This Sunday I chose to deviate from the topics I comment upon with my comic strips, to pay homage to a wonderful artist: Marjane Satrapi (1969-2026).
Born in Iran, Marjane grew up to see the fall of the Shah and the rise of the Islamic republic. She eventually fled to France, and became globally acclaimed thanks to her first graphic novel, Persepolis, which was based on her personal experiences during those tumultuous years. Through her young and rebellious eyes, Persepolis captures both the social and political repression imposed by the Ayatollahs, as well as the hypocrisy of the West which chose to paint all Iranians with a wide brush of religious fanaticism.
Persepolis reached an even bigger audience once it was adapted into an animated film, which was nominated for an Oscar and is, in my opinion, one of the best pieces of animation of the XXIst century.
If you haven’t watched yet, you owe it to yourself to remedy that immediately, as it will grant you a better perspective of the ongoing conflict between Iran and the West.
After creating more successful graphic novels, Satrapi moved on to become a movie director with films like Chicken with Plums (based on one of her books) and Radioactive, an excellent biopic of Marie Curie.
Last Thursday, the news broke that Marjane had passed away, at the age of 56. The official press release, written by her family, is that Marjane had died “of a broken heart” since she’d never been able to overcome the loss of her beloved husband, Mattias Ripa (1972-2025).
In case the image needs further explanation, the figures in the center are supposed to be Marjane and Mattias, and the other two are her grandmother and her uncle Anoosh (killed by the Ismalists when she was a child) who are two of the most important characters in Persepolis.
The world is duller and sadder due to this great loss. Descanse en Paz.
