In 2001, French-Canadian cartoonist Guy Delisle gained access to North Korea's capital for two months on a work visa from a French film animation company. Delisle's graphic novel, "Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea", documents his stay through a fairly straight-forward narrative. Granted, only a fragment from the novel will be analyzed in this paper; however, only a sample is needed to be able to study the art and story telling through the point of view Scott McCloud provides in his non-fiction work of comics, "Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art". This paper will aim to better understand Delisle's personal experience through the study of his comic's style according to what McCloud explains.  

In "North Korea Through the Looking Glass", Kong Dan Oh and Ralph C. Hassig call North Korea "a country with a past but no future" (1). The rule it is subjected to today, the Kim dynasty, was implemented by Kim Il Sung when the northern half of Korea was liberated by the Japanese at the end of World War II. It is very closely based on the Old Choson dynasty from the fourth and third centuries B.C, Oh and Hassig explain (3). The biggest difference between the Choson monarchs and Kim Il Sung and his son is that the latter have employed almost complete autocracy (4), one of which's uses has been successfully cutting themselves off from the outside world and becoming an enigma. "[Until] recently, substantive knowledge of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) was notable mainly for its absence" (Armstrong 357). 

In "The Hidden People of North Korea", Hassig and Oh claim that the country is eroding from the inside. "After the severe famine of the late 1990s, the breakdown of the food distribution and health care systems, the emergence of an underground market economy, and the erosion of the state's barriers to information from the outside world, the regime has lost its legitimacy in the eyes of many ordinary North Koreans" (Armstrong 359). Armstrong continues by pointing out that this does not mean that the collapse of the DPRK is imminent. His article deals specifically with the trends in the study of North Korea and, throughout it, he lists a number of sources that give us greater insight into the regime today. These include scholarly books, refugee testimony, journalism and expatriate accounts, and film and photography collections. 

Absent from Armstrong's list is a three-part documentary by Vice news, a current affairs channel, titled "Inside North Korea" that was published mere months after his article. There are noticeable parallels between the filmmakers' experience and Guy Delisle's in Pyongyang --  the entrance of only approved items, the hotel in which they were made to stay, etc. --  that provide further reliability to both narratives by proving that such treatment is, in fact, the norm for all foreigners visiting North Korea alike. 

Another similarity that permeates both the documentary and graphic novel is the bleak atmosphere. In either, the man followed is mostly portrayed as alone and bored when within the hotel, to the point in which Delisle debates whether the chopsticks set out during dinner are hand carved (Delisle 156). The art style in "Pyongyang" punctuates this. It is simple and devoid of clutter, making spaces seem wider and, therefore, the distance between the protagonist and anything else that much bigger. Furthermore, few characters shown actually interact with Delisle. Mostly, he just observes their behavior from afar; for example, the women catching insects in the lobby (154). 

Of course, this lack of communication is backed by the government since North Koreans cannot be exposed to any sort of corruption. Even the "mini Las Vegas" in the hotel is manned by Chinese personnel; locals are prohibited entry (152).

Further regarding the art style, Scott McCloud describes how the detail utilized when drawing both the characters and the backgrounds changes how the reader feels about them. Keeping a person's design simple while paying attention to the scenery "allows readers to mask themselves in a character and safely enter a sensually stimulating world" (90). "One set of lines to see. Another set of lines to be." He says. Delisle, however, does something different. Not only does he draw himself, the main character, simply, therefore allowing the reader to see themselves in him (83); but he puts no great effort into the places around him, either, which heightens the sense of unreality about them. It makes the reader feel that Pyongyang, that North Korea, is less real in this narration. It makes it seem more like fiction.  

Of course, there are sources such as Vice news's documentary and Peter Sobolev's photography. After reading Delisle's accounts, seeing such places in film gives his novel a whole different dimension. "Pyongyang" lacks not only seriousness but complex story-telling. It is hard to relate to many characters, but it seems that that was Delisle's intention. McCloud points out that "the more cartoony a face is, for instance, the more people it could be said to describe" (78), and Delisle draws those other than westerners as having exaggerated facial features such as cheekbones in the case of the Chinese lounging in their rooms, and noses and eyes for the ladies working in the lobby. Just as he is considered markedly 'other' in their nation, they are different from him in his eyes and he portrays them in such a way that his readers will understand that. 

The fragment of "Pyongyang" ends on a fairly positive note, at least by the rest of the world's standards. That is that "the country is opening up" (159). Unfortunately, it didn't come to pass until it was "faced with a famine it couldn't contain" (159).

However, it is easy to feel, at least with the piece provided alone, that Delisle had a less than favorable outlook even from entering North Korea. He recounts how in the airport, even, they played videos of accidents --  car, skateboard, rodeo --  on loop (158), he says he almost expected howling balls to shoot out of the water if someone tried to escape from the island the hotel was on (156), and he even briefly imagined performing something similar to water torture on a woman working on the hotel for disturbing his sleep (157). Of course, it begs the question, did the country really have such a sinister feeling? 

It is no secret that surveillance is set up everywhere, even within the private rooms, but the problem could always lie within the fact that the country is just so much different than any other in the world. Feelings of unsettlement are only natural when one realizes that, if one is against Kim Jong Il, there is nobody in Pyongyang that will be on one's side. Nicholas Hartmann says in his analysis of "Pyongyang" that, when Delisle asked his guide about people with disabilities in Pyongyang, he replied, "There are none ... we're a very homogenous nation. All North Koreans are born strong, intelligent and happy" (Hartmann 12). At this, he says, Delisle could only stare at him in disbelief seeing as how his guide seemed to truly believe his own words. It was "an admonishing reminder of what not to do: live in a perceived world of denial and blind allegiance" (12). 

Despite such loyalty, "the large numbers of North Korean refugees that have now settled abroad offer an invaluable resource for understanding life in the DPRK" (Armstrong 364). However, "most North Koreans leave their country for economic reasons, not out of political dissatisfaction" (359). Armstrong compares them to Mexicans crossing the border to the United States; they do it seeking a better life, or, in some cases, just survival. Many return to North Korea, facilitating an illegal traffic of goods (359). Those who wish to leave permanently, mostly go to South Korea, where they are re-educated. Surprisingly, about 35% say they would return to North Korea if they could, despite having risked they lives to resettle elsewhere (359).

"Scholarly interest and general curiosity have risen considerably", Armstrong states, "no society in the increasingly homogenized world of the twenty-first Trends in the Study of North Korea 367 century seems so distinctly and defiantly 'other'" (367-368). Since some time ago, studies "have tried to penetrate the notorious opacity of that society and explicate everyday life, ordinary people, and popular mentalities in North Korea" (358). Accounts such as those of Vice news and Sobolev help better understand the atmosphere and certain aspects of such a country, but only those that the government wishes to show. Though the Kim dynasty should surely not collapse any time soon, there is still hope that this hermit country will emerge slightly from its shell. Until then, thanks to works such as Scott McCloud's it is possible to derive much more meaning from accounts such as Guy Delisle's "Pyongyang". 

