Media Appearances

               After the release of Maus I, Art Spiegelman became a sort of unlikely celebrity. As Spiegelman confessed to reporter Rachel Cooke in an interview with The Observer “I was unsure how to proceed. Could I follow it up with Maus II? The fact that so much terror and sadness and death was such a success sort of gave me the bends.”[1]

                As he ventured out into the public forum, there were large “Shouting matches with the audience” where he was unable to say anything about Israel. The people were just crazy in a way. The fallout clearly hit a political nerve with several people, many being moved to discuss unresolved disputes between Israel and its highly volatile neighborhood.  These highly serious and culturally motivated dialogues held so passionately with many Jews did not come so easily to Spiegelman. He was Jewish really only in origin. He was, in his own words a “rootless cosmopolitan”. He felt no real tie to these issues. He molded his own microcosm with the soup of cultures that metropolitan New York would have to offer. He was quite light hearted and generally unmotivated to pursue the passions and tensions that came so easily to “Jews that embraced the parts of Jewishness that were embraceable.”[2]

                Recently in 2012, the Highschool that he attended as a youth installed a glass paneled mural of Spiegelman’s. This is specifically at the High School of Art and Design building in Manhattan, from which he graduated.

Art and his wife, Francoise.

by Manu Gopinath

---

[1] Cooke, Rachel. "Art Spiegelman: 'Auschwitz Became for Us a Safe Place'" The Observer. Guardian News and Media Limited, 23 Oct. 2011. Web. 17 Oct. 2012. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/oct/23/art-spiegelman-maus-25th-anniversary>.

[2] Cooke, Rachel. "Art Spiegelman: 'Auschwitz Became for Us a Safe Place'" The Observer. Guardian News and Media Limited, 23 Oct. 2011. Web. 17 Oct. 2012. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/oct/23/art-spiegelman-maus-25th-anniversary>.

Reception and Reviews of the Work Part II

             When Maus by Art Spiegelman came out it was a massive success, both critically and commercially. While an overwhelming majority of the feedback was positive, there was some backlash from releasing a book with this sort of subject matter. Spiegelman recounted some of these responses that were not as favorable:

“Don’t you think that a comic book about Auschwitz is in bad taste?” one angry reporter asked him when the book was published in Germany. “No,” Spiegelman replied, “I thought Auschwitz was in bad taste.”[1]

On the other hand, the book was such a hit that at some points Spiegelman was accused of having only one book in his repertoire that was worth publishing, or as the music business would title it, he was accused of being a One Hit Wonder. Spiegelman himself goes on to admit that in his career since Maus II, he has mostly been “…trying to wriggle out from under my own achievement.”[2] Nonetheless, the immense success of the work has allowed him more privileges as an artist/author than punishments. He has a level of independence that is cherished and relished in the art industry. As he puts it in an interview with the Observer “Maus does well enough that I don't have to chase every ambulance. I've no need of advances, and so on. That should give me incredible license."[3]

---

[1] Kois, Dan. "The Making of Maus." Sunday Book Review. The New York Times, 2 Dec. 2011. Web. 18 Oct. 2012. <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/books/review/the-making-of-maus.html?ref=artspiegelman&_r=2&>.

[2] Kois, Dan. "The Making of Maus." Sunday Book Review. The New York Times, 2 Dec. 2011. Web. 18 Oct. 2012. <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/books/review/the-making-of-maus.html?ref=artspiegelman&_r=2&>.

[3] Cooke, Rachel. "Art Spiegelman: 'Auschwitz Became for Us a Safe Place'" The Observer. Guardian News and Media Limited, 23 Oct. 2011. Web. 17 Oct. 2012. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/oct/23/art-spiegelman-maus-25th-anniversary>.

Reception and Reviews of the Work Part I

When Maus was released in 1986, it was a big hit. The work became critically acclaimed and garnered huge attention, success, and even some anxiety for its author, Art Spiegelman. As Spiegelman himself stated in a 2011 interview with The Observer “Maus has entered the culture in ways I never could have predicted.”[1]

                Ironically however, Spiegelman reveals in his newest work titled Metamaus (a behind the scenes look into the making of Maus) that he initially encountered hurdles in trying to get the book published. In fact, in Metamaus he even posts some of the rejection letters left to him by his agent from some of the publishers. Among the comments include “…the idea behind it is brilliant, but it never, for me, quite gets on track," or my personal favorite “…in part, my passing has to do with the natural nervousness one has in publishing something so very new and possibly (to some people) off-putting. But more crucially I don't think Maus is a completely successful work, in that it seems in some way conventional."[2] It is an interesting contrast to the way in which the book was received. Bookstores and publishers initially just had no idea on how to advance the book into stores. Comics were already being published and many publishers just could not take on another one.

Eventually however, it was accepted by Pantheon. The book is a New York Times bestseller. It has been translated into 18 languages and Maus II even won a Pulitzer Prize. It is the only comic to ever win the prestigious award. In 1987 it one of a trinity of comic books released that really brought the term “graphic novel” into the mainstream; the other two being Watchmen by Alan Moore and The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller. Other awards and accolades it received were:

1.       The Comics Journal called it the fourth greatest comics’ work of the 20^th Century.

2.       Wizard Magazine placed it at #1 / 100 of Greatest Graphic Novels.

3.       Entertainment Weekly listed it as #7 on the NEW CLASSICS: Books – The 100 Best Reads   from 1983 to 2008 List.

4.       Time Magazine placed it at #7 on the Best Non-Fiction Books from 1923 to 2005 list.

5.       Time Magazine placed it at #4 on their Top Graphic Novels List.

6.       Eisner Award for Best Graphic Album – Reprint

7.       Los Angeles Times Award – Book Prize for Fiction[3]

                This landmark work did much more than just giving a first person view into a major event in human history. It also opened up the comic genre for other writers. Comics no longer had to be a medium just for kids. Maus added to a tradition of Holocaust literature in a very unconventional way. The graphic novel format was original, and it visualized the subject matter in a method that made it profoundly surreal. Audiences, critics, and scholars applauded its daring approach and its ability to so vividly capture the events recounted by Spiegelman’s father, Vladek. [4] As a result, the work is and will always be timeless.

By Manu Gopinath
 

---

[1] Cooke, Rachel. "Art Spiegelman: 'Auschwitz Became for Us a Safe Place'" The Observer. Guardian News and Media Limited, 23 Oct. 2011. Web. 17 Oct. 2012. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/oct/23/art-spiegelman-maus-25th-anniversary>.

[2] Cooke, Rachel. "Art Spiegelman: 'Auschwitz Became for Us a Safe Place'" The Observer. Guardian News and Media Limited, 23 Oct. 2011. Web. 17 Oct. 2012. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/oct/23/art-spiegelman-maus-25th-anniversary>.

[3] "Maus." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation Inc., n.d. Web. 20 Oct. 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maus>.

[4] "Art Spiegelman Criticism." Enotes (2004): n. pag. Web. <http://www.enotes.com/art-spiegelman-criticism/spiegelman-art>.

Adult Life

Adult Life

Art Spiegelman

Art Spiegelman moved to San Francisco from 1971 - 1975 where comix appeared. He moved back to NYC and began doing drawings and comics for the New York Times, village voice and playboy. Besides his cartooning career, Art Spiegelman edited several comix magazine. and became an instructor at the school of Visual Arts.

Spiegelman's career took flight with the publication of the first rendition of Maus in 1972. In 1979-1980 he co-founded RAW magazine, the acclaimed avant-garde, unconventional comics, with his wife, artist Françoise Mouly. In the pages of Raw, He helped reveal important Moriarty. For eleven years, Raw lavishly presented groundbreaking work by contemporary cartoonists.2



Spiegelman published Maus I in 1986 and Maus II in 1991 and received National book critics circle nominations for both. In 1992 he Won Special Pulitzer Prize for the masterful Holocaust narrative Maus.


Art Spiegelman lives in New York City with his wife and two children, Nadja and Dashiell. He received an honorary doctorate from Binghamton University in 1995.

"One work dominates what I have done," - Art Spiegelman (Photo by Nadja Spiegelman)

Timeline

1970: Art publishes "Prisoner from Hell Planet" (reproduced in Maus)
1972: Art publishes "Maus" in Funny Animals (3 page comic)
1975: Art meets the woman he will marry, Françoise Mouly (b. 1955)
1978: Art Spiegelman starts drawing Maus
1979, Aug.: Art and Françoise spend time in the Catskill mountians (NY) with Vladek
1980: Art and Françoise start the avant-garde magazine RAW
Art begins drawing Maus, which is serialized in RAW
1982, Aug. 18: Vladek dies of congestive heart failure
1986: first volume of Maus published
1987: Art and Françoise's daughter Nadja born
1991: second volume of Maus published
1992-: Art starts working for the New Yorker (he resigns some time after 9/11/2001)
1992: Art wins a Pulitzer Prize for Maus
1992: son Dashiell born
1993-: Françoise works as art editor at the New Yorker
2004: Art publishes In the Shadow of No Towers
2005: Art begins publishing a comix format memoir, Portrait of the Artist as a Young !@##$%!, which incorporates some of his most significant early underground comix.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise. Art Spiegelman. 2012

Comic creator Lamblek. Art Spiegelman. 2012



BY: Sisi Xu

Early Life

Early Life


to approx. age 20~


Brief Biography


Name: Art Spiegelman (or) Arthur Spiegelman
Born: 15 February 1048.
Place of Birth: Stockholm, Sweden.



"Art Spiegelman has, according to the LA Weekly, almost single-handedly brought comic books out of the toy closet and onto the literature shelves."

-    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -  

Arthur Spiegelman was born in Stockholm Sweden. His family immigrated to the United States in 1951, and spent his early life in Rego Park, New York. Art attended High school of art and design in manhattan His parents wished him to become a dentist. Instead, Spiegelman studied cartooning in high school and started drawing professionally at age sixteen. He majored in art and philosophy at Binghamton University's Harpur College of Arts.
He left college two years after without a degree, following a brief but intense nervous breakdown and was hospitalized .


Spiegelman's early career began in 1966, working for Topps Gum Company. He stayed as creative consultant for almost twenty years(1966-1987) until a dispute over the ownership of his original artwork caused him to leave.
After leaving college in 1969 , he joined the underground comix movement. (1)



Timeline

1948, Feb. 15: Art Spiegelman is born in Stockholm
1951: Spiegelman family immigrates to US, Art grows up in Queens, New York
1965: Art attends the High School of Art and Design in Manhattan
1968, ca. March: Art has a brief but intense nervous breakdown & is hospitalized
May 21: Anja commits suicide after Art returns home

Art leaves Harpur college/SUNY Binghamton (major: art & philo)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

1. underground comix and the underground press
Late 1960s saw the emergence of underground comics, a new wave of humorous, hippie-inspired comic books that dealt with social and political subjects like sex, drugs, rock music and anti- war protest.


DirectorsClub. Art Spiegelman. 2006

GradeSaver. Biography of Art Spiegelman. 2012


BY: Sisi Xu

Aspects to include in the author biography

-early life

-adult life


-historical context of their growing up

 -influences

-works and awards


-career low and high points

-interviews: audio and video (link to these) 

-reception and reviews of their work 

-media appearances


-images





-references to your research

Include a minimum of 5 annotations for the Annotated bibliography for the author section. If you are doing a video, your annotated bibliography can be send as a separate document.