Guy Delisle

The drawings and format of ‘Pyongyang: a journey through North Korea’ are amazing and the fact you can ‘see’ Guy Delisle’s experiences through his drawings really adds to the purpose of this genre of writing (In fact if all travelogues were of this ilk it wouldn’t be the worse thing!) Equally, the content of the work - two months in the most guarded and clandestine country of the last century - is captivating. The words and pictures combine to evoke a tangible sense of oppression and delusion of a people which is just what is needed for awareness to develop and increase. A slight blemish I found was that the author seemed a tad petulant and somewhat passive aggressive during his stay, which led to a diminishing respect of the customs and people he had to abide. Don’t get me wrong, I think I would’ve found it hard not to react to such a regime and way of life but the way he did it (throwing paper aeroplanes out of windows, running from guides, offering his translator 1984 to read) seemed a little immature. That being said, the fact he took 1984 with him for a reread on the trip was a nice touch. Let’s all hope that books like this ring increasing awareness to what is happening in this cloaked crucible and paves the way for the help of the hundreds of thousands of North Koreans who are impoverished, oppressed or brainwashed to eventually secure a better future which unites them with their global family.… (mais)

I guess I just don't like Guy Delisle that much. He has a certain superiority, an incredulousness that people could be taken in by the propaganda, which gets almost sneering at times.

Hey Guy, maybe the easily traceable guide didn't want to denigrate the regime because he didn't want it to be written up in a comic book? Maybe people just didn't trust you enough to say "y'know, you're right - this is horseshit." Maybe not - maybe people do believe the propaganda they are fed, but I didn't feel much attempt on Delisle's part to empathise with the North Koreans he met. It was all a bit self-centred.

Additionally, the editing in the book was a bit off - "ball" instead of "bullet"; "anti-American Propaganda" when only "Pro-American propaganda" made sense (maybe that last was a mistake in the original). There were one or two others, and I wasn't trying to find them. I expect a bit better from D Q.

I may just be grumpy today, but there's something about this book I find annoying. The art was serviceable, some of it very good and effective. I'd say it's pretty good comics, craft-wise, but still I just didn't enjoy it very much.… (mais)