Not long ago I scraped together all the coins I had and went into Gosh!, a comic book store in Soho, London, so that I could buy a copy of Black Hole by Charles Burns. It’s a brilliant graphic novel that artfully depicts the teenage angst we all know and have hated. Graphic novels can tell a story in a way that words can’t. It’s amazing how much emotion can be conveyed in those little panels – which is perhaps why some of them have been so successfully turned into movies (think Ghost World by Daniel Clowes and Watchmen by Alan Moore).
Imagine my extreme delight when I saw that Bong Joon-ho, director of Oscar-winning Parasite, will be flip-reversing this and publishing the storyboards of Parasite as a graphic novel. Before shooting the movie, Bong drew every scene as he saw it in his mind. This translates to a 304-page retelling of what we’ve already seen on the screen. As someone who loves graphic novels, I’m thrilled. As someone who doesn’t know how to plan, I’m inspired. Here’s to you, Bong Joon-ho, a director who keeps reminding the west that story alone, and the various ways of telling it, can break down barriers.
