This is my graphic novel story thing.

So I get asked to prom over Facebook. Which probably should have clued me in a little. Not that I like this guy or anything either. He’s short. And not-so-cute. And annoying. And there’s this whole other mess about how he’s actually dating this other girl, and she can’t go with him so he asks me and actually this other girl too, and all three of us are in his former confirmation class at church. And I didn’t even find some of this out until the pre-prom dinner.

But I say yes for whatever reason and so he shows up at my house, and puts on of those flower things on my wrist, and we go out to his car. And his dad is driving. Despite the fact that my date is eighteen? He doesn’t have his driver’s license. We go out and eat dinner, and he keeps making weird comments that are clearly supposed to be flirtatious, but actually just sound like cheesy pick-up lines.

Then when we leave the restaurant, still half an hour before the prom starts, turns out his dad’s been waiting in the parking lot the whole time. How lame can you get. What are we, ten?

Since the prom doesn’t start until seven, and it’s only six-thirty, we think, hey, we should go to a movie in our prom clothes, won’t that be funny. But his dad says, no way, you can’t walk around! And I’m thinking, my parents would let me do this, and aren’t you supposed to be emancipated at 18?

So we compromise, get dropped off at the library where my friends are hanging out which happens to be about a quarter mile from the event (and even this took some persuasion,) but that’s a no-go too, because my date shows a remarkable lack of conversational skills. It’s boring, so we walk to the movies anyway. We watch most of Knowing. Nicholas Caige. We leave before everyone dies, though.

Finally, it’s prom! The most magical night of your life, right! Of course! Not! Hahahaha!

When I walk into the room full of white people that I don’t know from the suburbs grinding on each other, that’s when I really start to realize how dumb this is. Pretty much everything I hate in one room? Dancing, crowds of people I don’t know, suburban kids, country music, I swear to God they played country music mixed in with all the top 40 rap from the past two years, and a date who is really starting to get on my nerves. And probably plenty of Republicans, although I didn’t ask anybody.

But I do try. We dance. A little. Neither of us wants to, him because he’s one of those people who are too embarrassed, me for the same reason plus I don’t really want to touch him that much. When we give up on that, I try to talk to his friends, but they all apparently think I’m a crazy lady or something, since none of them will really talk beyond grunting. And some of them are totally hotter than my date, who has somehow grown uglier as the night goes on, and they’re either dateless or their dates have ditched them, and since I actually have no loyalty whatsoever to my date? I would totally ditch him for someone who’s actually taller than me. But since I’m apparently too weird to talk to. I have to sit. With my boring date. For about four hours.

Eleven o’clock. That’s when our ride gets there. We try to get them to come at ten, but they don’t show up until the very end of the prom. By that time I am so abso-friggin-lutely bored, I’ve danced to Soulja Boy, tried to teach my date how to waltz, and am considering making out with him just to do something. But luckily my ride home saves me. Not that I’m super enthusiastic about said ride, since it consists of my date’s mother’s friend’s daughter, who apparently was nine months pregnant at her prom, or so she declares, and a guy who is probably high. The high guy is driving.

Oh well. We make it home safe. Date guy walks me to the door. But I escape before he tries to kiss me.

I go to bed.

The #1 Persepolis Blog!

I'll just do this one straight up style.

Question 2: Written as a memoir, is Persepolis more powerful than if Satrapi had fictionalized the story? Why or why not? Compare this book to other memoirs you have read. What are the benefits and drawbacks of memoirs?

The only other memoirs I've read are the weird ones, and my total memoir reading to this point is: Maus and Maus II by Art Spiegelman, Man Without a Country by Kurt Vonnegut, and Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs. All of them were awesome. In a completely different way than Persepolis.

Maus and Maus II (excuse me if I stop the italics, they seemed to be getting excessive) were probably most like Persepolis, since they were all graphic novels. Personally, I liked Maus better, just because I'm more interested in WWII than Iran, but both were excellent.

As a memoir, Persepolis is much, much better than as a fictional story. As just a comic, I'd have zero interest in it. The fact that it's true, or mostly true, makes it much more better. Real life stories are always more exciting than fake ones, like I'm sure you can tell by all these fake memoirs that keep popping up. Why do they publish them pretending they're real? Because they don't think they'd get published any other way. (And they're probably crazy, too, you know.) Real life stories are automatically more interesting, because it REALLY HAPPENED.

Question 5: Describe the writer's voice. Is it appealing? Which aspects of Marji's character do you identify with or like the most, the least? Did your reaction to the little girl affect your reading experience?

When I first read it, I was a little annoyed by her. She was too annoying. She didn't understand anything, but tried to act like she did. She was loud. She didn't respect authority. She showed off too much. I dunno, but I kind of have changed my mind? I like her better now. And I think she shows some character development, if you can really say that about a memoir. I like how she always wants to understand more and more about the war, even though she's just a little kid, and kind of like how rebellious she is. Because it shows how you can be totally normal, even though you live in an oppressive regime. And stuff like that.

Question 9: "In spite of everything, kids were trying to look hip, even under the risk of arrest." How did they do this? What do you think you would have done had you been a child in this environment? What acts of rebellion did you do as a teen? In what ways is Satrapi just a normal kid?

It's kinda funny to ask us what acts of rebellion we did as teens, since we're actually still teenagers. But. Whatever. The kids in the book, they kept doing the cool thing, the Western thing, even though they could get arrested. Not just in trouble. Arrested. Possibly tortured.

Now see, me, I break the rules but only when I think I won't get caught. So here, I would for sure not be doing anything wrong. Because I wouldn't want to be arrested just so I didn't have to wear some clothes. Even if they were hot, unattractive clothes. But I guess they rebel stronger because the rules are stronger, so that makes Marji just a regular kid. A little more rebellious than most, but. Still pretty normal. I think she was just raised rebellious. Her parents are pretty crazy that way too.

愛國者 Patriote Patriot Πατριώτης Patriota 愛国者 애국자 Патриот

So I made this cool animation thing but apparently it isn't working, so this is what you have for now:

http://lifeistechnicolor.deviantart.com/art/Patriotism-122833335

It's the picture, minus animation. I'll put it in the post once I get home.



You all remember what our wonderfully former president did after 9/11, don't you?

He told us all keep shopping.

You remember what they've been telling us the whole recession, right?

"Keep shopping.

It's our patriotic duty."


When I started making this, I was planning on putting American flags along with logos to show this whole idea. I put the flags all right, and then I started looking for logos we'd all recognize. It didn't take too long before I started to notice a trend. Almost all the logos I was looking at were red or blue.

This shopping as patriotism thing? It isn't just an idea, you guys. Companies are playing off it. They've been playing off it since way before terrorists hit New York and the economy went in the toilet. It isn't just coincidence that the logo for almost every major company I looked at incorporated red, white, and blue.

So what does that say? That consumerism is American. That to be a consumer is patriotic, and everybody wants to be patriotic, right? Yes. You do. Of course you do. So Ford and Pepsi and Walmart and CNN and AIG and Burger King design themselves as red and white and blue and so if you buy them, you're not just supporting their executives' vacations to Honolulu. You're supporting America. Of course you are.

But what scares me is that I never noticed it before. It wasn't until I put five or ten of them beside each other that I noticed it, and I'm a pretty thoughtful consumer, as that goes. This is the stuff that all of our "feeds" have. Stuff you see every day of your life. But you don't realize these patterns. Which scares me a little. What else is there?

It'd be easy to become a conspiracy theorist.

So maybe it isn't terrible that companies are playing off our patriotism. They play off everything else. Sex, money, greed, cute. It's all marketed. But to advertise with patriotism is like saying that buying things is a duty. That it's your responsibility to consume. And I think there's something wrong with that. Because in Feed? That's what America has become. Consuming. Nothing but. So if it's already our patriotic duty to buy things, how much farther is it until we become as addicted to consuming as the Feed people?

There's another part of my picture, which is the figure made out of things. That basically represents what my "personal feed" would be. Let's go over it.

The Hello Kitty represents a couple of things - how I'm a sucker for cute and how I'm a sucker for Japan. Which is basically what Hello Kitty is the epitome of.

The computer is a computer. I'm sort of addicted to the computer. I would've stuck a TV on there too, but there wasn't any room. Let's say it represents that, too.

The arms are a pencil and pen - drawing and writing. They would have to be part of my feed, because that's basically my life. With writing also comes reading - yes. Such a nerd.

One of the legs is a sock - that's how I like clothes.

The other leg is a LEG LAMP. Because I just like quirky weird things. And it looks sexy, and everybody likes sex.

What does this say about me? That I like stuff a lot of other people do, which is no surprise. What does this say about my individuality? Hey, we're all unique, just like everyone else. You can be plenty individual even if you buy the same things everyone else does. You just have to keep thinking things no one else is. As soon as you stop that, then you're in trouble. That's when you turn into Marty and Link and Calista.

Let's summarize: Consuming is not necessarily a bad thing. It's just when you stop thinking about it that's bad. As soon as you stop noticing how much you're consuming, you might as well be in Feed-land. Just keep paying attention. Keep writing things down. Don't just buy something because George W. told you to and don't ignore how you're being advertised at. Be patriotic. Buy a flag, but only if it's made in America. In short, watch yourself, see yourself. Pay attention to what you're doing instead of just doing it.



Sorry it turned out kind of long. I had a lot I wanted to say.