Maus

Art Spiegelman was in town yesterday, speaking at the U of A as part of the Student Union’s Revolutionary Speakers Series. The “revolutionary” hype fits as his graphic novel, Maus: A Survivor’s Tale, established the concept of the “graphic novel”. Or introduced the idea into the public sphere, thereby launching a thousand “comic books aren’t just for kids anymore” articles. I heard someone on CBC the other day use a variant of that phrase entirely un-ironically!

Maus was actually one of a number of classic works from the mid-eighties that established the genre. Spiegelman considers himself part of the comics tradition that stretches back before World War Two. But Maus winning a special Pulitzer Prize in 1992 was a signal moment for the genre, when respectability finally arrived. I remember a university pal forcing Frank Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (1986) on me as I rolled my eyes (“Batman comics? Surely you jest.”). I also mocked him for listening to country music. That pal is now an English prof at an Ontario university who uses graphic novels in his teaching. And I enjoy country music.

Other groundbreakers include Alan Moore’s Watchmen (1987) and V for Vendetta (published serially from 1982 on, with a complete book in 1995). Maus remains apart, as it is a memoir rather than fiction, focused on Spiegelman’s father and his life as a Holocaust concentration camp survivor. All the graphic novel memoirists and journalists that followed are in Spiegelman’s debt. I’m thinking of critically acclaimed works like:

Memoir/Biography

• Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic (2006) by Alison Bechdel
• Persepolis I & II (2003-4) by Marjane Satrapi
• American Splendor (1976-1993) by Harvey Pekar
• Blankets (2003) by Craig Thompson (called an “illustrated novel” by the author)
• Louis Riel: A Comic-strip Biography (2003) by Chester Brown

Reportage

• Palestine (1996) or Safe Area Gorazde (2000) by Joe Sacco