The premise was great - given that it's prohibited to take unbiased photojournalism in North Korea, the idea of getting a firsthand account from a graphic novelist and artist instead is an amazing idea! It could have been a great chance to show stories about Pyongyang, including accounts by people living there, that otherwise are literally impossible to show.
Unfortunately the book was terrible. Deslisle was so condescending and disrespectful to the people he was covering that it was painful to read. And he clearly had no concept of how to broach, well, journalism. For example, there's one scene where he essentially interrogates a woman who works for him about whether she really believes "all the propaganda". She nervously agrees, then politely excuses herself from the room, and the author uses this to "show" how brainwashed and uncritical these people are, not realizing that this is a completely inappropriate setting for the conversation given the power imbalance, and not bothering to consider that she may not have been telling him the truth.
Yeah, for all she knows, he may very well have been a spy for the Kim regime, or there might be a hidden microphone present or something, and she and her whole family could end up sent to gulags for answering him.
I'm honestly struck by the sheer awfulness of Deslisle's tactics here. He put a woman and three generations of her entire family at risk just for his own personal greed.
Or she could have assumed, quite reasonably, that Deslisle was a dumb foreigner who could blurt out what she said to whatever person, out of ignorance.
There's another horrible bit near the end where Deslisle is on a tour where they describe alleged torturing of Koreans by US soldiers, and Deslisle thinks (sorry, the bad translation is mine) "our tourist guide was beautiful, and after hearing so many descriptions of torture, I began to imagine myself as a US soldier practicing new torture methods of my own invention on her".
I was speechless after reading that, my little remaining sympathy for Deslisle completely evaporating.
Yes, I agree the premise was great, which is why I bought the book. Unfortunately the execution was very bad, for exactly the reasons you mentioned. Very, very disappointing.
In contrast, Igort and his Japanese Notebooks seem to treat the Japanese with respect, even when they do things that seem strange or unappealing to him (like the stressful work environment of manga artists).
Unfortunately the book was terrible. Deslisle was so condescending and disrespectful to the people he was covering that it was painful to read. And he clearly had no concept of how to broach, well, journalism. For example, there's one scene where he essentially interrogates a woman who works for him about whether she really believes "all the propaganda". She nervously agrees, then politely excuses herself from the room, and the author uses this to "show" how brainwashed and uncritical these people are, not realizing that this is a completely inappropriate setting for the conversation given the power imbalance, and not bothering to consider that she may not have been telling him the truth.