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Review of comic book "Maus" by Art Spiegelman (1991) – from #3 on Stuart McMillen’s list of Top 10 Essential Graphic Novels.
"Maus" by Art Spiegelman is a landmark book, that was the first comic to win the Pulitzer Prize for literature.
"Maus" is an autobiographical comic about Art Spiegelman's own experiences as the son of Jewish holocaust survivors.
The book bounces backwards and forwards in time: we see Art interviewing his elderly Dad during the 1970s, and we get flashback scenes that show the events of World War II that his dad is describing.
So, the book is one man’s experience of the holocaust, intermixed with scenes that depict the actual process of the interview.
Famously, with the artwork for "Maus", Art Spiegelman decided to draw the Jews as mice, and the Nazis as cats. One of the major reasons for this decision is that drawing the story with simplistic animal faces allowed him to focus on telling the story at hand, without becoming too concerned about realistic facial features.
And, in a weird way, having a lots of basic and simple faces, lets you think about the universality of how awful genocide is.
Art Spiegelman said that his goal with "Maus" was to draw a long comic that a reader would need to use a bookmark with, which was a very uncommon length for a comic, back when he was drawing this in the 1980s. And at almost 300 pages of quite dense comics, this is definitely a landmark work.
Buy "Maus" by Art Spiegelman (1991)
https://www.bookdepository.com/The-Complete-Maus-Art-Spiegelman/9780141014081?a_aid=7531
(See also: MetaMaus - https://www.bookdepository.com/MetaMAUS-Art-Spiegelman/9780670916832?a_aid=7531 )
(If you make any purchases through The Book Depository after clicking that affiliate links, I'll get a small financial kickback.)
Watch my other individual comic book reviews: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLptkyWri-Z2_N1eDVd8Vxs0QCmgycxstj
Watch my lengthier book review videos, that each feature multiple titles discussed: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLptkyWri-Z2_wZq0h_EwHPIFU_G6CMUaD
Read a blog post about the 'making of' these videos: http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/video/top-10-essential-graphic-novels/
