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Authors
Art Spiegelman (b. 1948)
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Spiegelman’s books include The Complete Mr. Infinity (1970), The Viper Vicar of Vice, Villany, and Vickedness (1972), Zip-a-Tune and More Melodies (1972), Ace Hole, Midget Detective (1974), Every Day Has Its Dog (1979), Work and Turn (1979), Two-Fisted Painters (1980), Maus, A Survivor’s Tale: My Father Bleeds History (1986), Maus II, A Survivor’s Tale: And Here My Troubles Began (1991), Open Me . . . I’m a Dog! (1997), and In the Shadow of No Towers (2004). Comic Books as History: The Narrative Art of Jack Jackson, Art Spiegelman, and Harvey Pekar (1989) by Joseph Witek locates Spiegelman’s importance in the evolution of underground comics and the graphic novel. A broader view is found in Charles Hatfield’s Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature (2005). Alan Rosen analyzes Maus in Sounds of Defiance: The Holocaust, Multilingualism, and the Problem of English (2005).
Questions for Discussion and Writing
Maus is new to NAAL, and the inclusion of this excerpt may cause some controversy. This is a “graphic novel” (some would say “comic book”) about a terrible episode in the modern history of the West – and using mice, cats, and pigs to retell the Holocaust was an authorial decision that still troubles plenty of people. What is Spiegelman up to? Does the strategy work? What are the cultural contexts that might make Maus effective, when the shelves of prose history are packed full?
1. Compared to a historian, a biographer, or a novelist, how does a cartoonist or a graphic novelist look at the world? What do you see as the quirks and strengths of Art Spiegelmann’s point of view?
2. If Spiegelmann himself were not Jewish, and if members of his family had not been caught up in the Nazi persecutions, would you read the book in the same way? Why or why not?
3. There are plenty of films, plays, television shows, and other media about Nazi Germany, World War II, and the near-extermination of the European Jews. As we sort them out, what values and aesthetics should we bear in mind?
