Legitimization of Comics: Maus

This week I read Maus by Art Speigelman, a graphic novel in which Speigelman interviews his father about his experiences as a Holocaust survivor.

One thing that struck me about Maus was how raw and unedited it felt. It feels like Speigelman didn't leave anything out in his interactions with his father--where many documentaries or other kinds of interviewing would portray a Holocaust survivor in the best way possible, Speigelman shows what feels like every minor quibble and annoyance between he and his father, like his father's habit of putting down Speigelman's mother. Speigelman does this within the Holocaust story as well-he doesn't cut out any of the minor events in favor of more important ones, he just tells it like it happened. I appreciate Speigelman's honesty with this style of storytelling in Maus, but I cannot tell whether I enjoyed it or not--it was honest, yes, but felt unnecessary at times.

One thing I definitely enjoyed about Maus was the characters being animals. I thought it was a very odd decision when I first heard of the comic, but on actually reading it the animal aspect really helped to both instantly show the frightening social dynamic of the time (the jews as mice and the Nazis as cats) and get me to be able to relate more to the characters. As Scott McCloud explained in Understanding Comics, we can insert ourselves better into more generalized and cartoon characters. Because Maus is such an intimate family story, I think I would have felt detached if the faces were all rendered realistically. However, with the cartoon mouse faces with almost no individual features, I felt that I could really visualize myself and my family being in that situation, and become more emotionally involved.

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European Comics: Blacksad

Today I read the first book of Blacksad , an edgy French comic written by Juan Diaz Canales and illustrated by Juanjo Guarnido. The comics follow a panther detective through a series of anthropomorphic noir mysteries. I really enjoyed Blacksad . The story is a fairly standard mystery, but Blacksad's voice is engaging and authentic as a noir narrator, and the artwork is amazing. I felt that the art style was especially effective because it helps immediately establish character personalities--the criminals are rats and scaly creatures, the sheriff is a border collie, etc. I also tend to find that in noir movies or comics all the characters tend to look the same (all the men are square-jawed and serious, the women attractive and curvy) and the style of Blacksad helped prevent this from happening for me. Guarnido also does a fantastic job at using different shot angles and engaging acting within the panels. I enjoy this kind of visual storytelling much more than flatt

Contemporary Lit: Asterios Polyp

This week I re-read Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli. I read the Asterios Polyp for the first time almost by accident--I was waiting for someone in a library and grabbed it to pass the time, and was very surprised at what a great work it is. I enjoyed re-reading it with a more analytical mindset. One thing I found unique about Asterios Polyp is how well Mazzucchelli visually shows the psyche of characters. When characters fight, they begin to become more visually different and more in their own worlds of thinking the less they are in tune with each other. Without the narrator expressly telling us, we understand how the characters are feeling in relation to one another. This way, the writing and art can work together to keep us very engaged because we are not being told the same thing twice--we're learning something new from both the writing and the art. Showing the raw lines of the characters helped nail down the existentialist nature of the comic as well--people are visual

The Arrival : Shaun Tan

Welcome to my blog! For my first post I read The Arrival by Shaun Tan. A silent graphic novel, The Arrival puts a surrealist spin on the immigration experience, inspired by Tan’s own experience immigrating to Australia. Tan’s mastery of illustration and research of real immigration stories come together beautifully in this compelling novel. Though The Arrival is marketed as a children's book, it takes a mature and eye-opening approach to its subject. The protagonist, an immigrant leaving his family to start a new life in an unfamiliar country, must navigate an unfamiliar place without knowing its language. The Arrival puts its reader in the same position--we must navigate the book without words. Instead of language, Tan uses character acting, panel setup, and the details he chooses to focus on to tell the story. For example, at the beginning of the novel Tan shows a montage of different objects around the immigrant’s home--a child's drawing of the family,

Lauren's Literature of the Graphic Narrative

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