK! Why read a biography of a fictional comics artist? What if it’s also a history of Singapore — done in a style that apes more than a dozen seminal 20th century comics creators? Tim and Kumar take a look at the awe-inspiring (yet sometimes puzzling) Sonny Liew graphic novel The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye. (Originally published May 8, 2017.)
Brought to you by:
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
In Black Hole, Charles Burns examined coming of age, in a new and slightly creepy way. After losing their virginity, various teens are affected by something called The Bug. Does The Bug symbolize puberty, or something else? Kumar and Dana go back to take another look at this classic graphic novel.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Chris Ware’s 2012 work Building Stories attracted a lot of attention because of its unusual format: a box of 14 publications of varying shapes and sizes, which can be read in any order. Ware says the work is about memory, in various ways, and reading the story in various non-chronological ways can give us different points of view on how its characters remember (or mis-remember, or forget) various things.
While Tim finds the examination of memory to be interesting in itself, and feels that the format enhances that, Kumar is less patient with it, wondering what the conclusion is, why all the characters seem so miserable, and whether the work’s form has any relationship to the content. This week, they discuss whether the work deserves a “historical landmark” plaque, or a wrecking ball.
AV Club review of “Building Stories”
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
