Reddit mentions of The Complete Persepolis

also, Persepolis

Here's a link to amazon for anyone interested! (us). Absolutely worth a read!

https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Persepolis-Marjane-Satrapi/dp/0375714839

Isbn to look it up at your library as well - 9780375714832

I don't read a lot of action-y graphic novels, so I can't really help you with finding more stuff like Watchmen, Wanted, etc. (However, you have to promise me you'll read Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns.)

But I can recommend more laid-back graphic novels if you're ever in the mood for something different! Give American Born Chinese, Anya's Ghost, or Daytripper a shot sometime.

Persepolis and Maus are also graphic novel must reads, no matter what genre you usually favor. And Scott Pilgrim was super popular recently, with great cause.

And, if you're willing to settle down for a long haul and read your comics backwards, I really can't recommend Fullmetal Alchemist enough. 27 volumes, but it's the best action series I've ever read and one of my all-time favorites of any sort of media. Check out a stack of it from the library and you'll fly right through it. That's what I did one afternoon, and my time has never been better spent.

Edit: More suggestions, typos.

Bone

Akira

Mouse guard

Persepolis

Scott Pilgrim

Swamp thing by Alan Moore

Judge Dredd: The cursed earth uncensored

Nemesis the warlock

The league of extra ordinary gentlemen

Hellboy

Zot! by Scott McCloud

V for vendetta

Nimona

The sandman

Maus

American Flagg

Bean world

Dan Dare by Garth Ennis

Flintstones by Mark Russell

Giant days

Groo

The incal

Jonah Hex

The nam

Queen and Country

Rork

Usagi yojimbo

Nausicaa

Barefoot Gen is written by a survivor of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. It's very moving and raw and personally I think it's better than Maus or Blankets. It should be required reading in all schools.

Persepolis is another amazing read. It's written by someone who grew up in Iran and witnessed and ran away from the revolution in the late 70's. It shows that the people in Iran and that part of the world are just like us, though because of America's (and other foreign powers) intervention, has become really conservative and hostile. I think this is another book that should be required reading in schools.

Fun Home is another personal tale about a woman's recollections of growing up and about her father.

Adrian Tomine's Shortcomings Adrian often writes very personal stories that are heart felt and touching.

American Born Chinese Gene Yang writes about growing up as an Asian American.

Epileptic French, David B writes about his Epileptic brother.

The way I learned about pre-revolution Iran was through the excellent graphic novel (comic strip book?) Persepolis. I'm not sure if it's properly called a graphic novel, but it was so easy to read, and interesting.

Here's what the art looks like.

Persepolis

Not exactly scholarly, but a good read.

Someone absolutely asked us to go into Iran in 1953, in fact, it took them several years of begging and eventually threats that Iran was in imminent danger of falling to the Soviets, while we were in the midst of the Cold War, to get the US to finally do what they wanted.

That someone was Britain, and it was all because they wanted to take back control of the oil in Iran that the democratically elected leader, with the support of the Iranian people, had nationalized. Britain's agents were also already in there doing everything they could to subvert the government long before the US came in.

The coup ended up being a huge mistake and the world (and especially Iran) is still paying for that mistake today, but there absolutely was external pressure to get the US to take action.

The US doesn't make every decision in a vaccuum. I think you'll find many (perhaps not most, but many) of its military actions have been influenced or been supported by other governments, in the context of the current situation across the world. That doesn't make it right, but it can be hard to determine what is right when you're in the midst of the situation. It's all too easy to condemn the action in hindsight, but I bet if you saw the spread of Communism and knew they had thousands of nukes trained at us in submarines and countries just off of your soil, and one general getting some bad info could lead to global thermonuclear war, you'd be making some crazy decisions as well.

You can read more about this on Wikipedia, although I first heard about it when reading Persepolis, a graphic novel written by an Iranian woman, when I was in college. It was very interesting and I highly recommend it by the way. They made a film adaptation as well, although it's not on Netflix Instant currently.

So I like comics but I agree with Jacob that overall, comics are simplistic and less interesting than regular novels. They can be charming in that aspect, but I understand why many people don't like them.

With that said, Persepolis fits all the criteria Jacob asked for.

Persepolis is an autobiographical graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi depicting her childhood up to her early adult years in Iran during and after the Islamic revolution.

Also a graphic novel that's pretty awesome.

I'll tell ya one thing, if you submitted a story/chronicle of how your class responds to this etc I would read the shit out of it.

Good on you for thinking outside the box and trying something new to help engage your kids. I had a spare few teachers back when I was in school who did but I was grateful for each and every one of them.

Keep being awesome!

Edit: Also, ever considered throwing V for Vendetta into your lesson plan? Or Persepolis for that matter.

Last thing, if you can find time or on the occasional handouts to include something from Calvin and Hobbes there's a lot of thought provoking strips that Watterson did that could easily be an aide for struggling readers to help them find deeper meaning in literature. Just a thought. Shouldn't be hard to figure out why my favorite job was working in a book store, heh.

• March is a series of three graphic novels about the civil Rights movement, it's very exciting while staying extremely historically accurate. I highly recommend this. https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1603093958/
  
• Maus by Art Spiegelman about the Holocaust using anthropomorphic animals. It's based on his parents experience of the concentration camps. https://www.amazon.com/Complete-MAUS-Art-Spiegelman/dp/0141014083/
  
• Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi is set in Tehran, Iran during the 1960's. Telling a very personal tale about life there before, during, and after the Islamic Revolution. https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Persepolis-Marjane-Satrapi/dp/0375714839/

Oh man I love Maus. It's fantastic.

Have you read Persepolis?

Yep. I haven't read the sequel.

Edit: I may have read "The Complete Persepolis" which is both books in one volume.

I've read and loved almost all of the recommendations already here (TAMORA PIERCE). But to add some that haven't been mentioned (and trying really hard to not overload you with 20 books at once), I read and reread Robin McKinley's The Hero and the Crown and its prequel so. many. TIMES. Maybe even more than I reread Tamora Pierce. Patricia McKillip, Maria Snyder, Patricia C. Wrede (Dealing with Dragons quartet), Althea Kontis, Francesca Lia Block, Libba Bray and Susan Fletcher (Dragon Chronicles) are similar authors to check out for awesome female-driven fantasy, with varying degrees of lightheartedness. Wrede, Fletcher, Snyder and Kontis all wrote books that lean a little less epic/serious, Block writes a lot in prose that's also a very quick (but more intense) read, McKillip tends to be more wordy but beautifully so, and Bray can kind of go either way depending on the series.

For more contemporary fiction, RACHEL COHN (of "Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist"). Her Gingerbread series has content a good deal more mature than Angus, Thongs, etc., but her style is similarly irreverent and witty and really fun. Seriously, check her out. Sharon Creech's Walk Two Moons is like a much younger version of Cohn, still zingy and sweet. For a quieter modern-day read, Garret Freymann-Weyr writes realistic (more mature) young adult relationships, and introduced me to the idea of bisexuality in a sort of roundabout way.

Julia Alvarez relates stories about the Latina-American experience incredibly well, although I think the first book I read by her takes place solely in the Dominican Republic. According to my reading list, I guess young me got sick of reading about other white people, so I'll add Marjane Satrapi's hilarious graphic novel Persepolis and the more sedate Shabanu series by Suzanne Fisher Staples.

I'd also strongly second comments for Gail Carson Levine, E.L. Konigsberg, and did I mention Tamora Pierce?

(I tried to link a lot of authors to my faves from their work, but I won't be mad if you never look at any of them. Is your reading list long enough now? Also, I know you didn't ask for a ton of fantasy/historical fiction recs, but I think a lot of us defined our teenagerhood by and identified more strongly with one of those series or another.)

tl;dr my top three recs that haven't been mentioned yet are Rachel Cohn, Julia Alvarez, and that one duo by Robin McKinley.

>How is education in your country?

It's complicated. Please keep in mind that what follows is directly from my experience from going to public and charter (primary and secondary) schools, and public community college/university. My experience is also limited to the following states: Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, Kansas, Montana, and Wyoming.

First, everywhere I have lived, education has always been the means to a job/career. No more and no less. The humanities and the arts are generally seen as knowledge for the sake of knowledge (or mere "hobbies"), and thus are only really pursued by people from the higher socioeconomic backgrounds, or anyone lucky enough to get a "full ride" scholarship, or anyone who qualifies for loans from the federal government based on financial need and academic merit. Non-STEM people are the academic "second class" who aren't really taken seriously until they are successful (read: millionaires).

Primary school is very general and is usually focused on learning how to read, write, and do basic math, along with social interaction.

Secondary school is also very general and usually has a focus on social studies (history and government), math, science, and English, but students can begin to follow their own direction by choosing from a variety of elective classes to take. These electives are limited to what is available based on the school's budget, what teachers are available, and what the demand is for particular courses. Some schools require that students take language electives and art electives. Some schools offer technical and professional electives. This phase also includes taking regular standardized tests (both from the state level and national level) in reading, math, and science.

As far as I know, the requirements for admission to an accredited college or university vary wildly, but most require a minimum SAT (980) or ACT (21) score and a minimum high school GPA (usually 3.0 on a 4 point scale). Some also require that people take specific courses in high school. Some also require essays. Some also require letters of recommendation. The for-profit schools usually only require someone who is able to pay (or get loans) and occasionally demand that their applicants have a high school diploma or G.E.D.. Tech schools (job training you pay for) requirements also vary widely, but are generally incredibly flexible and can be as minimal as completing an interview.

Once at the post-secondary level, quality of education is difficult to quantify. Each school has its own professors with their own research focuses and specialties. A few schools (including public ones) have been criticized for grade manipulation (in both directions). The trick is to find the school that is focused on what you want to learn and go there. More and more post-secondary schools are partnering with industry representatives to tailor the curriculum to industry needs, but that is usually limited by location (i.e. universities in California teach a lot of tech because they partner with Apple and Microsoft while universities on the east coast teach a lot of finance because they partner with investment firms and banks). Most people assume that the schools on the coasts are the best, but, again, there isn't an unbiased, controlled way to quantify that assumption.

People who do get to post-secondary education have a variety of ways to pay for it. The ones who appear the most exceptional on paper (or are good at sports) get full scholarships that pay for all of their expenses. The ones who apply to the federal government, show academic merit, and financial need (based on family income) can get access to grants, scholarships, and loans. For everyone else, scholarships are available for a variety of qualifications, but are more competitive. There are scholarships for women in STEM, people who have blue eyes, people who wear duct tape dresses to prom, people who like archery, people who intend to enter a certain industry, single mothers, and first generation college students, to name a few. For those who don't qualify for, don't get, or don't apply for scholarships, they either get their family to pay for their education or they hold a job while going to school.

I personally believe that knowledge is a right and should be freely available to anyone who seeks it, but I understand how and why our current system works the way it does, and what benefits such a system affords. The internet is also helping in this respect by making loads of information available for free, but sometimes a good teacher/guide can make all the difference (and not everyone in the U.S. has access to a computer, let alone the internet). People who are smarter than me are working on it, though, so I’m pretty optimistic that we’ll soon find a balance between individual merit, industry, correcting systematic inequities, collective intellectual progress, and paying for it all. Go team!

>Have you heard about our lord and saviour Synthwave?

No. I mostly listen to the radio in my car and Pandora. I occasionally find new music on YouTube and through friends, but it is usually specific to a single artist or band, not really a whole genre. I don't really focus much on music either (I don't like concerts or "live" versions of songs, I don't go out of my way to follow any specific band, and I don't buy merchandise or cds).

>Did you know that it snows in Iran and we have ski resorts?

Yes. This is the first photo I ever saw of Iran. I was writing a paper on Persepolis and had trouble connecting some of the story with my mind image of Iran (sand), so I looked up "Tehran mountains" and got this image. Those mountains look a lot like the Rocky Mountains, but the Tehran is so much more expansive and cluttered-looking compared to Denver (and it looks like Tehran is right up against the mountains, while Denver is several miles from the Rockies).

Let me know if you have more questions for me or if I need to clarify anything! Thanks for the info!

Hey! We just finished reading out 2nd book which was The Complete Persepolis. If you're not familiar: http://amzn.to/auT99V I thought we'd read books that were turned into movies. And then watch the movie afterwards. I was thinking our next book would be The Kite Runner. If you're interested here's my email: butlerdaly@gmail.com

Persepolis isn't your typical graphic novel, but I like it.

There's a pretty good Batman trilogy: Haunted Knight, The Long Halloween, and Dark Victory. It has more of the Gotham crime families in two of them, which is interesting. Also, I liked Frank Miller's Batman: Year One a lot.

If you also like graphic novels that aren't really "comics", I recommend Asterios Polyp (a man examines his life and a failing relationship through architecture and design), Maus I and II (a story about a Jewish family in the holocaust depicted as mice) and Persepolis (a memoir of a woman who grew up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution).

And by all means, for sure, read the Sandman books.

I just read the origins of Cloak & Dagger, which was a great story across 4 comics collected into a graphic book. It's out of the 80s but it's darker than most of the time. Would be similar to how Daredevil is portrayed currently.

Amazon Link

Persopolis: I'll be honest, I did not read this one - but saw the movie which was literally animated in the same style and I assume the story was identical because it was soon good.

Amazon Link

Another classic like this is Ghost World from Daniel Clowes. Maus would be another classic in this type of graphic novel. For the super heroes, Killing Joke and Dark Knight seem to be required reading.

> I on't know about him but I personally can't commit to longer storylines because I think life is too short to stick with a single story for weeks or months, when you can come up with something new every other day.

I appreciate your honest comment, but I can't help but think that some - of - the - best - stories simply need a longer effort to be narrated, or you're stuck in a much more shallow world of storytelling

If you've already read Persepolis, what more of an AMA do you need?

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Persepolis-Marjane-Satrapi/dp/0375714839/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1269287074&sr=1-1