A leap from the written word,
or the lone image, to something more alive
DOG EAT DOG
Pain and industry
Persepolis, the alternative-esque novel that got made into a stylishly animated movie, is so loved for its edgy visual and personal tragedy that it has become, ironically, more mainstream than off-centre. With 450,000 copies sold and millions pouring through the box office, it seems to have tapped into a market ripe for arty treatment of Middle Eastern pain, especially if that is through the eyes of an Iranian girl. The Kite Runner got it right too, and although no one could accuse the book of imitating literature, it inevitably got swept up by Hollywood, and inevitably became a hit.
But Persepolis stands out not because of its story, which is simple and has been repeated often through the industry that writing really is, but because of the stark black lines that tell the story, one comic strip-like box after another. For Persepolis isn’t just a book. It’s a graphic novel. And in the dog-eat-dog world of publishing that’s a catchword that is creating entire subsections in bookshops across the world.
GRAPHIC
Drawing the line
But while the term ‘graphic novel’ might be a relatively new marketing gimmick, it is merely being used to describe a form of expression that can be traced back hundreds of years, a form that makes so much sense it is enjoying a renaissance today. So what is a graphic novel, and why does it come together so well anyway?
We’ve practically forgotten him, but William Blake might just have been one of the foremost architects of the graphic novel. Blake, following the artist’s cliché, went through life mostly unrecognised as a genius, but is now a name imprinted on millions of schoolbooks across the world. Remember his Songs of Innocence and of Experience? That might sound a bit complicated, until one picks out two deceptively simple poems, his two best known works: The Lamb (‘Little Lamb who made thee? / Dost thou know who made thee?’) and The Tyger (‘Tyger Tyger, burning bright, / In the forests of the night; / What immortal hand or eye, / Could frame thy fearful symmetry?’). Generations read these in class, but most got only one side of the story. For Blake illustrated them, and he developed his images to the point where they give meaning to the text, as much as text might offer an explanation of the pictures.
But Blake wasn’t just a great poet, or a great artist. He was both, and in putting together his paintings and words he gave a life to his work that could never have been matched by a page of plain text, or a framed picture. What does jamming visuals to text do? The most basic explanation would be that the pictures illustrate the book. But maybe they are the book, as much as the text, and help the words as much as writing lends depth to the visual. And together they make a work, which we might label as a book, or a graphic novel, or any of the other terms we love to slap on things.
We might have left Blake a far way away, but you’ve been staring at some form of the genre your whole life: The Adventures of Tintin, Asterix, Peanuts and all the other comics that have appealed to children and adults over their lives. The term ‘graphic novel’ is used today to differentiate a more serious, supposedly mature work with a plot and a beginning and an end from the usual comic strip, but this is all just word play.
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