Mauschwitz- Art Spiegelman

The entirety of the events revolving around the Holocaust is fascinatingly horrifying and Maus captures the essence of this beautifully.  It was rather surprising to find out that the author of the work didn’t actually experience WW II himself, either.  Instead, the entire story is just pictures put to a recorded account of his father’s experience.  That aside, Art Spiegelman makes the act of reading this comic a very personal thing between the audience, him, his father and all those who fell victim to the Nazi party.  He does this seamlessly from the very first quote he chooses to open up the book with,

“ Mickey Mouse is the most miserable ideal ever revealed…Healthy emotions tell every independent young man and every honorable youth that the dirty and filth-covered vermin, the greatest bacteria carrier in the animal kingdom, cannot be the ideal type of animal…Away with Jewish brutalization of the people!  Down with Mickey Mouse! Wear the Swastika Cross!” (newspaper article in Germany, mid 1930s).   

Not only is this a powerful message and example of the Nazi Germany mentality, it also introduces the visual symbolization of people Spiegelman uses to brilliantly reinforce said mentality.  Making the Jewish people actual mice in the story and the Nazis strong antagonistic animals such as pigs and dogs makes it quite clear in the readers mind which people were the weak and which were in charge.  It is a glimpse into how the Germans saw life and the scariest thing is realizing that we the American people have also looked at others like that in the past.  It is easy to get swept into such hatred over another ethnicity when in reality they are no different from us.  In fact, it got to the point in reading this comic that I was so used to seeing the thousands and thousands of mice on the page, so when it got the point where one of the mice might have actually been a cat with the Nazi party and still got beat down I proceeded to feel worse for the cat than the rest of the mice.  After realizing this I felt horrible!  But it was so easy to associate mouse equals Hell and the others equal power and they betrayed their own kind! 

Spiegelman created this sense of emotional detachment, not only with the masking of real people behind animal masks, but also with the harsh graphicness of his style in general.  The heavy, thick and stiff outlines make the displayed world non-real to the point that even if you feel bad for the characters, the emotions are a little fuzzy in the translation.   Even the text and writing got blocky, disjointed and hard to read at times. It is a very odd feeling to try to explain.  Needless to say, reading this comic changes your life and gives a sense purpose to the reader’s life when they are done.  Even if the author wasn’t looking for the praise he got from just the first installment, I think he deserves it 110%.