MAUS by Art Spiegelman

The book which retells the story of American Cartoonist, Art Spiegleman's Jewish parents surviving the Nazi holocaust in wartime Poland, depicts the Jews as mice and the Germans as cats. Maus is one of the more powerful graphic novels I've read. Even before this course, I read the book in French version. I picked up the book at a comic book shop in Paris and initially loved the cover, I knew for sure there would be some pretty deep content within just seeing the prominence of certain symbols on the cover:

 After reading the book, I was truly affected both artistically/visually and emotionally. Since I had already read Maus, which was recommended for this class, I decided to go ahead and read Spiegleman's book, MetaMaus. I learned in this book that at the time that Maus was made, comics were very different and the holocaust wasn't really ever a topic in comics. People wanted to read about superheroes and lighthearted material. Spiegelman had a purpose with Maus, and that was to create a much more serious visual narrative that was not only personal to him, but to his family, and to many other people who would read it. He wanted to create a story so different from the rest at its time of production that a person would read and remember, and most importantly to be affected by the story he conveys.

In his process of trying to publish Maus, A question often came up: Why Mice? Spiegleman explains in MetaMaus, that the cats and pigs and mice were chosen for quite complex reasons. The jews are not just mice, they're masks, heads, that the characters were wearing to pass through certain boundaries and borders. Like racial 'disguises' or 'badges' to conform to a certain group. Though the characters were associated with very simple and direct symbols (ie. Mice- pest,prey,inferiority- Cats- predator, superiority ), making the choices for those characters involved taking that rhetoric and turning the notion of the subhuman back on itself and letting these 'mice' stand on their hind legs and stand up for their humanity. The idea was based on the concept of 'Exterminating' NOT Murdering, and Spiegleman felt the characters best fit that concept in the sense that mice are depicted to the public as vermin, pests, creatures that cause problems, that do not belong, and must be eliminated as a whole.

                   

His Father collaborated on the book and Spiegelman recorded his memories and experiences through personal interviews. His process took overall 13 years of gathering information and ideas. He mentions that he wanted to make a work worth telling because the drawings are so arduous. I relate so much on so many levels. I relate to his whole approach and idea behind this story. He had the idea  for a moment while working on this, that he should remove himself from the story and write from an objective lens. He realized it would be impossible to tell this story from an objective standpoint. Call it narcissism? But with that approach he decided there would be difficulty transmitting memories. I relate so much to this book and its purpose, not because of the personal experiences Spiegelman and his Father talk about, per-se, and not because of the content itself. I always benefit and grow from learning more about WWII and holocaust stories, especially from personal recounting. But that was not what made me relate so closely to this book. I myself have been working on a story for quite some time. Not 13 years, but as long as I have had the capacity of understanding the war in my country, Lebanon, and have overtime interviews my Father as well. Collecting memories, ideas, stories and physical artifacts from his experiences during the war in the 80's. I have begun my own Graphic Novel called "Lui Qui Traverse" (He Who Crosses) about the war in Lebanon and the division of areas because of Religious segregation. My book is primarily about my Father but also describes the separation him and my Mother had to face because of the circumstances. I know I was heavily influenced by Maus, even in the artwork. I chose to illustrate my book using bold, stark black and white imagery, much like Spiegelman does, and have too been inspired by the art of woodblock printing.