PVB's take on Pyongyang by Guy Delisle

After reading Pyongyang, I was saddened, angered and a bit bewildered about the isolated culture of North Korea. When I tried to discuss it with anyone else in my age group, I received the typical response:
OMG KIM JONG-IL, TEAM AMERICA, F*CK, YEAH! LOLBBQ!

Well, maybe not with the Barbeque part.

So, if you haven’t already guessed, I hold great disdain for the movie “Team America World Police.” A staple in dorm rooms across the nation, the movie came straight from the masterminds behind South Park and parodies America’s role in world affairs and terrorism using lifelike marionettes. A particularly squat puppet imitating Kim Jong Il is cast as the villain and obscenities and merriment ensues.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I actually like South Park. I think the satire is done very well, and the show and characters and quotes are all pretty much inlayed in the collegiate culture. I take a lot of heat for the fact that I watch South Park with my friends but refuse to watch Team America ever again.

During the time I carried Pyonyang around with me to read it, people asked what it was about. When I answered it was an animator’s graphic memoir about his time spent in North Korea, I had to endure a barrage of Team America quotes. This made me angry. Is the only reason anyone knows anything about North Korea was because of that stupid movie?

Then I remembered that the only reason I knew anything about North Korea was from a comic book.

Which brings me finally to what I want to talk about in this entry. No, I don’t think Pyongyang, like the other graphic memoirs we have read in class, deserves to be called a “comic book.” Or at least, the stigma attached to the term “comic book.”

However, the media and the work itself I think is avant-garde.

Because it is very humorous. It was entertaining to read. The comedic voice percolated through the background of the plot. But at the same time it was edifying, insightful and a good read.

It’s a delicate balance in art and literature to inform, entertain and reach individuals on a universal scale. Art for the mind, the heart and the funny bone. But Pyongyang did all of that for me, in a rather bittersweet, outsider-looking-in way. And like film, I think it's a great way to communicate to a wider audience, if that audience takes the time to find it and appreciate it.

Non-fiction, isolated culture, South Park, art, literature, comic books. Discuss my fellow odd ones out. Discuss.