Guy Delisle shoes readers a cold, empty shell of a city: South Korea. It's a small piece of the wold that is an isolated little piece of hell. Upon arrival, the comic shows a copy of George Orwell's 1984. The guard asks what it is, because he has no idea of the significance of the novel. No idea that he's living a version of 1984 himself. Readers may have no first-hand knowledge of South Korea, but we've all heard different, awful things. The underweight citizenry. The frantic worship of the leader. The lost in time, communist regime. The comic strip somehow makes it seem worse. A deserted city with no electricity and wet, dirty table cloths. It's the desertion that gets to me. I can't imagine the isolation and loneliness, especially when we know, just KNOW there are people hidden from view, suffering.
This comic shows the nothingness of Pyongyang. The streets are deserted. The shabby number one, two and three cafes are empty. The only place well lit is the empty subway. We wonder if the empty subway is so brightly lit so that the identical portraits of the supreme leader and his son can be seen always. Understanding Comics would characterize this method as a "picture specific combination where words do little more than add a soundtrack to visually told sequence." (McCloud pp 153)
This tells me that whatever I thought I knew about South Korea was wrong. " the roots of an attitude run deep." (McCloud pp 141) Pyongyang is frozen in time. Its a monument to the leader who has been dead for years but is still president. It is a sad and pathetic experiment in communism that has gone wrong in ways no one could ever imagine. Its a landscape of desolation, poverty, and the ultimate big brother who looms over the lives of innocent people --watching.
The graphic novel conveyed the bleak, horrifying reality of a place stuck in the dead rhetoric of the past and, sadly, the unseen people who are stuck too. This is an example of how "comics have become firmly identified with the art of storytelling,"(McCloud pp 152) Reading reminded me of watching black and white Twilight Zone episodes. It was creepy and surreal. I could feel the wet, clammy tablecloth stuck on my hands. I could see the dim light from the forty-watt lightbulb, I could taste the soggy, microwaved french toast. This was truly sensory deprivation at its worst.
McCloud's Understanding Comics says that " pictures predate the written word by a large margin" (McCloud pp 141) Pyongyang's last and first-page are examples of how powerful and relevant the pictures really are and how " the mixing of words and pictures is more alchemy" (McCloud pp 161)
McCloud, S Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art.Happer, 1993
This comic shows the nothingness of Pyongyang. The streets are deserted. The shabby number one, two and three cafes are empty. The only place well lit is the empty subway. We wonder if the empty subway is so brightly lit so that the identical portraits of the supreme leader and his son can be seen always. Understanding Comics would characterize this method as a "picture specific combination where words do little more than add a soundtrack to visually told sequence." (McCloud pp 153)
This tells me that whatever I thought I knew about South Korea was wrong. " the roots of an attitude run deep." (McCloud pp 141) Pyongyang is frozen in time. Its a monument to the leader who has been dead for years but is still president. It is a sad and pathetic experiment in communism that has gone wrong in ways no one could ever imagine. Its a landscape of desolation, poverty, and the ultimate big brother who looms over the lives of innocent people --watching.
The graphic novel conveyed the bleak, horrifying reality of a place stuck in the dead rhetoric of the past and, sadly, the unseen people who are stuck too. This is an example of how "comics have become firmly identified with the art of storytelling,"(McCloud pp 152) Reading reminded me of watching black and white Twilight Zone episodes. It was creepy and surreal. I could feel the wet, clammy tablecloth stuck on my hands. I could see the dim light from the forty-watt lightbulb, I could taste the soggy, microwaved french toast. This was truly sensory deprivation at its worst.
McCloud's Understanding Comics says that " pictures predate the written word by a large margin" (McCloud pp 141) Pyongyang's last and first-page are examples of how powerful and relevant the pictures really are and how " the mixing of words and pictures is more alchemy" (McCloud pp 161)
McCloud, S Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art.Happer, 1993
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