With the passing of North Korea's idiosyncratic dictactor, Kim Jong Il, it might be just the right time to give Guy Delisle's graphic novel, Pyongyang a read.

With its wonderfully simple pencil drawings, Pyongyang documents Delisle's extended stay in North Korea as a director for an outsourced animation team. Through humour and keen observences he explores the unique and often baffling society that is North Korea. With his trusty chaperone, Delisle experiences both the workplace and the "recommended" tourist sites, while doing his best to handle the culture shock. From amongst the backdrop of abandoned half-finished building projects and power outtages, endearing characters emerge...sometimes walking to work backwards as a form of exercise and other times hand-pruning grass in parks as a form of patriotism. Having gotten a glimpse behind North Korea's closed doors, something so few will ever get to do, Delisle does his best to pass on the experience, and Pyongyang does just that, in heartfelt and engaging fashion.