Complex Concepts Made Interesting by Squarzoni (pg# 37-71)

Hey friends! This is my second blog about the graphic memoir “Climate Changed” by Philippe Squarzoni and as much as I am enjoying this book, I have begun to find it a little more intense in terms of explanation about the science of climate change. Truth be told though, the complicated explanation about greenhouse gases and its effects on ozone layer was not mind-numbing to me like some of those heavy informative articles because the amazing artwork by Squarzoni makes the reading of memoir visually interesting and much more compelling. He keeps on alternating between portrait-sketches, images and real photographs which makes it more appealing to readers. For instance, I noticed that to explain the emission of methane gas from various sources, he first put a sketch of a landscape to show the organic decomposition as one of the sources and then he put a photo of a coal mine to show another source which saves Squarzoni from a monotonous delivery of information. These artworks entice the readers to move to the next panel and keep reading through the book.

Moreover, I also liked the use of panel format in the memoir because it divides the dense information into concise text with a relevant image and lets me take a pause between each panel to observe those images. While reading the memoir, I noticed that I would first take a look at the image in the panel, then read the caption of the text and then look at the image again to have a better understanding of the new information which really helps me absorb and process the information in my mind unlike some other informative books which are just a list of factoids to me. Therefore, I think that one of the main highlights of Squarzoni’s graphic memoir is the artwork he has included and this artwork really makes his book accessible to the readers. Anyone agree?