Hello everyone! First, I’d like to ask say how cool it is to learn about different countries while reading a graphic novel. The people, their way of living, and how they face different obstacles in their life, as well as how accurate a country is portrayed on a novel make it interesting to me. One graphic novel that I would like to further talk about is called “Aya Life in Yop City,” by Marguerite Abouet and Clement Oubrerie. This graphic novel is about Marguerite’s everyday life in Yop City. Upon reading “Aya Life in Yop City” a reader can take in all that the great novel has to offer, from a new culture, to a whole new vision of Africa.
When I think of Africa, I vision the safari, the giraffe’s, lions, and other wild animals running and living at peace in their own environment. I think of the hot weather and how humid it must be as well. I get these visions mainly because of the media, more so because of movies. I have never been to Africa, nor do I know of anyone who has traveled there. Graphic novels incorporating cultures, and countries into their novels help me to better understand as well as see a whole new world coming from a graphic novel.
This graphic novel uses different colors in the graphics and visual art. Comics tend to always use only a couple of colors ranging from dark greys or blue colors, that then help in setting the mood of that novel. Aya uses colors ranging from blue, red, brown, yellow, green and purple.
“Aya Life in Yop City,” is for us all. Aya is all of us. She is driven, motivated, goal oriented, and she also follows her dreams and aspirations. This graphic novel is for everyone and not just for an audience of Côte d'Ivoire. The purpose, message, and voice are clear to the readers to grasp.
Lastly, I believe that writers have the responsibility of delivering their audience actual facts about their own cultures/geographic. And not just assume that people live the way they do if the author has not ever been to that country. It is so important to deliver the truth and not just deliver a makeup story of what they think is someone’s culture and way of living. The readers should be open to learning new cultures/countries because first they did choose to read that graphic novel. And also, because it is disrespectful to not be able to fully hear or learn about someone else’s way of life. The quote “you can’t judge a book by its cover” takes a huge role in this.
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