Comic creator and filmmaker Marjane Satrapi's "Persepolis" chronicles the graphic novelist's coming of age during the 1979 revolution in Iran.

Iranian comics creator Marjane Satrapi found her voice as an artist in her graphic memoir Persepolis, chronicling her adolescence during the 1979 revolution in Iran. The critically acclaimed non-fiction, coming-of-age comic was eventually adapted into an animated film that further broadened her audience. Now, Satrapi continues to grow as a filmmaker with her new film Chicken With Plums evoking a spirit of magical realism in its tale of love and longing set in her homeland. The film is co-directed by Vincent Paronnaud.

PBS Newshour interviewed the artist who lives in France about her creativity and the challenges of working in film as opposed to her earlier works in comics.

Here’s a link to the interview and a trailer to Chicken With Plums:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2012/08/conversation-marjane-satrapi.html

If this PBS interview piques your interest in Satrapi, there are quite a few interviews with the comics creator and essays about her work available online.

Here’s an interview with Satrapi discussing her introduction to comics and the inspiration behind Persepolis: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7i9Vs97x7IU

New York Times film critic A.O. Scott offers a critical perspective on the new film Chicken With Plums:

http://movies.nytimes.com/2012/08/17/movies/movie-review-chicken-with-plums-about-contemporary-iran.html

Here’s a vintage NPR interview with Satrapi from 2003:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1283520 

This interview features Satrapi discussing the screen adaptation of Persepolis and her personal point of view expressed through her process of writing and drawing her autobiographical graphic novel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9onZpQix_w&feature=c-shelf-119

If you haven’t seen the extraordinary autobiographic journey of discovery that is Persepolis, here’s the UK trailer for the film:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZ22VyjJ6n8&feature=c-shelf-119

Here’s a link to my friend Michael Cavna’s interview with Satrapi for his blog, Comic Riffs:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/comic-riffs/post/the-comic-riffs-interview-persepoliss-marjane-satrapi-on/2012/04/27/gIQAaeRhlT_blog.html 

Both the graphic novel and the screen adaptation of Persepolis are worth exploring and Satrapi follows in the notable footsteps of comics creator Art Spiegelman who pushed the envelope of what comics can do with his Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel Maus. Artists of this caliber continue to broaden the possibilities of the medium, which inevitably widens the audience for comics in general.

Stay tuned for more entries on provocative comics of the past, present and future and the making of the documentary on comic creators and artists at Comics Are Everywhere!

- Neil Kendricks