Maus

I remember back when I was a junior in high school I was given Art Spiegelman's book to read for my English class. It's a treat to be able to come back to this graphic novel after all these years, as it's one of the first ones I've read that had to do with something non-fiction based in origin. I didn't check when it was made but I had always thought it was a comic made later than it actually was, probably due to it's design that influenced others.  The lower usage of type in every panel, how well he spread the conversations were for each page, its a long book but it never felt long with how he spread the information.  

I suppose it makes sense that the subject that would legitimize graphic novels would be an autobiographical take on WW2.  The war has inspired countless works of art that have been highly honored in our society as its such a crazy period of time where a good portion of the world was thrown into chaos en masse.   But what really helped Maus at the time in the 80s was that comics were a new medium for storytelling and were previously untapped by writers who wanted to make biographical novels.  So many stories of holocaust survivors told, or told of the countless ones who were unable to make it out of the death camps. 

 It's an event far away enough to be somewhat romanticized by the following generations and still a present reminder due to the consequences we now deal with.  What makes Maus stand out from other movies and books is the simple and effective symbolism behind the anthropomorphic elements in the book.  It's something that's immediate and takes no time to decipher yet adds such a different feel to the book.  You know that all of them are human one in the same, but having them personified as cat and mouse helps you identify the "chase" of the Nazis after Jews and eventually all non-Germans.

The layers of Art Spiegelman's personal life that we dive into is also what really helps gain other empathy to his and his father's story, with the absent tale of Anja Spiegalman left untold sadly.  You can tell although Vladek's life was undeniably marked by the Nazis, he had always been more of a shifty character in his own nature.  His skill with business, building, crafting, and quick wit helped keep him connected to potential allies or eventually winning over adversaries.  Also being more financially well off at the start of the war greatly helped as well.  Looking back through there's usually a situation where Jews will be attacked and rounded up in the ghettos and Vladek will either sneak away or get snatched up by a friend just in time.  Artie definitely identifies characteristics that Vladek has that benefited him, between his frugalness, his do-it-yourself attitude, and his willingness to do whatever is necessary to live.

Originally in high school I hated that Vladek had burned Anja's diary, I didn't feel Vladek should have been punished or anything but I felt hurt in a way that someone's story was simply just burnt away with not much else to know them by.  I can empathize with Vladek's pain, having to see his wife's diary and pain from her suicide, but I felt having her perspective on her experience in the holocaust would have added an interesting dimension to the books that we can only speculate about now.  Reading through the first this time was different in that I wasn't angry with Vladek, but instead I felt more enamored with the squabblings of his current life oddly enough.  Artie continuously wanted him to get back to the war but I felt that it was a way for Artie to not get close to his father, as Artie probably still doesn't forgive him for the diaries.  It was even more interesting looking at Artie's comic about his mother's suicide as I could see more of the Underground influence on Art in that story's nature.  The disconnect he protrays from his parents in that comic was interesting to see as we never get a full picture of what their family was like together.

I'm glad that I now know the significance behind Maus and the path it helped create in graphic novels, Art Spiegelman touches at the very core of the trauma that many Holocaust survivors went through and still go through.  The choices he used to tell this story with are what will make this a timeless book that still shines even decades from now.

 

Underground Comics

What's striking to me about the underground comics I've read through is how the writers would go after any issue or subject matter they chose in such an odd low-brow slapstick fashion.  In he facetious nature of the writing and wildness in direction of where the stories went to is fascinatingly dark.  It tells a lot more about the writers' and their time period, more or less the underground period was the rebellion era of comics where the boundaries of what can be legally written about were pushed to its limits.  Honestly there's not much that's appealing to me about this era, reading through Robert Crumb was interesting but increasingly weird the more I learned about him and his fetishes.  To me underground comics like Action Comics were significant in that they've helped pave the way for modern comics now, but the comics themselves were not really worth much on their own.  I feel like going through these is a look at the inner working minds of the counter culture back then and it's cool being able to look at that era in this way, but I'd rather not read pages and pages of comic sex.

Similarities between Thompson and Eisner

What is striking me as the biggest similarity between Will Eisner and Craig Thompson is the approach of their overall page layout.  Each page is carefully crafted around the art as the primary focus to the story, with dialogue and type as the secondary.  I feel like when I read both of their comics my eyes are more involved with the art and the direction the panels are moving me through as opposed to what's being said.  Although I believe the dialogue in both comics Blankets and A Contract With God are amazingly well-written, I also happen to believe the design of the art in these books is what really shines the most.

In a way reading through Eisner's A Contract With God felt like a cinematic experience, with how the pages were laid out and the low usage of words really gave it more independence to make dynamic layouts that sprawl out of the box or aren't even contained.  The frequent change up between distance shots also gives it a film kind of influence where it could be a page used in the storyboard process, but then other shots that form into a design of an abstract shape are what could not be done in film, for now at least.  It somewhat seems that Eisner and Thompson have a designer's eye along with an a cinematographer's vision for how each page should flow, and in what way the typography should react to the art design.  The word count in both of these books combined very well could be less than an average Action Comic book from around Eisner's time.

The thing that most affected me about both authors is the ability to reach the insecurities and flaws of people, and then the talent to visually navigate us through.  In one of Eisner's shorts in A Contract With God there's the main character in the Super whose untrusted and as he's an anti-semite.  Due to the tenants dislike of the Super as a person, he was cornered into an awful situation through manipulation of his illegal desires into committing suicide.  While in Thompson's book there's more of a breakdown into the inner workings of the main character's flaws in relationships and inner turmoil of life.

I really enjoy both of these books, and this approach to graphic storytelling is something I hope to learn from in the future.