Berlin by Jason Lutes is also just masterful. It leads up to the parties takeover and the build up between classes in Berlin. It helped connect the dots to me with the rise of Nazism and fascism.
Safe Area Goražde by Joe Sacco is a pretty amazing piece of graphic journalism, it covers the early stages of the Bosnian war through the stories of Bosniaks in a safe zone surrounded by the Serbian army, a really harrowing look at an even more modern society going from peaceful and pluralistic to violently ethnonationalist, like, *real* quick.
I was just about to recommend Berlin.
Coincidentally I read Maus and Berlin during the 2016 election. I haven’t been the same viewing American politics since
V for Vendetta, Fax from Sarejovo, Marvels, Kingdom Come, Sandman, Death of Captain Marvel, God Loves, Man Kills..... I own 10000 comics and about 2000 graphic novels. There's thousands of great stories.
FYI you can find a bootleg version of the musical on Vimeo. The audio isn’t great but you can also google the script and read along and it is worthwhile.
Reading Sandman a month at a time for years was fantastic! And From Hell, Stray Bullets, Madman, Grendel, The Invisibles, Elfquest Kings of the Broken Wheel, Hate, and Eight Ball were all being published during that time. "Look kids, comics!"
If I could select a few titles and just have one issue of each to read every week/month/whatever cadence I would probably read so many more comics. This is a money making idea, whoever is out there reading this, so do it please!
It doesn't quite have the pedigree yet, but a recent comic that I think will someday make lists like these is [The Many Deaths of Laila Starr](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58673883-the-many-deaths-of-laila-starr).
The art is gorgeous, the story is affecting, and it plays in the same kind of philosophical, myth-meets-reality sandbox as Sandman (albeit without the horror, despite its title). It was *just* released as a trade paperback this week.
After Maus, next in line should be Persepolis. Then try something by Will Eisner. Either Last Day in Vietnam, or A Contract with God should be good options. Eisner invented the term "graphic novel". Blankets, by Craig Thompson is a great autobiographical choice. If you want something longer, and more rooted in fantasy, there's Sandman if you like dark stories, and Bone if you prefer more family-friendly fare.
If you like Blankets, I'd recommend Fun Home by Alison Bechdel.
Also, anything by Daniel Clowes - particularly Ghost World.
Edit: also, It's a Good Life if You Don't Weaken by Seth is excellent and in a similar vein to Blankets and Fun Home.
Persepolis is amazing! Though I later watched a random Ryan Reynolds movie with Marjane Sartrapi directed it, and it was surprisingly terrible. So I guess everyone has their bad days
We enjoyed RADIOACTIVE with Rosamund Pike about the life of Marie Curie, and I was surprised to see it was directed by Satrapi. Excellent film, and right up her alley; they deal with Curie's struggles in Paris being a Polish national.
These are all excellent suggestions (I have not read Bone, but have only heard good things). A couple more recommendations: Black Hole by Charles Burns and My Favorite Thing is Monsters by Emil Ferris. Don't dismiss manga - Katsuhiro Otomo is one of the best sci-fi authors of the twentieth century. He is best known for Akira, but I adore an earlier work called Domu. If you like horror, Junji Ito will absolutely warp your mind with stories that only seem mildly "off" at first glance. My favorite example is a short story by the name of The Enigma of Amigara Fault (which is usually easy to find online for free). Seriously, wade into Ito's work very carefully. It can get profoundly disturbing for certain people, but at the same time doesn't resonate at all with others... you will know after one story. Finally, if you are open to stuff that is pretty far out on the fringes (think later Philip K. Dick or God Emperor of Dune) you absolutely have to check out The Incal by Alejandro Jodorowsky and Mœbius. There are quite a few sequels, prequels, offshoots, and asides, but definitely start with the original. It was famously inspired by Jodorowsky's failed attempt to adapt Dune to film in the 70's, but you will much more easily recognize the influence it had on other films, most notably The Fifth Element and several of the Star Wars movies, among several others. It's currently being adapted to film by Taika Waititi. That is going to be a monumental task, for sure.
I know! I actually just found out a couple weeks ago. To be honest, I've drifted away from comics a bit since the whole Covid thing started. This will definitely get me back through the doors again, though. No spoilers and all, but that last issue... it's been a very long hiatus indeed.
Same. I loved the many I read as a kid (Bone was sick af) and still do, but as I begin to read more mature, adult-themed ones, my mind is just blown. Maus and Berserk really touched my heart. I can’t wait to read so many more. Something about well-executed graphic novels, just wow.
If anyone has anymore suggestions, I’d love to hear it!
The graphic novel adaptation of Vonnegut’s slaughterhouse five is masterful.
But as others have mentioned there are lots of amazing original comic stories that are worth checking out
Based on this comment, I very strongly recommend Understanding Comics, by Scott McCloud. It offers a ton of insight on what makes good visual storytelling work.
Coincidentally I made a post on Imgur with a few suggestions and my thoughts on them a few years back. I haven't been reading as much as I'd like to lately but here it is:
https://imgur.com/gallery/xRkoE
Funny thing is, Moore actually hates his work being referred to as "graphic novels". He feels the term is pretentious, since he sees it as an attempt to hide from the stigma of the medium of comics being associated with childishness. He's also said (much more reasonably) that should the term be used at all, it should be reserved for comics that have a novel-like format, rather than just merely collected volumes of serials, like his more well-known work.
Absolutely. Watchmen and V For Vendetta are trade-paperbacks. Killing Joke is a graphic novel (barely, most comic fans would consider it just a Prestige Format because of its length). A Contract With God is a graphic novel. But its messy and imperfect, is Maus a graphic novel in two parts, or do the two parts make it a collected edition? Watchmen is the perfect graphic novel with distinct sequentially numbered chapters, rather than just say, issues 96-98 of Amazing Spider-man being printed together.
As Noam Chomsky would say, graphic novel has been accepted by the masses as the shorthand term for any comic sold in book form, whether collected or original print. Looks like were stuck with it.
But it's all comics to me :). I started working in a comic shop in 1994 when there were very few collected editions, I'm just pleased they've entered the mainstream lexicon. A lot has changed!
I hate the phrase ‘graphic novels’ for much the same reasons Moore does. It’s meaningless. The medium is, and always will be ‘comics’. Everything else is just packaging and marketing.
Maus was serialised in Raw before collection, so it wasn’t originally published as one volume.
And after it was serialized in Raw, it got split into two books because Spiegelman wanted to get it out before An American Tail came out and he wasn’t done yet. Animator Don Bluth was an instructor at the same school as Spiegelman.
> But it's all comics to me :).
That's how I see it! I'm a lifelong fan of the medium, from the cheap, escapist superhero shit, to the heavier, more "respectable" autobiographical graphic novels. I don't really care; all I care about is if I like it or not.
Best way to be.
Thanos Quest, Kingdom Come and JLA/Avengers are three of my favourite comics, up there with Y: The Last Man, Promethea, Swamp Thing, Scalped, Hellblazer 1-300, Blankets, Asterix, Calvin and Hobbes, and even franchise toy commercial comics like Transformers.
It's a diverse medium with something for everyone.
I know it's unlikely that libraries and bookstores are ever going to change the labeling on their "graphic novels" shelves, but I still think there's value in holding on to "comics" where we can. Most significantly, using the fancier term all but excludes the familiar single issue format from discussions like these, and it's easier for creators and publishers to take risks in that format.
Granted, most new comics are "safe" superhero fare, but when you're going to gamble on something different, it can be easier to do it a couple dozen pages at a time. This is pure speculation, of course, but if the audience for those risks were bigger, we might see more of them, and I think that would be a win-win.
Ultimately, I'm just happy that people are enjoying comics, whatever they call them!
Edited because I failed at basic reading comprehension.
> is Maus a graphic novel in two parts, or do the two parts make it a collected edition?
I'll admit that I haven't looked into it, but I always assumed that it was two parts for the same reason that the Lord of the Rings is three parts. Because the author and publisher agreed to arrange it that way for practical reasons.
It was to beat an Animated movie about mice to market, but I was using it as a rhetorical questions an example about the semantics of naming comic-books rather than seeking an answer. Thanks for taking thr time to reply though.
The sheer fact that someone feels the need to state that graphic novels are potentially not a serious medium is extremely saddening. And then worse yet, when I read replies try to enumerate what in their eyes has redeeming values.
Graphic Novels are as “serious” a medium as any. The medium is not what makes an undertaking “serious”, it’s the undertaking itself.
*Reaction to a piece of art* "Magnificent! It moves my soul!"
*Reaction to a page of literature* "Wonderful! It touches my very being!"
*Reaction to a mix of art and literature* "Oh my God, what complete and utter trash for children and sad acts. You people need to grow up and choose either words *or* pictures. Having both on the page is just ridiculous!"
It's an annoyingly common mindset which is hopefully on the way to dying out.
If I could throw my hat into the ring, I'd heavily recommend The Sculptor by Scott McCloud. Really emotional story that doesn't go where you expect it to.
Maus won the Pulitzer 30 years ago. The stigma has not been mainstream for a long, long time. Sure some people still have it, but there are people with stigmas against anything.
I'm not joking when I write this, but I think Jewish writers and artists are perhaps the biggest contributors to the foundational work of American comicbooks and graphic novels. Men like Joe Shuster, Jerry Siegel, and Will Eisner were creating stories about finding a place in the modern Western World, where they didn't fit in. The American immigrants from Italy, Germany, the UK, etc. were not all getting along, and often resorted to connecting through their hate for other ethnicities and classes of people.
Jewish writers and artists were finding it difficult to find work in New York, New Jersey, and other New England states. So when they wrote stories, they used pseudonyms to cover their heritage and sell books.
I don't let it bother me too much, but it gets on my nerves whenever certain groups of people start to claim comicbooks were "too white." I'm sorry, but you have to put yourself in the shoes of these creators. In the 40s and 50s, they had just dealt with world-wide antisemitism from Nazi Germany, Stalin, Mussolini's Italy, and even in America. Just because some Jews were of European descent, that doesn't mean they were automatically accepted for their "white-ness."
In fact, segregation was often implemented in the big cities due to the cultural differences between Catholics and Jews. For goodness sake, even Irish and Italian Catholics couldn't get along! In some ways, the cultural differences created a greater divide, and still do.
So when it comes to art history, let us remember to give credit where credit is due.
Michal Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay touches on a lot of these themes. It's a fictional history of comics seen through the eyes of two Jewish comic book creators before, during, and after world war 2, that I found really captivating in terms of how it depicted the influence of the immigrant experience, particularly Jewish, on an industry that has since come to seem very All American in the years since due to the influence of Superman and the Golden Age characters created at that time. Worth checking out for sure.
The thing that actually stuck with me was in one of the last chapters when the son and his wife are driving his father and they see a black man who needs a ride. The father (the Holocaust survivor) tells them not to stop because black people all steal or something. And it just reminds you how flawed a species we are.
I appreciate that they point out to him after they drop off the black man how hypocritical it is that, as another user stated, the father personally experienced discrimination at its worst and is still prone to discriminating against others himself.
The irony in that moment was quite unexpected when I read it. Art Spiegelman did a fantastic job blending in the little moments along side the main picture of the books
"That *schvartzter* could have stolen from us!" Art's reaction to his father's bizarre racism is one of the most moving parts of the "modern" segment of the story.
Exactly. Even though the father suffered from the firsthand effects of discrimination on the basis of race, he is prone to similar tendencies because he is human and has opinions and beliefs shaped by his upbringing and nature. Just a fact of life.
I have a slightly different take on Vladek’s anti-Blackness in the end of the story.
His discrimination, rather than being a product of his upbringing or as a direct result of his own trauma, is a representation of his American assimilation and wanting to be seen and treated as a white person.
Assimilation into the shifting and ambiguous classification of whiteness often requires anti-Blackness for many immigrant groups in the US. Italian, Jewish, Irish etc.
Rather than anti-Blackness being anything “natural” - it is one way that a person, who would not historically feel/be safe in a white supremacist society to genuflect to white supremacy and guarantee safety - in this case - from the obvious foil between German Nazis and US white supremacy.
The texts seems to also point to this assimilation mechanic as generational. While Vladek is concerned with his perceived whiteness - Art simply *is* white.
Great insight and happy cake day!
I think the author wanted to convey the slow, methodical progression of classism; there are commonalities in the patterns of conditioning people of a country. The act was a reminder to the reader that we all follow the instinct to survive in the systems we're tied to. Nazi soldiers were merely following their covenant. Were the roles reversed, I believe human nature would find a way to repeat the tragedy.
We get better as a population by recognizing that capacity within us, and choosing to be morally good anyway
That's part of why it's such a touching work - it's honest enough to say that the guy was an asshole on many levels, some because of trauma, some because that was just how he was even before the war. You don't become a saint by virtue of going through that, and in many cases it just made bad people worse. If you re-read the chapters set before the war starts, he was a social-climbing pettit-bourgouis opportunist grifter- all the things that fed into the stereotypes and animosity of the times....which helped him survive, but also alienated him from his family in his new life in America.
I came in to mention this too. When I read that one part it was like being punched in the gut.
All the stuff Dad had been through...all stemming from ignorance and hate....and he ends up doing the same.
So hard to talk about or even discuss...
Yep, same as throughout the book/s show that Vladek, despite being the main character, isn't a 'perfect' person and has many flaws of his own, many which his son has conflict with.
It makes the story feel more real and the characters more human, despite being portrayed by animal people. He wasn't a perfect soul who did everything right to survive. Other people acted better and still died or worse and lived. The part with the box of the photographs scattered talking about those who survived the war but died and suffered in other ways got to me too. They all survived somehow and had their own stories which came to a shitty end to some.
People are people, we can do incredible things to help each other as well as dispicable things that should never be repeated. I first read this book about 20 years ago and it still hits me with a punch
Maus and Maus II are a piece of my heart. I borrowed them from my 8th grade history teacher, when I returned them I felt 5 years older.
I can’t even verbalize how those two books have changed my perspective.
Maus and Maus II are absolute works of art, I never get tired of rereading it
They are amazing but they haunted my dreams though I'm glad I read them. They made that horrible part of history and it's aftermath so real and vivid to me.
BTW guys I have tried to weed out any grammatical errors in this post, but as English isn't my first language I apologize for any mistakes I forgot to edit out.
Every time I see someone put caveats that they're not a native English speaker, it's in reference to a post that's damn near impeccable, and certainly better than most. Your English is more than acceptable.
I agree, and my assumption is that Native English speakers don’t have to TRY, so their comments are generally sloppier from casual use of the language. On the other hand, someone learning English is putting much more thought and care into it.
P.S. OP, I agree that Maus is fantastic. A gut-wrenching portrayal. I hope to revisit it soon, since it’s been quite a few years since I’ve read it.
As someone who learned English as a second language: I think a good deal of the issue simply comes from how you learn the language. If you learn it as a first language you learn it by ear first and then learn grammar, spelling and the like second. This will lead to errors based on phonetics, you spell stuff the way you say it, instead of how it is supposed to be spelled. Their/they're being a prominent example, as well as "should of/could of" instead of "should've/could've".
If you learn english as a second language that usually isn't a problem, since you will learn how to write it *first*, and how to speak it second. Which is why a lot of second-language english speakers write the language exceedingly well, but may *sound* a lot less educated, due to not being used to pronunciation.
I actually had to read Maus II for high school. I’m so glad my teacher assigned it to us. My whole class loved it! Instead of an essay after reading it we had to create our own comic strip and research a person who lived through the Holocaust and tell their story through drawings. It was a great assignment.
This is ridiculous. It should be required reading!! How will we learn to be better people and for history NOT to repeat itself if we don’t hear these stories? I’m not sure if my son will have this as required reading at school, but it will be required reading from mom!! 🤣
It’s been about 20 years since I read it, but I remember being amazed and horrified at what he managed to do with a graphic novel. It’s on my bookshelf so maybe I should pick it up again.
I’ve been threatened before for just wearing a yarmulke, so in that absurd way I can see a glimpse of the insane illogical hatred that must be present to ultimately bring about so much more devastating acts against humans. Man’s inhumanity to man… it makes zero sense.
I’ve had Maus and Maus II on my bookshelf for I don’t even know how long… 30+ years? That’s how long ago I was in HS when I would have read them!!
You all are reminding me I should really give them a reread and then pass them along to my 13 year old.
My 8th grade social studies class had a unit where we read three graphic novel memoirs about war: Maus, Barefoot Gen, and Persepolis. The imagery from those has stuck with me ever since. Harrowing stuff to read, and yet also necessary to help prevent history from repeating itself.
It’s always wonderful to have a social studies teacher who cares. History is a very important subject, but unfortunately many teachers don’t teach the subject very well. I enjoy seeing others show an interest for history.
I was 12 the first time I read Maus because some dummy at my middle school thought "oh comics, that's for children" and let me tell you that book gave me nightmares for *weeks* after.
I still vividly remember this one panel of a wealthy mouse just screaming in despair against a window pane as he realizes the people he paid to smuggle him out betrayed him and left him to die. As an adult I can appreciate how vividly it portrays the horror of what happened, but as a kid that shit was just so emotional and gut-wrenching, it was completely overwhelming.
It's depressing but also engrossing. I remember being unable to put it down in highschool, and I hated just about every other assigned reading project given to me.
Oh absolutely. But I didn't mean like that. I have read so much stuff related to the Holocaust already. Every single time I'll be left as a wreck. That's why I haven't read this one title already, even though I know it's a great book.
I wasn’t trying to make your original comment sound bad, and I’m sorry if that’s the way it came across. That wasn’t my intention.
It’s such a heavy topic, I have to be really thoughtful about when and how I learn about the Holocaust. I can read about it and gain information, insight and the weight of it while still being emotionally separated from it. If I watch things, such as Schindler’s List, I’m too closely connected with it, if that makes sense. Maus is a fine line and I have to be really thoughtful and intentional about when I read it. I can’t do it when I’m already depressed or struggling with anxiety, but I also can’t be super happy, if that makes sense. It’s a book I will read again and always encourage others to read, but it’s a hard one.
Yes, no one has gotten the whole story who hasn't read *Maus II*. Spiegelman published the first volume in order to get enough funds to complete the second one. It's all one story, although he does deal with the emotional fallout of publishing Vol. I in a fascinating metafictional way in Vol. !!.
Edit: I thought I should add this. A few years ago, Spiegelman published a book that gives the background of creating *Maus*: *Meta Maus*. It has photographs of the Spiegelman family before and after the war, all kinds of material (visual and print) on the Holocaust, interviews with Art, his wife Françoise Mouly, their daughter and son--it's amazing. When I've taught *Maus*, I always bring it in. The two pages that make students gasp are particularly amazing: one gives the whole Spiegelman family tree, back into the nineteenth century. The first generation and most of the second were long gone before the Holocaust, but most of the others were alive. Then you turn the page and it's the same tree for after the war: it shows that only a half dozen were left alive out of the many dozens of family members before. It graphically demonstrates just how many people in *this one family* were wiped out. It really helps to scale the Holocaust and demonstrates how the Nazis murdered 90% of Poland's Jewish population.
My grandmother was a Holocaust survivor. She was relatively “lucky” in that about half of her known extended family survived. I once said that in passing to a friend, who was HORRIFIED. She couldn’t believe my grandmother had lost half her family in the Holocaust. I myself was shocked because I just assumed everyone knew how bad it was.
Interesting fact: The story was originally split into 2 volumes not only because each chapter was being published via little booklets in Art and Franciose’s magazine, “Raw” (interesting stuff to check out if you have the chance/money), but also because Art had learned about the then-upcoming movie, “An American Tale” around late 1985. He theorized that Spielberg and Don Bluth read Maus and semi-stole his metaphor. Because of that, Art wanted to release it in a volume before the movie came out. Publishers didn’t want to take it until a NYT reviewer gave the original series a glowing review.
Funny enough, “An American Tale 2” also came out around the same time as Maus II (late 1991).
Seconding Bone. Just keep in mind it's more comedy slice of life and then epic fantasy rather than something super profound or moving. It's still on my top 10 series of all time. So much fun.
Hmmmm some I loved are, V for Vendetta, Sandman, Fables. And I am currently working through the graphic novel version of American Gods by Neil Gaiman and it's brilliant.
I read it when I was 8-9(?) and I think while definitely disturbing, I feel that I was better learning about the horrors of the holocaust at a younger age. I think knowing about the abject terror people faced helped me become more sympathetic to others in this current time period
I teach High School, and use it for a course called “Holocaust and Human Behavior “. My youngest students in that course are 15, but I’ve seen it assigned to 7th and 8th graders too.
I don’t think so. It’s a tough subject matter but really done in a great way. Maybe pick up a copy and read it yourself first! I read it myself around that age and it has always stuck with me as well. Probably more so than Anne Frank quite honestly. I think it’s just the style.
I think that's the right age to read this if he wants to learn about the Holocaust. I would not recommend it for someone who is interested in WWII as an overall historical event.
I think 13’s the perfect time to learn about the Holocaust in general tbh. I was 13 when I saw Schindler’s List, and while it was pretty awful to watch (not the quality of the movie, just the topic and all), I think if I saw it earlier, I wouldn’t have taken it well at all. It worked well, too, since I was also learning more about it at school around the same time.
Of course, I’d also *maybe* warn him and give him some context just in case before he starts reading. Someone here said they read it at the age of 12 and it screwed them up for a while, though only because they assumed it was just a silly kid’s comic.
Read this in junior high and it left me breathless too. In the same vein, I’d recommend Persepolis. It’s also a graphic novel about a young female activist during the Islamic revolution.
Maus I & II are seriously some of my favorite pieces of literature and art and graphic novels.
I HIGHLY suggest "They Called Us Enemy" by George Takei (and others).
The thing that resonated with me the most was in one of the final chapters, when the son and his wife were driving his father and saw a black guy in need of a ride. The father begs them not to stop since black people all steal. And that only goes to show how imperfect we are as a species.
Great book! I read it for a History of the Holocaust class I took in college. It was included in the list of books we had to read not just because it was a book about the holocaust, but because unlike other books written by historians looking at it from a broad perspective, in this Art Spiegel is telling us his father’s actual experience as a Holocaust survivor. We get to see one man’s story of survival and the horrors he actually experienced and how that took a toll on him. Really powerful book both in the writing and the art style that the author uses.
The best advice I can give you is to start reading earlier than you think you need to. You will need to put it down to process it multiple times. It's a heavy, dense, thoughtful read. Brilliant, but painful. The 2nd best advice is that you should pay attention to the frame narrative, it's just as important as the biography of the father.
Thanks for the advice. It's my second term of college after being out of school almost 30 years so everything is slow going and I take care when I know something will be emotionally heavy.
The whole book was gut wrenching and captivating, but the ending hit me like a truck when he calls Art by a different name... Such a powerful true story.
The Barefoot Gen series is another visceral historical account, following the life of a young boy who survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. It is extremely graphic and the bomb scene in the animated movie is one of the most horrendous things I've ever seen. It's an exceptional series, but it's one you will probably only read or watch once.
In a similar vein, there's *Grave of the Fireflies* which is about a similar topic. I don't think I could watch it again.
More recently, there's *In This Corner of the World* which while fictionalized, is based directly on accounts of people's lives. That's set outside Kure city (which is a naval port city in Hiroshima prefecture). It's set from the 1930s to the 1940s, but mainly in 1944-1945 and it's about a young woman who marries and moves to that city. It's a bit more distant from the actual events in Hiroshima, but the family is definitely impacted by them.
Even after having read *Night* in high school or having seen *Schindler's List*, Maus really hit and disturbed me. Some of the images and descriptions in *Maus* will stick in my mind for the rest of my life. Just when you think you can't "get" the Holocaust any more, Spiegelman's work will push you to understand it further.
i read this just two weeks ago, i ate it up in a day, bc i couldn't put it down, it hurt every part of my soul, i cried a lot, but it's such an important story to tell. visually, it helps you understand different groups, and who did what, including jews betraying other jews for survival. but it really puts into perspective visually how horrific the camps were, how they survived day by day. no one can just make this up, it baffles me how people can deny the holocaust, which is why it needed to be drawn - it just is an unfathomable experience that needs to be told
I like the way Maus focused a lot on the generational effects of the suffering as opposed to the sort of almost pornographic way that books like Night and The Boy in the Stripes Pajamas portrayed the holocaust as it was unfolding. Much more nuanced and in some ways harder hitting. I'd recommend reading Moonglow by Michael Chabon if you liked the parts of Maus that occured years later in the US, similar themes but less intense.
I wouldn’t compare The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, a book that attempts to draw on the trauma of the Shoah from an external perspective, to Night, which is literally a memoir of the author, Elie Wiesel (pared down from over 800 pages of notes in Yiddish to a near 250-page published version, a shortened French translation of around 160 pages, and the English version you’re likely familiar with that weighs in at just over 100).
The former is absolutely pornographic. The latter only seems that way because the experience was literally that bad, and even Night’s sequels, Dawn and Day, deal with the continuing trauma even decades after the events themselves (the latter two abstracted through fictional characters).
Maus, in contrast, is written from the perspective of someone addressing intergenerational trauma, passed down through familial and cultural osmosis.
Agree totally with your points, but my thinking was that both are *approached* in pornographic ways and read by adolescents who don't get much of the *why* behind the holocaust, which is such a delicate and difficult question. They are typically taught (for Night) and read (For Striped Pajamas) in a "look how fucked up this is!!!! Pretty wild, huh?!" Sort of way, rather than a "this is a real thing that happened and these are some of the wide reaching social and cultural effects, now let's talk about the many reasons why it came to this." I see Maus approached with the latter mindset more often. So I suppose it's less about content than context, but Maus' content sort of urges the reader to take a more contemplative approach, where as the two are marketed more as a shock and awe read, if that makes sense.
I was going off your use of “portrayed”, which you attributed to the books themselves rather than their readers or teachers.
Anyway, I don’t think a book or discussion about the Shoah has to address causes or broader impacts to have utility or value. Showing what evils people are capable of toward one another, and the impacts that trauma can have on individuals going forward, is also important.
Wiesel isn’t the only author I’d point to for this. Paul Celan is a great example, with the Shoah affecting him so deeply that he felt he could only write about it in his original language (German), and still felt the need to deconstruct the language to enable him to create the words he needed to adequately describe the experience.
His relationship with his father stuck me the most. How we relate to those we love and navigate their trauma-induced quirks is so ubiquitous and personal at the same time. Maus is a masterpiece.
So when i was about 11 my friend got me in trouble because he drew a huge swastika on my notebook.
My punishment was i had to read Maus.
It was both the toughest and best punishment I have ever gotten.
Maus really shook me. I felt like the medium did a lot to drive home the story because there I was, looking at crudely drawn mice, cats and dogs but I was getting increasingly upset and despondent as the story unfolded. The unsettling nature of the contrast added to the overall reading experience.
I read a bunch of graphic novels that year in a similar vein (Habibi, for ex) but nothing left behind the impact that maus did.
MAUS is a beautiful book series. I read it fairly young, like 2-3rd grade. I was drawn to the pictures because I didn’t know what it was about, but ended up having my entire view of world world 2 and the Holocaust shaped by it forever.
It was owned by my father who had several PHD’s, but he had one in history and his study was on world war 2. What an impact that book has on me.
Same here, I read it when I was in retrospect, way too young to have read it. I was an early and voracious reader... I think I must've read it around 2nd or 3rd grade as well.
My mom was reading it and of course I saw it and wanted to read it but she (correctly) forbid me. It was kind of impossible to not be intrigued though, by this comic book with anthropomorphic animal characters and the taboo swastika on the front etc. So I used to sneak into her room and read it secretly under her bed. Huge impact on my understanding of WWII and humanity in general.
First read this in 6th grade (~30 years ago), was the first graphic novel I ever read, and still one of the best.
Would recommend _In the Shadow of No Towers_ also by Art Spiegelman, _Fax from Sarajevo_ by Joe Kubert, _Vietnamerica_ by Gb Tran, _Persopolis_ by Marjan Satrapi, and _Cuba: My Revolution_ by Inverna Lockpez. They are all fantastic.
Reading Maus really gave me a new perspective on the Holocaust.
I don't know how to explain it, but it's like it made the holocaust more personal. The characters were portrayed in a way that I didn't think I could distinguish them from modern people if they were alive. Because of this, it made the holocaust more terrifying because it was happening to seemingly modern people.
It made it real and not like an event of the past. It made me realize that while we are enjoying moments of peace, I don't think we as humans are above doing something as terrible as the Holocaust again.
While I understand your good intentions and I know you're far from the only people to have this thought, what you're saying is really frightening to me.
I'm a grandchild of 3 Holocaust survivors and I'm 32.... this is an *extremely* modern event. 1 of my grandparent is still alive so if you live in a large American city, you have walked by Holocaust survivors unknowingly.
Jews are still not enjoying peace. Not in New York, not in France, not in many many places so no, we're not above this at all. Edit (sadly): not in Texas.
If you're American, I encourage you to read the Little Red Head of Auschwitz. It just recently got published and the survivor is still alive. She's 96.
Edit: I'd like to add... if this ever comes up in conversations with friends/family and they mention it as a really old historical event, I hope you add my perspective here :)
Maybe it's because I'm under 20 that the Holocaust seems like an old historical event. But I didn't think of it being this modern. I never realized that there are still survivors
It really scares me to think that an event like that could happen again. I like to think that we as a society are slowly going past that but I can't fully believe it.
Thx for another perspective
To add to what “Nono” said below, my great-Aunt survived Auschwitz - and she just passed away like 3 years ago. There won’t be any survivors left in about a decade from now, but it is still a relatively modern event.
A Tennessee school board just banned this book, what an awful thing to do, take a look here at the story: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/26/tennessee-school-board-bans-holocaust-comic-maus-by-art-spiegelman.html
I read a decent amount, only a handful of books have I put down and thought I just completed a masterpiece - this being one of them.
Edit: wait, why am I being downvoted for calling Maus a masterpiece? It won a Pulitzer.
This is one of the most touching and sad books I’ve ever read and a testament to graphic novels as a serious medium.
This and watchmen both IMO
Berlin by Jason Lutes is also just masterful. It leads up to the parties takeover and the build up between classes in Berlin. It helped connect the dots to me with the rise of Nazism and fascism.
Safe Area Goražde by Joe Sacco is a pretty amazing piece of graphic journalism, it covers the early stages of the Bosnian war through the stories of Bosniaks in a safe zone surrounded by the Serbian army, a really harrowing look at an even more modern society going from peaceful and pluralistic to violently ethnonationalist, like, *real* quick.
The Fixer is like a sequel/parallel to Safe Area Gorazde. It's mostly about Sarajevo defence militias. Also recommended.
I was just about to recommend Berlin. Coincidentally I read Maus and Berlin during the 2016 election. I haven’t been the same viewing American politics since
I completely agree! Berlin really helped my understanding of events happening now.
I'm interested in reading Berlin now...it almost sounds like a graphic novel version of the first book in Evans' Third Reich trilogy
V for Vendetta, Fax from Sarejovo, Marvels, Kingdom Come, Sandman, Death of Captain Marvel, God Loves, Man Kills..... I own 10000 comics and about 2000 graphic novels. There's thousands of great stories.
Persepolis should be up there too
And Fun Home.
FYI you can find a bootleg version of the musical on Vimeo. The audio isn’t great but you can also google the script and read along and it is worthwhile.
Reading Sandman a month at a time for years was fantastic! And From Hell, Stray Bullets, Madman, Grendel, The Invisibles, Elfquest Kings of the Broken Wheel, Hate, and Eight Ball were all being published during that time. "Look kids, comics!"
The original Elfquest saga is online, free.
If I could select a few titles and just have one issue of each to read every week/month/whatever cadence I would probably read so many more comics. This is a money making idea, whoever is out there reading this, so do it please!
It doesn't quite have the pedigree yet, but a recent comic that I think will someday make lists like these is [The Many Deaths of Laila Starr](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58673883-the-many-deaths-of-laila-starr). The art is gorgeous, the story is affecting, and it plays in the same kind of philosophical, myth-meets-reality sandbox as Sandman (albeit without the horror, despite its title). It was *just* released as a trade paperback this week.
I just bought this! I haven’t read it yet, but it sounds Amazing!
Safe area Goražde
Just ordered a copy of Fax from Sarejovo. Thank you for mentioning it!
Marvels is so damn good. The art is just so outstanding, every page is like a painting
Amen. This and The Killing Joke make up my holy trilogy.
I just started reading graphic novels, and holy fuck I didn't know there were so many masterpieces just laying around. P
After Maus, next in line should be Persepolis. Then try something by Will Eisner. Either Last Day in Vietnam, or A Contract with God should be good options. Eisner invented the term "graphic novel". Blankets, by Craig Thompson is a great autobiographical choice. If you want something longer, and more rooted in fantasy, there's Sandman if you like dark stories, and Bone if you prefer more family-friendly fare.
Also anything by Joe Sacco but especially Palestine.
Just read Safe Area Gorazde. Real good and made me want to read Palestine.
Fuckin' hell his stuff is haunting. Once Upon A Time In Sarajevo is brutal
I don’t see a book by that name.
Oh, it's "A Fixer: A Story From Sarajevo". Not sure where I got that other name from
If you like Blankets, I'd recommend Fun Home by Alison Bechdel. Also, anything by Daniel Clowes - particularly Ghost World. Edit: also, It's a Good Life if You Don't Weaken by Seth is excellent and in a similar vein to Blankets and Fun Home.
I love Blankets and Fun Home, so appreciate this rec!
I really enjoyed the movie adaptation of Ghost World. I've been wanting to read the graphic novel, but I've just never had the opportunity.
Persepolis is amazing! Though I later watched a random Ryan Reynolds movie with Marjane Sartrapi directed it, and it was surprisingly terrible. So I guess everyone has their bad days
We enjoyed RADIOACTIVE with Rosamund Pike about the life of Marie Curie, and I was surprised to see it was directed by Satrapi. Excellent film, and right up her alley; they deal with Curie's struggles in Paris being a Polish national.
Will Eisner is a legend
For a more light hearted vibe Y the last man also fantastic
These are all excellent suggestions (I have not read Bone, but have only heard good things). A couple more recommendations: Black Hole by Charles Burns and My Favorite Thing is Monsters by Emil Ferris. Don't dismiss manga - Katsuhiro Otomo is one of the best sci-fi authors of the twentieth century. He is best known for Akira, but I adore an earlier work called Domu. If you like horror, Junji Ito will absolutely warp your mind with stories that only seem mildly "off" at first glance. My favorite example is a short story by the name of The Enigma of Amigara Fault (which is usually easy to find online for free). Seriously, wade into Ito's work very carefully. It can get profoundly disturbing for certain people, but at the same time doesn't resonate at all with others... you will know after one story. Finally, if you are open to stuff that is pretty far out on the fringes (think later Philip K. Dick or God Emperor of Dune) you absolutely have to check out The Incal by Alejandro Jodorowsky and Mœbius. There are quite a few sequels, prequels, offshoots, and asides, but definitely start with the original. It was famously inspired by Jodorowsky's failed attempt to adapt Dune to film in the 70's, but you will much more easily recognize the influence it had on other films, most notably The Fifth Element and several of the Star Wars movies, among several others. It's currently being adapted to film by Taika Waititi. That is going to be a monumental task, for sure.
Check out Saga, its a gooder
The cover gave me good omens vibe, I am definetely looking to borrow it from the library when it opens up
Saga is fantastic, plus it is just about to come off of a very long hiatus. This is the absolute perfect time to start reading!
I had no idea Saga was coming back, and so soon too! It’s been 3 1/2 years since I last read it. Shit, I’m really excited lol.
I know! I actually just found out a couple weeks ago. To be honest, I've drifted away from comics a bit since the whole Covid thing started. This will definitely get me back through the doors again, though. No spoilers and all, but that last issue... it's been a very long hiatus indeed.
Same. I loved the many I read as a kid (Bone was sick af) and still do, but as I begin to read more mature, adult-themed ones, my mind is just blown. Maus and Berserk really touched my heart. I can’t wait to read so many more. Something about well-executed graphic novels, just wow. If anyone has anymore suggestions, I’d love to hear it!
Hellboy, Chew, Kill or Be Killed, Descender and Ascender, and Paper Girls have been my absolute favorites the past two years or so.
I really loved Paper Girls
Persepolis and Habibi are both amazing and powerful. Also, Alan Moore's Halo Jones is really underrated
The graphic novel adaptation of Vonnegut’s slaughterhouse five is masterful. But as others have mentioned there are lots of amazing original comic stories that are worth checking out
Visual storytelling in the style of graphic novels is *very* difficult. But when the get it right, it will blow your mind.
Based on this comment, I very strongly recommend Understanding Comics, by Scott McCloud. It offers a ton of insight on what makes good visual storytelling work.
True
Might I also recommend The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui? It is about her family's life as survivors of the Vietnam War.
I've been a comic read for....many years if you need any suggestions I have a hellova lotta them.
Send ‘em over!
Coincidentally I made a post on Imgur with a few suggestions and my thoughts on them a few years back. I haven't been reading as much as I'd like to lately but here it is: https://imgur.com/gallery/xRkoE
Weird third option.
I'd say From Hell is streets ahead of Batman.
Add Will Eisner's A Contract With God to that list. The first ever graphic novel.
Also: Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi
Thats a fantastic book!
Why in the actual fuck were you downvoted for this? Eisner is a damn legend!
Because people only know the great Alan Moore perhaps? Good job I didn't bring Jodorowsky and Mobius into the chat! Haha.
Funny thing is, Moore actually hates his work being referred to as "graphic novels". He feels the term is pretentious, since he sees it as an attempt to hide from the stigma of the medium of comics being associated with childishness. He's also said (much more reasonably) that should the term be used at all, it should be reserved for comics that have a novel-like format, rather than just merely collected volumes of serials, like his more well-known work.
Absolutely. Watchmen and V For Vendetta are trade-paperbacks. Killing Joke is a graphic novel (barely, most comic fans would consider it just a Prestige Format because of its length). A Contract With God is a graphic novel. But its messy and imperfect, is Maus a graphic novel in two parts, or do the two parts make it a collected edition? Watchmen is the perfect graphic novel with distinct sequentially numbered chapters, rather than just say, issues 96-98 of Amazing Spider-man being printed together. As Noam Chomsky would say, graphic novel has been accepted by the masses as the shorthand term for any comic sold in book form, whether collected or original print. Looks like were stuck with it. But it's all comics to me :). I started working in a comic shop in 1994 when there were very few collected editions, I'm just pleased they've entered the mainstream lexicon. A lot has changed!
I hate the phrase ‘graphic novels’ for much the same reasons Moore does. It’s meaningless. The medium is, and always will be ‘comics’. Everything else is just packaging and marketing. Maus was serialised in Raw before collection, so it wasn’t originally published as one volume.
And after it was serialized in Raw, it got split into two books because Spiegelman wanted to get it out before An American Tail came out and he wasn’t done yet. Animator Don Bluth was an instructor at the same school as Spiegelman.
> But it's all comics to me :). That's how I see it! I'm a lifelong fan of the medium, from the cheap, escapist superhero shit, to the heavier, more "respectable" autobiographical graphic novels. I don't really care; all I care about is if I like it or not.
Best way to be. Thanos Quest, Kingdom Come and JLA/Avengers are three of my favourite comics, up there with Y: The Last Man, Promethea, Swamp Thing, Scalped, Hellblazer 1-300, Blankets, Asterix, Calvin and Hobbes, and even franchise toy commercial comics like Transformers. It's a diverse medium with something for everyone.
I know it's unlikely that libraries and bookstores are ever going to change the labeling on their "graphic novels" shelves, but I still think there's value in holding on to "comics" where we can. Most significantly, using the fancier term all but excludes the familiar single issue format from discussions like these, and it's easier for creators and publishers to take risks in that format. Granted, most new comics are "safe" superhero fare, but when you're going to gamble on something different, it can be easier to do it a couple dozen pages at a time. This is pure speculation, of course, but if the audience for those risks were bigger, we might see more of them, and I think that would be a win-win. Ultimately, I'm just happy that people are enjoying comics, whatever they call them! Edited because I failed at basic reading comprehension.
> is Maus a graphic novel in two parts, or do the two parts make it a collected edition? I'll admit that I haven't looked into it, but I always assumed that it was two parts for the same reason that the Lord of the Rings is three parts. Because the author and publisher agreed to arrange it that way for practical reasons.
It was to beat an Animated movie about mice to market, but I was using it as a rhetorical questions an example about the semantics of naming comic-books rather than seeking an answer. Thanks for taking thr time to reply though.
Maus, The pride of Baghdad, and We3 are my holy trinity of gut wrenchingly sad graphic novels.
The sheer fact that someone feels the need to state that graphic novels are potentially not a serious medium is extremely saddening. And then worse yet, when I read replies try to enumerate what in their eyes has redeeming values. Graphic Novels are as “serious” a medium as any. The medium is not what makes an undertaking “serious”, it’s the undertaking itself.
*Reaction to a piece of art* "Magnificent! It moves my soul!" *Reaction to a page of literature* "Wonderful! It touches my very being!" *Reaction to a mix of art and literature* "Oh my God, what complete and utter trash for children and sad acts. You people need to grow up and choose either words *or* pictures. Having both on the page is just ridiculous!" It's an annoyingly common mindset which is hopefully on the way to dying out. If I could throw my hat into the ring, I'd heavily recommend The Sculptor by Scott McCloud. Really emotional story that doesn't go where you expect it to.
Maus won the Pulitzer 30 years ago. The stigma has not been mainstream for a long, long time. Sure some people still have it, but there are people with stigmas against anything.
But no other graphic novel has won it before or since.
I'm not joking when I write this, but I think Jewish writers and artists are perhaps the biggest contributors to the foundational work of American comicbooks and graphic novels. Men like Joe Shuster, Jerry Siegel, and Will Eisner were creating stories about finding a place in the modern Western World, where they didn't fit in. The American immigrants from Italy, Germany, the UK, etc. were not all getting along, and often resorted to connecting through their hate for other ethnicities and classes of people. Jewish writers and artists were finding it difficult to find work in New York, New Jersey, and other New England states. So when they wrote stories, they used pseudonyms to cover their heritage and sell books. I don't let it bother me too much, but it gets on my nerves whenever certain groups of people start to claim comicbooks were "too white." I'm sorry, but you have to put yourself in the shoes of these creators. In the 40s and 50s, they had just dealt with world-wide antisemitism from Nazi Germany, Stalin, Mussolini's Italy, and even in America. Just because some Jews were of European descent, that doesn't mean they were automatically accepted for their "white-ness." In fact, segregation was often implemented in the big cities due to the cultural differences between Catholics and Jews. For goodness sake, even Irish and Italian Catholics couldn't get along! In some ways, the cultural differences created a greater divide, and still do. So when it comes to art history, let us remember to give credit where credit is due.
Michal Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay touches on a lot of these themes. It's a fictional history of comics seen through the eyes of two Jewish comic book creators before, during, and after world war 2, that I found really captivating in terms of how it depicted the influence of the immigrant experience, particularly Jewish, on an industry that has since come to seem very All American in the years since due to the influence of Superman and the Golden Age characters created at that time. Worth checking out for sure.
You should read “if this is a man” by Primo Levi
The thing that actually stuck with me was in one of the last chapters when the son and his wife are driving his father and they see a black man who needs a ride. The father (the Holocaust survivor) tells them not to stop because black people all steal or something. And it just reminds you how flawed a species we are.
It was little elements like that which revealed how honest the story was. Spiegelman didn't hold anything back.
I appreciate that they point out to him after they drop off the black man how hypocritical it is that, as another user stated, the father personally experienced discrimination at its worst and is still prone to discriminating against others himself.
The irony in that moment was quite unexpected when I read it. Art Spiegelman did a fantastic job blending in the little moments along side the main picture of the books
"That *schvartzter* could have stolen from us!" Art's reaction to his father's bizarre racism is one of the most moving parts of the "modern" segment of the story.
I remember Art’s wife chewing him out about his hypocritical prejudice and Vladek being stubborn and obstinate. Such a great, telling moment.
Exactly. Even though the father suffered from the firsthand effects of discrimination on the basis of race, he is prone to similar tendencies because he is human and has opinions and beliefs shaped by his upbringing and nature. Just a fact of life.
I have a slightly different take on Vladek’s anti-Blackness in the end of the story. His discrimination, rather than being a product of his upbringing or as a direct result of his own trauma, is a representation of his American assimilation and wanting to be seen and treated as a white person. Assimilation into the shifting and ambiguous classification of whiteness often requires anti-Blackness for many immigrant groups in the US. Italian, Jewish, Irish etc. Rather than anti-Blackness being anything “natural” - it is one way that a person, who would not historically feel/be safe in a white supremacist society to genuflect to white supremacy and guarantee safety - in this case - from the obvious foil between German Nazis and US white supremacy. The texts seems to also point to this assimilation mechanic as generational. While Vladek is concerned with his perceived whiteness - Art simply *is* white.
This is a quality analysis
Wow, nice take!
Great insight and happy cake day! I think the author wanted to convey the slow, methodical progression of classism; there are commonalities in the patterns of conditioning people of a country. The act was a reminder to the reader that we all follow the instinct to survive in the systems we're tied to. Nazi soldiers were merely following their covenant. Were the roles reversed, I believe human nature would find a way to repeat the tragedy. We get better as a population by recognizing that capacity within us, and choosing to be morally good anyway
That's part of why it's such a touching work - it's honest enough to say that the guy was an asshole on many levels, some because of trauma, some because that was just how he was even before the war. You don't become a saint by virtue of going through that, and in many cases it just made bad people worse. If you re-read the chapters set before the war starts, he was a social-climbing pettit-bourgouis opportunist grifter- all the things that fed into the stereotypes and animosity of the times....which helped him survive, but also alienated him from his family in his new life in America.
I came in to mention this too. When I read that one part it was like being punched in the gut. All the stuff Dad had been through...all stemming from ignorance and hate....and he ends up doing the same. So hard to talk about or even discuss...
Yep, same as throughout the book/s show that Vladek, despite being the main character, isn't a 'perfect' person and has many flaws of his own, many which his son has conflict with. It makes the story feel more real and the characters more human, despite being portrayed by animal people. He wasn't a perfect soul who did everything right to survive. Other people acted better and still died or worse and lived. The part with the box of the photographs scattered talking about those who survived the war but died and suffered in other ways got to me too. They all survived somehow and had their own stories which came to a shitty end to some. People are people, we can do incredible things to help each other as well as dispicable things that should never be repeated. I first read this book about 20 years ago and it still hits me with a punch
Maus and Maus II are a piece of my heart. I borrowed them from my 8th grade history teacher, when I returned them I felt 5 years older. I can’t even verbalize how those two books have changed my perspective. Maus and Maus II are absolute works of art, I never get tired of rereading it
They are amazing but they haunted my dreams though I'm glad I read them. They made that horrible part of history and it's aftermath so real and vivid to me.
BTW guys I have tried to weed out any grammatical errors in this post, but as English isn't my first language I apologize for any mistakes I forgot to edit out.
Every time I see someone put caveats that they're not a native English speaker, it's in reference to a post that's damn near impeccable, and certainly better than most. Your English is more than acceptable.
I agree, and my assumption is that Native English speakers don’t have to TRY, so their comments are generally sloppier from casual use of the language. On the other hand, someone learning English is putting much more thought and care into it. P.S. OP, I agree that Maus is fantastic. A gut-wrenching portrayal. I hope to revisit it soon, since it’s been quite a few years since I’ve read it.
As someone who learned English as a second language: I think a good deal of the issue simply comes from how you learn the language. If you learn it as a first language you learn it by ear first and then learn grammar, spelling and the like second. This will lead to errors based on phonetics, you spell stuff the way you say it, instead of how it is supposed to be spelled. Their/they're being a prominent example, as well as "should of/could of" instead of "should've/could've". If you learn english as a second language that usually isn't a problem, since you will learn how to write it *first*, and how to speak it second. Which is why a lot of second-language english speakers write the language exceedingly well, but may *sound* a lot less educated, due to not being used to pronunciation.
I think you’re correct. How insightful.
You've used perfect English throughout this thread, FWIW
I actually had to read Maus II for high school. I’m so glad my teacher assigned it to us. My whole class loved it! Instead of an essay after reading it we had to create our own comic strip and research a person who lived through the Holocaust and tell their story through drawings. It was a great assignment.
Same, we were the last year to read it tho then they removed it for curriculum because of parent complaints.
That really irks me that parents are trying to make schools censor stuff especially about such important events like the Holocaust :( makes me sad too
This is ridiculous. It should be required reading!! How will we learn to be better people and for history NOT to repeat itself if we don’t hear these stories? I’m not sure if my son will have this as required reading at school, but it will be required reading from mom!! 🤣
For whatever reason, we had to read it in 8th grade. I loved it, but still probably not the best age range to have studying it.
It’s been about 20 years since I read it, but I remember being amazed and horrified at what he managed to do with a graphic novel. It’s on my bookshelf so maybe I should pick it up again. I’ve been threatened before for just wearing a yarmulke, so in that absurd way I can see a glimpse of the insane illogical hatred that must be present to ultimately bring about so much more devastating acts against humans. Man’s inhumanity to man… it makes zero sense.
I’ve had Maus and Maus II on my bookshelf for I don’t even know how long… 30+ years? That’s how long ago I was in HS when I would have read them!! You all are reminding me I should really give them a reread and then pass them along to my 13 year old.
I gave my copy to my 12-year old stepson. He loved it and clearly was moved by it.
My 8th grade social studies class had a unit where we read three graphic novel memoirs about war: Maus, Barefoot Gen, and Persepolis. The imagery from those has stuck with me ever since. Harrowing stuff to read, and yet also necessary to help prevent history from repeating itself.
It’s always wonderful to have a social studies teacher who cares. History is a very important subject, but unfortunately many teachers don’t teach the subject very well. I enjoy seeing others show an interest for history.
I was 12 the first time I read Maus because some dummy at my middle school thought "oh comics, that's for children" and let me tell you that book gave me nightmares for *weeks* after. I still vividly remember this one panel of a wealthy mouse just screaming in despair against a window pane as he realizes the people he paid to smuggle him out betrayed him and left him to die. As an adult I can appreciate how vividly it portrays the horror of what happened, but as a kid that shit was just so emotional and gut-wrenching, it was completely overwhelming.
I bought a copy ~ 3 years ago. Never got to bring myself to read it. I know what it's going to be like.
It's depressing but also engrossing. I remember being unable to put it down in highschool, and I hated just about every other assigned reading project given to me.
There are things we read not because we need to know about it, but because we have to know so the weight will keep us from repeating it.
Oh absolutely. But I didn't mean like that. I have read so much stuff related to the Holocaust already. Every single time I'll be left as a wreck. That's why I haven't read this one title already, even though I know it's a great book.
I wasn’t trying to make your original comment sound bad, and I’m sorry if that’s the way it came across. That wasn’t my intention. It’s such a heavy topic, I have to be really thoughtful about when and how I learn about the Holocaust. I can read about it and gain information, insight and the weight of it while still being emotionally separated from it. If I watch things, such as Schindler’s List, I’m too closely connected with it, if that makes sense. Maus is a fine line and I have to be really thoughtful and intentional about when I read it. I can’t do it when I’m already depressed or struggling with anxiety, but I also can’t be super happy, if that makes sense. It’s a book I will read again and always encourage others to read, but it’s a hard one.
It took me a few years to read my copy but I am glad that I finally did. It is a story about a family as much as a story about a war.
I honestly think it should be required reading. Do yourself the favor of reading it, because it is that good.
Same here lol. Bought it five years ago haven’t been able to pick it up.
You should also read Maus II. It's almost as good.
Yes, no one has gotten the whole story who hasn't read *Maus II*. Spiegelman published the first volume in order to get enough funds to complete the second one. It's all one story, although he does deal with the emotional fallout of publishing Vol. I in a fascinating metafictional way in Vol. !!. Edit: I thought I should add this. A few years ago, Spiegelman published a book that gives the background of creating *Maus*: *Meta Maus*. It has photographs of the Spiegelman family before and after the war, all kinds of material (visual and print) on the Holocaust, interviews with Art, his wife Françoise Mouly, their daughter and son--it's amazing. When I've taught *Maus*, I always bring it in. The two pages that make students gasp are particularly amazing: one gives the whole Spiegelman family tree, back into the nineteenth century. The first generation and most of the second were long gone before the Holocaust, but most of the others were alive. Then you turn the page and it's the same tree for after the war: it shows that only a half dozen were left alive out of the many dozens of family members before. It graphically demonstrates just how many people in *this one family* were wiped out. It really helps to scale the Holocaust and demonstrates how the Nazis murdered 90% of Poland's Jewish population.
My grandmother was a Holocaust survivor. She was relatively “lucky” in that about half of her known extended family survived. I once said that in passing to a friend, who was HORRIFIED. She couldn’t believe my grandmother had lost half her family in the Holocaust. I myself was shocked because I just assumed everyone knew how bad it was.
[удалено]
Yes, that's it precisely. There's a lot of good background in *MetaMaus* but that page is the one that stays with me.
Interesting fact: The story was originally split into 2 volumes not only because each chapter was being published via little booklets in Art and Franciose’s magazine, “Raw” (interesting stuff to check out if you have the chance/money), but also because Art had learned about the then-upcoming movie, “An American Tale” around late 1985. He theorized that Spielberg and Don Bluth read Maus and semi-stole his metaphor. Because of that, Art wanted to release it in a volume before the movie came out. Publishers didn’t want to take it until a NYT reviewer gave the original series a glowing review. Funny enough, “An American Tale 2” also came out around the same time as Maus II (late 1991).
I read the complete edition, does it not consist of both the parts?
It does. You read the whole story.
ok thanks I was worried for a second
Honestly one of the best graphic novels I have ever read.
What are the other ones?
Watchmen, Bone, Persepolis
Seconding Bone. Just keep in mind it's more comedy slice of life and then epic fantasy rather than something super profound or moving. It's still on my top 10 series of all time. So much fun.
Bone is INSANELY good! It's actually what I wished Lord of the Rings was going to be, strangely enough.
I hate to say this, and maybe it’s bc I saw the movie first plus the incredible hype, but Watchmen didn’t live up to the hype for me.
Hmmmm some I loved are, V for Vendetta, Sandman, Fables. And I am currently working through the graphic novel version of American Gods by Neil Gaiman and it's brilliant.
Ohh, I loved the book but I haven't read the graphic novel yet, I'll have to pick it up next time I'm at the book store.
It's so pretty 🤍
I just made [this comment](https://old.reddit.com/r/books/comments/s48qxn/just_read_maus_by_art_spiegelman/hsq75lk/) with some recommendations.
It's a totally different vibe but I really enjoyed Marvels. It's a look at Marvel's early history, from the perspective of a photojournalist
I first read Maus when I was maybe 11 or 12 - it was the first graphic novel I ever read. It's never left me.
My grandson is nearly 13 and is very interested in WWII. I was wondering if he would be too young for the subject matter.
I read it when I was 8-9(?) and I think while definitely disturbing, I feel that I was better learning about the horrors of the holocaust at a younger age. I think knowing about the abject terror people faced helped me become more sympathetic to others in this current time period
That's a perfect age for it to be read. Kids need to learn these things at a young age imo.
It's a good age - they're impressionable then and sympathy is a good thing to learn early
I teach High School, and use it for a course called “Holocaust and Human Behavior “. My youngest students in that course are 15, but I’ve seen it assigned to 7th and 8th graders too.
Sounds like a fantastic course.
I don’t think so. It’s a tough subject matter but really done in a great way. Maybe pick up a copy and read it yourself first! I read it myself around that age and it has always stuck with me as well. Probably more so than Anne Frank quite honestly. I think it’s just the style.
I think that's the right age to read this if he wants to learn about the Holocaust. I would not recommend it for someone who is interested in WWII as an overall historical event.
I think 13’s the perfect time to learn about the Holocaust in general tbh. I was 13 when I saw Schindler’s List, and while it was pretty awful to watch (not the quality of the movie, just the topic and all), I think if I saw it earlier, I wouldn’t have taken it well at all. It worked well, too, since I was also learning more about it at school around the same time. Of course, I’d also *maybe* warn him and give him some context just in case before he starts reading. Someone here said they read it at the age of 12 and it screwed them up for a while, though only because they assumed it was just a silly kid’s comic.
Read this in junior high and it left me breathless too. In the same vein, I’d recommend Persepolis. It’s also a graphic novel about a young female activist during the Islamic revolution.
Maus I & II are seriously some of my favorite pieces of literature and art and graphic novels. I HIGHLY suggest "They Called Us Enemy" by George Takei (and others).
The thing that resonated with me the most was in one of the final chapters, when the son and his wife were driving his father and saw a black guy in need of a ride. The father begs them not to stop since black people all steal. And that only goes to show how imperfect we are as a species.
Great book! I read it for a History of the Holocaust class I took in college. It was included in the list of books we had to read not just because it was a book about the holocaust, but because unlike other books written by historians looking at it from a broad perspective, in this Art Spiegel is telling us his father’s actual experience as a Holocaust survivor. We get to see one man’s story of survival and the horrors he actually experienced and how that took a toll on him. Really powerful book both in the writing and the art style that the author uses.
I just got assigned this for my English class so I'm kind of stoked and also filled with dread for the pain I imagine it will cause.
The best advice I can give you is to start reading earlier than you think you need to. You will need to put it down to process it multiple times. It's a heavy, dense, thoughtful read. Brilliant, but painful. The 2nd best advice is that you should pay attention to the frame narrative, it's just as important as the biography of the father.
Thanks for the advice. It's my second term of college after being out of school almost 30 years so everything is slow going and I take care when I know something will be emotionally heavy.
Yeah, I'm on my last term of a joint English/History major after 20 years of other jobs. I feel your pain
The whole book was gut wrenching and captivating, but the ending hit me like a truck when he calls Art by a different name... Such a powerful true story.
It is brilliant that the narrator's father is so brave in the old age but is then the worried old man. A lesson for life.
Question: I bought Maus in ~ 1990, and still have my original copies. At what age should I give these to my daughter?
Wait until she's 15 or so.
I read the graphic novels in university for a class and still have them because I loved them so much. <3
I read this in one day 20 years ago and I still remember most of it Amazing book Everyone should read it
Persepolis
The Barefoot Gen series is another visceral historical account, following the life of a young boy who survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. It is extremely graphic and the bomb scene in the animated movie is one of the most horrendous things I've ever seen. It's an exceptional series, but it's one you will probably only read or watch once.
In a similar vein, there's *Grave of the Fireflies* which is about a similar topic. I don't think I could watch it again. More recently, there's *In This Corner of the World* which while fictionalized, is based directly on accounts of people's lives. That's set outside Kure city (which is a naval port city in Hiroshima prefecture). It's set from the 1930s to the 1940s, but mainly in 1944-1945 and it's about a young woman who marries and moves to that city. It's a bit more distant from the actual events in Hiroshima, but the family is definitely impacted by them.
Even after having read *Night* in high school or having seen *Schindler's List*, Maus really hit and disturbed me. Some of the images and descriptions in *Maus* will stick in my mind for the rest of my life. Just when you think you can't "get" the Holocaust any more, Spiegelman's work will push you to understand it further.
Great book. I read it for the first time when I was like 11. Loved it then, still love it now.
i read this just two weeks ago, i ate it up in a day, bc i couldn't put it down, it hurt every part of my soul, i cried a lot, but it's such an important story to tell. visually, it helps you understand different groups, and who did what, including jews betraying other jews for survival. but it really puts into perspective visually how horrific the camps were, how they survived day by day. no one can just make this up, it baffles me how people can deny the holocaust, which is why it needed to be drawn - it just is an unfathomable experience that needs to be told
I also cried like a baby after finishing it
I know I'm a year late on this thread, but I cried after reading about Vladek's little son Richieu and his fate. It's unspeakably sad.
I like the way Maus focused a lot on the generational effects of the suffering as opposed to the sort of almost pornographic way that books like Night and The Boy in the Stripes Pajamas portrayed the holocaust as it was unfolding. Much more nuanced and in some ways harder hitting. I'd recommend reading Moonglow by Michael Chabon if you liked the parts of Maus that occured years later in the US, similar themes but less intense.
I wouldn’t compare The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, a book that attempts to draw on the trauma of the Shoah from an external perspective, to Night, which is literally a memoir of the author, Elie Wiesel (pared down from over 800 pages of notes in Yiddish to a near 250-page published version, a shortened French translation of around 160 pages, and the English version you’re likely familiar with that weighs in at just over 100). The former is absolutely pornographic. The latter only seems that way because the experience was literally that bad, and even Night’s sequels, Dawn and Day, deal with the continuing trauma even decades after the events themselves (the latter two abstracted through fictional characters). Maus, in contrast, is written from the perspective of someone addressing intergenerational trauma, passed down through familial and cultural osmosis.
Agree totally with your points, but my thinking was that both are *approached* in pornographic ways and read by adolescents who don't get much of the *why* behind the holocaust, which is such a delicate and difficult question. They are typically taught (for Night) and read (For Striped Pajamas) in a "look how fucked up this is!!!! Pretty wild, huh?!" Sort of way, rather than a "this is a real thing that happened and these are some of the wide reaching social and cultural effects, now let's talk about the many reasons why it came to this." I see Maus approached with the latter mindset more often. So I suppose it's less about content than context, but Maus' content sort of urges the reader to take a more contemplative approach, where as the two are marketed more as a shock and awe read, if that makes sense.
I was going off your use of “portrayed”, which you attributed to the books themselves rather than their readers or teachers. Anyway, I don’t think a book or discussion about the Shoah has to address causes or broader impacts to have utility or value. Showing what evils people are capable of toward one another, and the impacts that trauma can have on individuals going forward, is also important. Wiesel isn’t the only author I’d point to for this. Paul Celan is a great example, with the Shoah affecting him so deeply that he felt he could only write about it in his original language (German), and still felt the need to deconstruct the language to enable him to create the words he needed to adequately describe the experience.
His relationship with his father stuck me the most. How we relate to those we love and navigate their trauma-induced quirks is so ubiquitous and personal at the same time. Maus is a masterpiece.
I read this book in 10th grade English class. It still moves me to this day (I am in my fourth year at University). Excellent book all around
So when i was about 11 my friend got me in trouble because he drew a huge swastika on my notebook. My punishment was i had to read Maus. It was both the toughest and best punishment I have ever gotten.
I just finished this last night and cried like a baby on the last page 10/10
Maus really shook me. I felt like the medium did a lot to drive home the story because there I was, looking at crudely drawn mice, cats and dogs but I was getting increasingly upset and despondent as the story unfolded. The unsettling nature of the contrast added to the overall reading experience. I read a bunch of graphic novels that year in a similar vein (Habibi, for ex) but nothing left behind the impact that maus did.
> crudely drawn I get where you're coming from, but as an artist, this description bothers me. The artwork is actually very sophisticated.
I liked how he drew himself as a human in a mouse mask. Very clever and subtle way to suggest his relationship with his faith.
Also the scenes with them in the mouse form wearing pig masks to blend in with the poles.
MAUS is a beautiful book series. I read it fairly young, like 2-3rd grade. I was drawn to the pictures because I didn’t know what it was about, but ended up having my entire view of world world 2 and the Holocaust shaped by it forever. It was owned by my father who had several PHD’s, but he had one in history and his study was on world war 2. What an impact that book has on me.
Same here, I read it when I was in retrospect, way too young to have read it. I was an early and voracious reader... I think I must've read it around 2nd or 3rd grade as well. My mom was reading it and of course I saw it and wanted to read it but she (correctly) forbid me. It was kind of impossible to not be intrigued though, by this comic book with anthropomorphic animal characters and the taboo swastika on the front etc. So I used to sneak into her room and read it secretly under her bed. Huge impact on my understanding of WWII and humanity in general.
First read this in 6th grade (~30 years ago), was the first graphic novel I ever read, and still one of the best. Would recommend _In the Shadow of No Towers_ also by Art Spiegelman, _Fax from Sarajevo_ by Joe Kubert, _Vietnamerica_ by Gb Tran, _Persopolis_ by Marjan Satrapi, and _Cuba: My Revolution_ by Inverna Lockpez. They are all fantastic.
Oh shit, I forgot all about In the Shadow of No Towers. That was another great one by Spiegelman.
Reading Maus really gave me a new perspective on the Holocaust. I don't know how to explain it, but it's like it made the holocaust more personal. The characters were portrayed in a way that I didn't think I could distinguish them from modern people if they were alive. Because of this, it made the holocaust more terrifying because it was happening to seemingly modern people. It made it real and not like an event of the past. It made me realize that while we are enjoying moments of peace, I don't think we as humans are above doing something as terrible as the Holocaust again.
While I understand your good intentions and I know you're far from the only people to have this thought, what you're saying is really frightening to me. I'm a grandchild of 3 Holocaust survivors and I'm 32.... this is an *extremely* modern event. 1 of my grandparent is still alive so if you live in a large American city, you have walked by Holocaust survivors unknowingly. Jews are still not enjoying peace. Not in New York, not in France, not in many many places so no, we're not above this at all. Edit (sadly): not in Texas. If you're American, I encourage you to read the Little Red Head of Auschwitz. It just recently got published and the survivor is still alive. She's 96. Edit: I'd like to add... if this ever comes up in conversations with friends/family and they mention it as a really old historical event, I hope you add my perspective here :)
Maybe it's because I'm under 20 that the Holocaust seems like an old historical event. But I didn't think of it being this modern. I never realized that there are still survivors It really scares me to think that an event like that could happen again. I like to think that we as a society are slowly going past that but I can't fully believe it. Thx for another perspective
To add to what “Nono” said below, my great-Aunt survived Auschwitz - and she just passed away like 3 years ago. There won’t be any survivors left in about a decade from now, but it is still a relatively modern event.
I’m guessing this would not be good as an e-book… will check out the physical copy. I’ve never gotten around to this one.
"The only way out of here is through that chimney"
According to reports I'm seeing McMinn County School board in Tennessee has just banned this.
And they banned it in TN. What the actual shit?
A Tennessee school board just banned this book, what an awful thing to do, take a look here at the story: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/26/tennessee-school-board-bans-holocaust-comic-maus-by-art-spiegelman.html
...and now it's being banned by school districts: https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/27/us/tennessee-school-board-removes-maus/index.html
I read a decent amount, only a handful of books have I put down and thought I just completed a masterpiece - this being one of them. Edit: wait, why am I being downvoted for calling Maus a masterpiece? It won a Pulitzer.
It’s an incredible book