Thoughts & Things

Graphic Memoirs and Biographies

I have a lot of friends who enjoy reading graphic novels and comic books. I also have a lot of friends who enjoy reading memoirs, autobiographies, and biographies. Sadly, I don't have many friends who fit comfortably into both groups to have many friends who enjoy graphic memoirs. It isn't that I think that either group would dislike graphic memoirs; it is merely that neither group has had much opportunity to experience graphic memoirs. I genuinely think that anyone who enjoys graphic novels, and anyone who enjoys biographical works would enjoy this type of book.

The combination of images and words creates a powerful narrative, regardless of the kind of story being told. Those images and words become even more powerful when one realises that what is unfolding before them really happened.

My personal favourite is probably Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. This is an autobiographical work in which Satrapi tells the story of her childhood in 1970s Iran, as well as the time she spent out of Iran in her teens, and her later return to Iran. This story is poignant and heartbreaking, but also spirited and humourous. This was later made into an excellent film as well. The story that is told is heightened by the images Satrapi offers. As a white westerner, I definitely felt like this book offered me a perspective that was infrequently offered to me elsewhere. It moved me, but it educated me as well.

Among my favourites, as well, would be Maus by Art Spiegelman. This is the memoirs of a man speaking of his own relationship with his father, as well as his father's story of WWII. Spiegelman's father was a hardworking man who ended up in ghettos, in hiding, and in the brutal concentration camps of the holocaust. In this story, the Jewish characters are all depicted is mice, with the Nazis depicted as cats. The story itself is engaging and heartbreaking as one expects a WWII memoir to be, but the unique style leaves it somehow more engaging and easier to relate to than a traditional memoir might have been. It gave a lot more accessibility to a hard to swallow story than most books tend to do. Maus opened up history to a whole new audience, and it broadened the graphic novel format to include a more diverse set of stories than had ever been seen in the medium in the mainstream before.

Persepolis and Maus tend to be the most popular in this category, but there have been numerous other works that fit into this area as well. Blue Pills: A Positive Love Story was not a favourite of mine, but I did enjoy it--I also thought it ranked among stories that needed to be told. It is a memoir written by a man in a relationship with a woman who had been diagnosed as HIV positive, along with her young son. Pyongyang is travel memoir written by a man who spent time in Pyongyang, North Korea for work. I thought I would love it, but this actually ended up being among my least favourites of this area, as I thought the man writing it was... well, he was an asshole, and not the good kind. He also wrote a graphic travel memoir about his time in Myanmar, titled Burma, which I had wanted to read due to an interest in the country. I was entirely put off from reading this by my initial experience with his work. One I have never read, but would very much like to, is a biographical work about the life of Louis Riel. I have wanted to learn more about Louis Riel anyway, and I love the way the medium brings history to life.

For anyone who is certain they life comics, but not certain they would like autobiographical or biographical works, I recommend you try the blend. For anyone who is certain they enjoy biographies and autobiographies, but not certain they would enjoy comics, I recommend you try the blend. The unconventional merge has led to some of the great literary works of our time, and I genuinely believe this is a fascinating area to learn about the lives of others from.