Pyongyang

"Well, this is a comic book really, or a graphic novel if you want to make it sound more serious. Although it’s non-fiction, actually. It’s by a French guy, which is surprising. He went to Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea , to supervise an animation and he was there for two months getting to know the country. So this book is really a collection of his observations and how he saw the country and how strange it was to be there. The thing about the comic medium is that it’s perfect for representing the completely unreal state of that nation. This is a country unlike anywhere else and the comic book is more apt than any other form. There is a huge amount of propaganda in North Korea against South Korea, where I’m from. They say everyone’s spy, the living conditions are terrible and how horrible it is. But in South Korea there is the exact flip side of that. When I was growing up they said it’s terrible in North Korea, everyone’s a spy and the living conditions are horrible. It is true! It is really horrendous to be there. Delisle has this guide who had to be with him all the time for the whole two months and he notices that there are no disabled people anywhere and eventually he asks the guide; Where are all the disabled people? And the guide says; We don’t have any people like that in North Korea. We are all very healthy. That’s right. Where are they?"