Introduction

Abstract

To read the comics of Joe Sacco, and those by Marjane Satrapi, offers considerably different experiences not least in terms of subject matter. Sacco’s work depicts his travels in conflict ridden areas in the early 1990s Balkans and more recently the Middle East, while Marjane Satrapi’s memoirs tell of growing up in Iran before, during, and after the overthrow of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi in the late 1970s, and of her teenage years in exile in Europe. The former thus relays a journey undertaken in a professional capacity and the latter traces the formation of a diasporic and transcultural subject position. Aesthetically, too, there are clear disparities. Sacco’s style mostly adopts a realist tenor, at least by comics standards. At times, his line drawing exaggerates angles, uses foreshortening, and expressive characterization. But this is countered by naturalistic observation of detail, cross hatching to articulate shadow and form, and use of linear perspective. Satrapi’s work, on the other hand, is highly stylized and selective. It frequently features a flattened picture plane and privileges shape and contrasting blocks of black and white over line as a means of figuration. However, such differing topics and their decidedly aesthetic qualities notwithstanding, it is possible to conceive of a significant link between these texts. This is the link that initially sparked my investigation, and that has prompted the themes articulated and tracks followed through the chapters of this book.