Starred Review In 2009, the world watched as Iran erupted in revolt over the disputed presidential election. And yet, for all the attention paid to the major political players and masses of protesters, it's easy to miss the crucial reality that the ensuing crackdowns happened to individual people, with families, friends, and lives on the line. While this story about a young man and his mother searching in vain for his missing teenage brother rested during a protest and swallowed up into the void of the Islamic Republic's sham of a judiciary system fictionalized, it still carries with it the weight of documentary, putting a face on the wide-angle CNN panoramas and YouTube videos that captured the world's attention. As Hassan and his mother bounce in vain from hospital to courtroom to prison to cemetery (Zahra's Paradise is the name of a huge graveyard outside of Tehran), they are confronted by doublespeak worthy of Orwell and confounded by a labyrinthine bureaucratic nightmare worthy of Kafka. Khalil's pure, black-and-white cartooning is understated when it needs to be and attention-commanding when it wants to be. Both artistically and thematically, this work is rooted in the finest examples of graphic nonfiction, including Maus (1986), Joe Sacco's comics journalism, and, especially, Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis (2003). An afterword is careful to note that the creators haven't attempted to provide a neutral, even-handed look at Iran's Islamic Republic, but there is no doubting the truth in a mother's tragic words: "It doesn't take much, to lose a child in this country."

This collected web comic resembles Persepolis in its loathing for the current Iranian regime, but these creators (anonymous for political reasons) focus their story via an urgent crisis within one family, as young Mehdi-s mother and brother search for him after he vanishes during the government-s crackdown on protests against fraudulent national elections in 2009. Now no one in authority will admit knowing what happened to him. From the testimony of the angry but fearful people Medhi-s friends encounter, from cab drivers to former aristocrats, it-s clear that Mehdi is just one of a disaffected majority whose existence the people in power must deny, since they can maintain the official version of righteousness only by rape, torture, and murder. The authors successfully generalize from one case to the dreadful condition of all Iranians. Medhi-s mother is named Zahra, and -Zahra-s Paradise- is also a huge cemetery near Tehran; the woman-s graveside rant condemns everyone who won-t stand up for justice. Khalil-s art is a mix of confident caricature, clean cartoony panels, and montage that-s remarkably adept at capturing all kinds of action and emotion. The end effect is a powerful look at a people-s struggle that goes beyond politicized tropes. (Sept.)