Sunday, May 2, 2010
Persepolis vs Maus
Persepolis and Maus are both graphic memoirs so why are they so different to read? This is the question that I've been asking myself as I was finishing Persepolis. Before we started reading Persepolis I didn't realize just how much graphic memoirs can really vary. Maus was audience friendly and plot intensive drawing the reader's attention. Persepolis, at least to me, just does not accomplish this. This is what got me thinking about the possibilities that one has when they're creating a graphic memoir. There is not one particular rubric or guideline of what an author must include or the way in which the can tell their story. They have all the freedom that a writer of any text has. I'm not sure why, but to me when you throw the word graphic into the mix I can only think of comics. Thought bubbles, text boxes, and bright colors are what I used to think one had to include in anything graphic; reading Maus and Persepolis has changed my ideas of graphic memoir and proven that the genre is greater than comic books.
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I have to respectfully disagree with the statement graphic memoirs are better than comic books. The reason i disagree is because i feel that "graphic memoir" is just trying to make a comic book sound more elegant. I think they are both in fact the same thing. It's not just "graphic memoirs" that differ so much but if you take just about any two comics you can find a number of differences as well.
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