Printmade?

Now there is a sudden shift; from reading about retired superheroes and or deconstructing the idea of a superhero we find ourselves in a new genre of graphic novels. I was only recently aware of Persepolis. Over a year ago when Entertainment Weekly featured half a book's worth of the movies that were scheduled to be released between September and December 2007 and there was Persepolis in the back. The second time I actually saw Persepolis was a clip during this year's Academy Awards mostly because Best Animated Feature is the only feature I tune in for, then I all but completely lose interest in the show. Anyways, after having completely read the graphic novel (the one on the far left), I know the scene I witnessed occured in the second graphic novel (the biological changes the author experienced during puberty). Unfortunately, Persepolis lost to Ratatouille.

It wasn't until my Graphic Novel class that I learned that Persepolis started out as a graphic novel. The main question that kept coming into my mind was the art style. Did Marjane Starapi actually draw this black and white world or was it via printmaking? After some research, it turns out not only was it hand drawn, but the series is actually four books when it was first released in France. The book we just read is books 1&2. The series was simply compressed to 2 books for the English audience.