Book Review

         

     From one artist to another, I must say I was completely taken a back from this graphic novel. I have a huge fascination with history and this book was absolutely perfect for me. Maus is different from pretty well every graphic novel I’ve seen, what I mean by that is the drawing style is less like a typical graphic novel you’d expect for example Watchmen, V for Vendetta..etc. and reads more like a newspaper comic strip. The drawing is very simple that consists of basically black and white sketches and yet it’s really effective for this story. Maus is a World War 2 story, and the story of Art Spiegelman’s conversations he has with his father Vladek Spiegelman who explains his time during world war two as a polish Jew. It begins with Vladeks early life, meeting and marrying Anja and trying to survive as a polish Jew while all the Jews are being rounded up by the Nazis. There are two aspects that specifically make Maus stand out. First is the drawing style, in addition to the simple style of drawing, all the human characters are depicted as animals. Or rather they have animal heads, the Jews are mice and the Nazis are cats. The characters are human begins they just happen to look like animals and it’s never really acknowledged within the story that the characters appear this way, they just do to represent this game of cat and mouse. Normally I wouldn’t enjoy books that have animal characters; however it surprisingly is very effective. The second thing that makes Maus so good is the frame story. Maus is a story within the story, the internal story is of course the story of world war two and the time before Vladek got sent to Auschwitz. However the frame story involves Art Spiegelman and his relationship with his father as he tries to get these stories about World War two from his father. We see some well fleshed out characters with Art and Vladek, as we watch Vladek try to deal with the demons of his past and also the demons from the present because his wife Anja has recently committed suicide. We see that he and his son must both deal with that together. A prime example of this in the novel is on page 93 when Vladek discovers an old comic Art made just after his mother’s suicide called “Prisoner of Hell Planet “The comic was so personal, so dark and twisted but yet so real. It literally through me back in my seat, but I can appreciate it so much because it shows that Art isn’t afraid to go places where other artist shy away from. Vladek is not easy to get along with or fall in love with, he’s very miserly and very stubborn and very much the stereotypical Jew. A Fact that Art actually points out at one part of the story. “In some ways he’s just like the racist caricature of the miserly old Jew” (pg-131) so even though Art is frequently irritated by his father, he is attempting to understand his father by gaining an insight to these stories. We often see his father is not in the best of health; he recently suffered a heart-attack and is most likely not long for this world. Art see’s that it is important for him to get these stories while the previous generation is still living. I think this is the most important point to take from this book, the generation that actually lived through world war 2 is dwindling and it is important that we speak with them and get their stories while there still around. That’s how we gain the true stories of history and the true fascination that is inherent in history by listening to those generations and getting a real life perceptive.

Maus-Pantheon Books-1991

Effects

Like any artist Art Spiegelman has his own unique graphic style that is displayed throughout his works. This is demonstrated exceptionally well in his graphic novel Maus. The power of this book doesn’t just come from the story being told by his father Vladek Spiegelman who survived Auschwitz by luck and diligence. But rather, what makes this graphic novel so powerful is the way in which Art Spiegelman tells the story. Spiegleman doesn’t sensationalize or fabricate this story in anyway, which one would expect him to do using this medium of Graphic novel story telling. Furthermore it feels as if he deliberately decided not to exaggerate the story. It’s told with very simple and gentle pacing and simply is not trying to make anyone cry or be anything like a Spielberg production. He uses his own father’s words and most of it being broken English, gives it a very unique and personal side of the story. His choice of using Animals doesn’t render this novel as being cute and in facts, far from it. The animals seem to have no emotions what so ever and can be shown as Art Spielgelman put it “There more like Masks these characters are wearing” which gives the audience a very dark and emotionless, almost too insane to be real feeling. It also delivers the message that Jews were very distinguishable in Nazi occupied Europe, as if they were a completely different species. You have to keep in mind that during the time Maus was being developed there was no such thing as a “serious” comic book, so I think it really has a great impression on the reader and puts the reader in these situations, where a novel simply can’t. Spiegelman's custom black and white illustration praises the theme of his memoir because the Holocaust is an abhorrent subject, and so I think this style without a doubt depicts this.

http://www.adcglobal.org/archive/hof/2006/?id=302

http://mausgraphicmemoir.blogspot.ca/2012/07/art-spiegelman-graphic-style.html

http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/graphic-novels/links/1151898/title/art-spiegelman-on-comic-creator

Career low and light points

During Art Spiegelman’s lustrous career, he has achieved some of the highest recognition a graphic novelist can achieve. Winning the Pulitzer Prize in 1992 and countless other awards it’s easy to say Art Spiegelman had a very successful career. Although it appears Spiegelman had fame and success, the man went through many struggles as an artist in his early drawing career and even after the release of Maus. Spiegelman suffered from many nervous and mental breakdowns and in 1968 was issued into a mental hospital. A good example of his mental history can be found in the novel “Portait of the Artist as a Young %@&*!”The story is told by his girlfriend Isabella in the late 1960’s.

 “

     Art had a nervous breakdown in early 1968 (around the time of Martin Luther King's assassination). He went without sleeping for about five days. He and I (age 17, up till then a friend more than a lover) had a very deeply honest and profound discussion and he became very "hopped up" on honesty and truth. 
He then began to believe that he was the savior of his friends, perhaps of all humanity. We feel deeply in love-- yet, he was going temporarily mad (no eating or drinking water, either). 
I could not stay awake with him; my body simply could not keep up; but I didn't sleep much. Much of this is in his own work though I am not named. He began to challenge his friends on every level, and at one point tried to strangle me and then to throw me off the inner balcony of the house in which we and some roommates were living at the time (Binghamton, NY). 
At this point his friends and I decided that we needed to take him to a hospital, but we wanted it to be a "physical hospital" -- that is, not a mental hospital. However, once we had somehow convinced him to have the people at the college clinic have a look; it was out of our hands. He was placed in a mental hospital and was there for a week or more. His parents came to see if he was all right. He tried to force me to find a way to get him out and was furious when I could not. His parents sent me home to my own family (at that time in Florida). I was seventeen and madly in love with his power and energy--in spite of his "Jesus" complex and his passionate anger. 
I went to Florida, but I returned as soon as I could. He was better, but sadly, his mother shortly thereafter (May 20, 1968) killed herself while we were spending the weekend together (this also is in his work, in MAUS, Prisoner on the Hell Planet). 
I loved Art for many years and I believe he also loved me. We were separated for about five years, during which I had a child. Then we got back together, but shortly thereafter, Françoise Mouly became his lover and wife. We remained friends for many years.”- Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@&*!-2008

Spiegelman also had many issues in his early career with the Bubble Gum Company Topps, where he interned at the age of 18. After working at Topps as a staff writer-artist-editor in Woody Gelman's Product Development Department, Spiegelman invented Garbage Candy (candy in the form of garbage, sold in miniature plastic garbage cans), the Wacky Packages card series, Garbage Pail Kids and countless other hugely successful creations. After 20 years of demanding Topps to reward the creators a percentage of the profits, Topps refused. Spiegelman, who had appointed Topps work to many of his cartoonist friends or students, left over the contention of creative ownership and ownership of artwork. In 1989 Topps auctioned off the original artwork they had gathered over the decades and kept the profits.

Spiegelman also suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder following the attacks on 9/11 and left his job as the cover illustrator for The New Yorker Magazine after publishing a top ten of magazine covers of the past 40 years as voted by the American Society of Magazine Editors. He later published a graphic novel called “In the Shadow of No Towers”, the comic unfolded Spiegelman's experiences during the 9/11 attacks. The Comic describes, the smoke in Manhattan smelled just like his father said the smoke in the concentration camps smelled.

Breakdowns: Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@&*!. Pantheon, 2008. ISBN 978-0-375-42395-6

In the Shadow of No Towers-Art Spiegelman-2002

http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20094864,00.html

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_was_Art_Spiegelman_in_a_mental_hospital

Interviews

Although, Art Spiegelman has been in the business of making comics since the 1960’s, most often he is interviewed about the subject matter of his most famous graphic novel Maus. In addition Spiegelman‘s art can be portrayed as somewhat controversial, however he is not known as a very outspoken advocate in the media. Most of his thoughts and political views can be found in some of his tell all graphic novels such as “In the Shadows of No Towers” and “Breakdowns: Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@&*!” Spiegelman’s views can be shown in detail about his early struggles learning how to draw and how frustrating it can be and also his reasoning for leaving The New Yorker Magazine after the 9/11 attacks. He explains in the Graphic novel “In the Shadows of No Towers” that resigning from The New Yorker was quote “To protest the widespread conformism in the United States media”. Spiegelman also demonstrates his deep criticism of the administration of former President George W. Bush and alleges that the American media has become "conservative and timid." Spiegelman has recently come out with a new novel called “metamaus”. In this novel he examines the questions of Maus that most often stir up -- Why the Holocaust? Why mice? Why comics? He also gives a inside look at his vital work and the creative process. On the subject of Interviews it is important to note, this was essential to process of Maus being created. Spiegelman’s father Vladek Spiegelman was a co-writer for the graphic novel and provided the raw material for the story. Spiegelman states that “The book is built around an interview”. In his Novel “Breakdowns” he would often portrayed his father either beating him or ignoring him, however he found it an easy way to get his father to open up when having a microphone in front of him. Thus provided the material used for the story. Besides that he doesn’t ignore or refuse interviews, he can be seen in many different ones over the years. Here are some examples

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Lx7jDjtGQY&noredirect=1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STSzcbmUdoQ

James Adams, "Indigo pulls controversial Harper's off the shelves",Globe and Mail, May 27, 2006

            www.indiebound.org/...interviews/spiegelmanart

                Breakdowns: Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@&*!. Pantheon, 2008. ISBN 978-0-375-42395-6

           In the Shadow of No Towers-Art Spiegelman-2002

Works and Awards

      Over the years Art Spiegelman has done some incredible work, from completing 10 novels over a lengthy career as a Cartoonist,Writer and comic advocate. He began his career as an artist in 1966 doing Bazooka Joe gum comic books. In 1980, having been inspired by his father, a Jewish survivor of the holocaust, Spiegelman began to work on the first volume of of Maus, which was published by RAW magazine where Speigelman was working as an editor. The following year Maus was released as a graphic novel, becoming an instant critically acclaimed graphic novel and highly influential to artists. The novel was then published in a second edition in 1992, and Spiegelman was awarded a Pulitzer Prize, which is highly regarded as the noblest award for a novelist. Furthermore, he has been giving several other awards, including a Guggenheim fellowship, an Eisner Award for Best Graphic Album, and a nomination for the National Book Critics Circle Award. In 2005, he was named one of the 100 Most Influential People by Time magazine.

Awards

§  1982: Yellow Kid Award, Lucca, Italy, for Foreign Author 

§  1987: Inkpot Award

§  1988: Adamson Award, Sweden, for Maus

§  1988: Angoulême International Comics Festival, France, Prize for Best Comic Book, for Maus

§  1988: Urhunden Prize, Sweden, Best Foreign Album, for Maus

§  1990: Max & Moritz Prize, Erlangen, Germany, Special Prize, for Maus

§  1992: Pulitzer Prize Letters award, for Maus

§  1992: Eisner Award, Best Graphic Album (reprint), for Maus

§  1992: Harvey Award, Best Graphic Album of Previously Published Work, for Maus

§  1993: Angoulême International Comics Festival, Prize for Best Comic Book, for Maus part 2

§  1993: Sproing Award, Norway, Best Foreign Album, for Maus

§  1993: Urhunden Prize, Best Foreign Album, for Maus part 2

§  1999: Eisner Award, inducted into the Hall of Fame

§  2011: Angoulême International Comics Festival, Grand Prix

§  2012: Siegfried Unseld Preis

Bibliography

Author

§  Breakdowns: From Maus to Now, an Anthology of Strips. Nostalgia Press, 1977.

§  Maus

§  The Wild Party

§  Open Me, I'm A Dog (children's book)

§  Jack Cole and Plastic Man: Forms Stretched to Their Limits. Chronicle Books, 2001

§  In the Shadow of No Towers

§  Breakdowns: Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@&*!. Pantheon, 2008. 

§  Be a Nose

§  Jack and the Box. Toon Books, 2008. 

§  METAMAUS: Random House, New York: 2011.

-Great Lives from History: Jewish Americans : Art Spiegelman". Salem Press. Retrieved 2012-04-18.

-Art Spiegelman biography on Lambiek Comiclopedia

-www.pulitzer.org/

-http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Spiegelman.html

-http://www.adcglobal.org/archive/hof/2006/?id=302

-http://barclayagency.com/spiegelman.html