Marjane Satrapi's "Persepolis" is insightful, clever, funny, and above all, moving. In a word, it's magical.

Persepolis is like few graphic novels or comics I've ever read.  For one, it's a story about a girl  (for a change) growing up in a very right-winged and old fashioned Iran, a country going through a revolution where a minor faux-pas such as not properly covering one's head and hair as a woman could land you in big trouble with the authorities.  Author and narrator Marjane Satrapi creates and maintains a comically realistic atmosphere of her life at home with her rather liberal parents, a very wise and modern thinking grandma, and also her life and experiences while living in Austria for some two years in the mid-1980s.

With her acute and observant eyes and ears, Satrapi captures the ruthlessness a Middle Eastern's country regime change, and she juxtaposes it with her teenage years of living in the West, where, according to her, "if you were to collapse and pass out on a public street, no stranger would ever come to your aid."  This I truly do believe, but I also believe that the West offers certain advantages over living in out-dated governments, and those perks do come at a certain cost, as no place on Earth is perfect, as she so surely and wisely learns.  Her life in Persepolis is equivalent to that of a superhero who, dissatisfied with the ever growing number of those just like her, she travels to a place void of any of her kind, only to discover that it's a cold, soulless abyss for any open minded individual.

In essence, Satrapi is a serious artist who has seen and experienced extremes of both places - each good in its own right, and each also flawed as all hell - but who keeps a strong grasp on her deep down ideals that liberal change is actually a good thing, especially in this world of ours that is trying very hard to catch up to the philosophy of so few free thinking individuals.  It's a smart lesson in adolescent wisdom, political and cultural liberation, and a woman's right to lose her virginity before her wedding night (a concept so alien to Iran she grew up in that it could get the perpetrators of such an activity executed).  After an eye opening and amusing coming of age tale such as this, and on the black & white pages of Satrapi's celebrated graphic novel, no less, the only thing left to look forward to is to watch the 2007 animated film adaptation of the same name.  I, for one, can not wait.
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