Harry Lampert, creator of DC Comics superhero “The Flash” (the original Golden Age Flash, Jay Garrick), is dead at the age of 88.

Back in November of last year, I reviewed Persepolis, an autobiographical comic of a young girl growing up during the Iranian revolution and the subsequent bloody war with Iraq. The story ended with Marjane Satrapi leaving to go to school in Austria.

Unfortunately, the Iran she returns to is not much better than the one she left. The war is no longer on, but the bearded Guardians of the Revolution are always keeping watch to protect their country from decadent Western influence.

Like the first volume, Persepolis 2 ends with Satrapi leaving Iran to live in Europe, this time for good.

According to this story at IOL, Japan’s defense ministry plans to release it’s annual white paper in manga (comic book) format.

"We'd like to be able to reach the younger generations, those in their 20s and 30s," a ministry spokesperson said.

“We hope the public reads the report so that we gain their understanding,” Defence Minister Shigeru Ishiba was quoted by Kyodo news agency as telling a news conference after the white paper was released.

Brian Doherty, in the American Spectator, writes a eulogy for Dave Sim’s comic book epic Cerebus, which ended this month with the 300th issue.

Digging back through my comic boxes, I see that I stopped reading Cerebus at issue 206, at which point the mysogyny and general pretentiousness became too much for me. Doherty’s article makes me think I didn’t really miss anything in the last 94 issues.

But I highly recommend picking up a copy of High Society.

Hat tip to Hit and Run.

Lots of interesting stuff out there today. I’m too lazy to comment on it all, so here are some links:

• Tyler Cowen has some interesting thoughts on immigration. I’m looking forward to his followup.
  
• Bad news: the health benefits of drinking seem only to apply to smokers and ex-smokers.
• Snark of the week: Wonkette suggests some alternate titles for Senator Bill Frist’s family history, Good People Beget Good People.
  
• Clayton Cramer: he’s not just anti-gay, he’s anti-science.
  
• Via Gnostical Turpitude (what is it with all these University of Chicago blogs, anyway?), here's a board game based on one of my favorite novels, Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose.
  
• Via Hit and Run, I learned that Marvel and DC are claiming a joint trademark on the term "Super-Hero".
• And Slate has a page with some 1971 Doonesbury strips featuring John Kerry.

Persepolis is an autobiographical graphic novel, telling the story of a rebellious teenage girl growing up during the 1979 Iranian revolution and subsequent Iran-Iraq war. Marjane Satrapi is the great-granddaughter of Ahmad Mirza, the last Persian emperor of the Qajar dynasty, who was overthrown by Reza Shah in 1925. Her parents, however, along with her uncles, were Marxist revolutionaries, who got more than they bargained for after the Shah was overthrown.

The stark black and white art is reminiscent of Maus, and, like Maus, the story alternates between comedy, such as the fourteen-year Marjane telling a “Guardian of the Revolution” that the picture on her Michael Jackson button is Malcolm X, and tragedy, such as a sequence on the propaganda told to the boys destined to die in the bloody war with Iraq.

If you’re my age, you probably don’t remember much about the Iranian revolution apart from the American hostages, and Ayatollah Khomeini’s face on the cover of Time magazine. Read Persepolis for an insider’s perspective on the making of an Islamic theocracy.