The Many Frames of the Graphic Novel

Larry Gonick, Spiegelman, and Satrapi are certainly all writing about historical ideas, and while they all have chosen to write in the comic form, they clearly go about their explorations in vastly different ways. Each author appears to be aware that many readers who read about history outside of a graphic novel may not understand what they are reading, if their understanding of history came from a medium like a textbook.

What Gonick, Spiegelman, and Satrapi have done is to insert themselves into a category of writers known as popularizers. Each author has realized that their intended audience is made up of mostly non-historians, or persons who aren't able to understand historical ideas as they are most commonly written. These three authors, by writing and illustrating their "take" on historical ideas like the history of the universe (Gonick's area), the Holocaust (Spiegelman's choice), and the Iranian Revolution (Satrapi's venture), have successfully been able to give these historical ideas a non-academic look, and as a result, their audience has increased, as has the audience's understanding of these historical moments.

Gonick, who writes a great deal about science (as he does in the opening pages of The Cartoon History of the Universe) relies heavily on using humor, both from his narrator and from those "characters" that offer their opinions throughout the pages. I found this particularly interesting if looked at under the lens of popularization. Humor is not a device often found in material dealing with scientific ideas, and for Gonick to readily use humor throughout his work is an important decision, and one that I think was made with the idea of popularization in mind.

Spiegelman's graphic novel is much different because of the choices he makes to communicate his story. Spiegelman depends more on staying truer to his characters and what they have to say, but obviously he must do this, given that Spiegelman is dealing with the Holocaust, which is inherently expected by most to be dealt with more seriously, and he makes this choice clear right from the start, even before readers open the graphic novel. Spiegelman's language and artistic choices may seem more academic, which would perhaps cause one to assume that it is not a popular piece of work. On the contrary, Spiegelman's choices are merely more serious, and perhaps because many in today's society have read many books about the Holocaust that were serious, that may be the reason that one could object Maus's popularity. But the fact that Spiegelman chose the comic form rather than a straight, word-oriented text is interesting, because it shows his awareness that his intended audience may need a new and different way to look at the Holocaust that is still a way that's able to take the idea seriously.

Satrapi, too, deals with a more serious historical idea like Spiegelman, and she also chose the comic form. The difference I see with what Satrapi has done toward popularization is that she has decided to tell her story from a child's point of view, whereas Spiegelman's story is clearly a tale told by an adult. Satrapi's novel seems to lean some toward Gonick's, at least in terms of the point of view. The interesting thing, though, is that Satrapi, although she is telling her story from a child's point of view, I'm not sure that just any 6-year-old would pick up Persepolis, read it, and understand its message. Sure, it is certainly possible that they could open its pages and at least be able to sympathize with the character representing a very young Satrapi because of their own age, but I doubt that they could understand much of the true nature of the story; and if creating visual narratives so that people can better understand historical moments is the purpose to which popularizing these novels is, I think that it is much more important to focus on that idea than anything else. If the understanding of a historical idea is increased and made more effective, the effects on its audience should be inherent.

Gonick's narrative seems to be along the same lines as Satrapi's, but much in terms of artistic style rather than of what's included in the text, because much of Gonick's text seems more scientific and more advanced. This advanced and more formal writing may create a distance between reader and visual narrative. However, I think the visuality Gonick employs helps lessen that distance, and perhaps Satrapi does as well. Both Satrapi and Gonick illustrate their graphic novels in a more simplistic way, and Gonick especially, whose illustrations are much more cartoon-like, whereas Satrapi's illustrations seem more child-like, which is perhaps her point, since the story is told from a child's point of view. That said, I think each graphic novel's way of dealing with the illustrations both lessens the distance one may feel upon reading each, and creates another question among readers: what are the consequences of portraying a historical event, be it the story of the universe or the story behind the Iranian Revolution, in a way that seems so simplistic, so "dumbed down?" Furthermore, if dealt with in this way, or even in a more complex way, is it possible for either path to help the history be more complete? Is that distance that is created perceived as a negative consequence of how history is portrayed? Or could it serve a positive purpose?

In terms of being "dumbed down," in the case of Persepolis, I don't think the meaning behind the story is lessened to any degree, just because the illustrations seem less sophisticated. After all, the narrator of the story is a child, and if the novel's subtitle is "A Story of a Childhood," then it is apparent to me that this is her point of view. The argument that Satrapi's novel is somehow missing the point by seeming simple doesn't work because of the fact that we are dealing with a child's story. Also, to go against the argument that Persepolis is a child's story and because of that many details may be left out, I think that Satrapi perhaps wants us to be aware of that, and to understand that at the time that she is telling us this story, the simple fact that she was a child should help us realize that many things aren't going to be included in this story, simply because Satrapi as a young child may not have been subjected to those kinds of things. Secondly, I think it is possible that an audience that isn't as akin to history, the same audience that I proposed Satrapi and the other two authors were writing to, perhaps isn't going to even notice or let alone care if some details are left out. This becomes a problem when we as readers tend to believe only what we read or hear in a text, and forget to ask questions about those things which we did not discuss. In that sense, I don't think it is possible for a history to be complete, regardless of what path one takes to try and make it more complete.

When I first read Satrapi's subtitle, "The Story Of A Childhood" I felt a momentary distance between my initial perceptions of the story and the actuality of what the story is. I feel that distance from a story like a sequential narrative can be a hindrance to understanding, and because I feel that one of the purposes that a graphic novel serves is to further understanding, not broaden the gap. That said, I think it is even more important for the author of a graphic novel dealing with history to be aware of this possible hindrance, as we readers should want to be able to understand an actual event as effectively as we can.

Satrapi's creation of that momentary distance because of her subtitle challenged my perception of how I assumed the historical event of the Iranian Revolution and her connection with it was going to be handled. However, because I believe Satrapi has that awareness of how to further understanding within the realm of popularization, she was able to show me that the distance I perceived was not as large as I thought. She does this by presenting me with the subtitle's phrase, "A Childhood," rather than "My Childhood." By not bringing herself more personally into the novel at this point, I felt just a split-second distant toward the novel, which gave merit to the chance that I may be turned off of the novel at this point, or I may not take it as a believeable look at a historical event, and that would counter the intentions of Satrapi to help me better understand this important event.

What I found interesting was how each author further challenged my perceptions of the distance I felt in terms of their immediate choices like the subtitles. They challenged me by utilizing their cover designs to counter my initial reactions upon seeing the covers. Gonick's illustration of the front cover depicts the narrator looking out over a letterbox-type landscape that shows much of what is illustrated within the graphic narrative. Gonick has drawn his narrator in the foreground of the whole illustration, but has purposely given the narrator a drawing tool dripping with ink. These two orientations within the same image work together to help challenge me to think that 1) this narrator will be present again in the story, and 2) because of the drawing tool in his hand, I am more inclined to feel less distant toward the story because I am led to think that it was the narrator who created the story and the images, and not some being outside the scope of the novel. As a visual cue, this worked very well to lessen that distance which these authors attempt to so carefully control.

Satrapi helps challenge my perceptions by including an illustration of a young girl who is drawn to be looking out at me as if to say, "this is my story, not some unknown child's." This choice contradicts and ultimately overshadows Satrapi's choice to write "A Childhood" and not "My Childhood," also making more concrete the idea that words and images can work together, and in some cases without the images, words on a page can create more distance because an image may contradict or better explain the idea that a word or set of words is trying to get across.

Spiegelman illustrates this shortened gap between the distance words may create and how images help us better understand something like a historical event. Spiegelman's narrative depicts two mice huddled together on the front cover, and I felt that because those two mice were drawn in a more stylized, realistic manner, the distance I felt was much less, because I, seeing the visual cues of the swastika and the words "My Father Bleeds History" in conjunction with the two mice, was able to realize that the author intended to talk about a historical event. To talk about that historical event, I assumed that it would be more effective for Spiegelman to depict something as realistic as possible, since history is visceral and real itself. For him to depict the mice in a more cartoon-like manner as Gonick might have done would not have been as effective a choice.

At the very least, then, I think these 3 authors, in terms of the challenges toward distance they showed with the subtitles and images on the covers, show the potential interactions that words and images can have when trying to make sense of a phenomenon like history, which can be hard to grasp if dealt solely in ways like a textbook which is mostly word-oriented, and I think that a more graphic representation of history as is shown in Gonick's narrative, Maus, and Persepolis do reach a larger audience, and do so in ways that a textbook can't.

Works Cited

Gonick, Larry. "The Cartoon History of the Universe." New York: Broadway Books, 1997.

Satrapi, Marjane. "Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood." Pantheon Books, 2003.

Spiegelman, Art. "Maus: A Survivor's Tale Volume 1: My Father Bleeds History." Random House, Inc., 1986.