Week 7: MAUS

I did not know much about graphic novels before I took the literature of graphic narratives class, I began to get aware of more knowledge through research by taking this course. For this week, I was assigned to read a graphic novel “Maus”, created by Art Spiegleman. I already knew about this comic because it is well known. I considered it would be a good chance to know better so I started to read, and realized the Maus was a legendary graphic novel.

Art Spiegleman was a Jewish American comic artist who wrote this book based on the interview with his father Vladek’s experience of Holocaust during the second World War. The storytelling was very interesting that laid with the past and present perspectives. The story started with a prologue and Vladek quoted, “Friends? Your friends? If you lock them together in a room with no food for a week, then you can see what it is, friends!”, in there, I could see how much he suffered during his life in Auchwitz concentration camp. Then the chapters continued that Art interview his father that consisted with Vladek’s meet-up with his dead wife Anja, Draft the battle for the second World War, separation with Anja due to being captured as a prisoner, his life in Auchwitz, and reunion with Anja. There was also confrontation with Art and Vladek over his wife’s suicide because Vladek destroyed Anja’s diaries. Art blamed him for the death of his mother. The storytelling was very fluent and interesting that combined Vladek’s suffer as a Jewish and personal conflict with his son.

                                              

There were plenty of media sources about the Jewish massacre through novels, movies, or documentary films. One of the notable examples was “The Diary of a Young Girl” that contained Jewish people’s hard experiences. I thought the Maus would also go with a similar storytelling direction. Instead, Maus also dealt with racism towards the black people based on Vladek’s story. Even though Vladek himself was a victim of discrimination, there was a scene where he was racist towards a black person. It was a fresh idea for me that victims of racism can also be perpetrators of racism.

The other interesting element was that the Maus used a metaphor with animals representing each nation: Jewish as mice, German as cats, and even more. Graphic novels have the opportunity to explain character dynamics through visuals. In this narrative, the Jewish people and the Germans had a clear food chain, mice and cats. It was easier to comprehend the animals’ relationships.

Overall, the Maus is an adult comic with a cartoonish styled art but very serious political storylines. The more I read graphic novels, the further I expand my views. The Maus is a great choice for others to broaden their mentalities about humanity.

Underground Comics: Funny Book

I found an interesting comic book, an underground comic named “Funny Book”. First of all, a word “Adult Only” attracted my attention and I could figure out by just looking at the cover page. The characters were cartoony but their actions were described as violating, and my guess was right. At first page, I could see cussing from a teenaged girl character who dealt with sex and drugs. Same as other chapters, they all went with sex, drugs, murders, violations, and sarcasm. Just listening to 60s soundtracks, my first reaction was “It is so hippie”. The book I read was very honest with their expressions, emotions, feelings, and freedom. They literally drew and described whatever they wanted.

I am more familiar with genres like action or fantasy that we can commonly watch or read rather than such maniac subjects. For me, this is very new but realized that comics could be drawn in this perspective. One thing that I was attracted was they were liberal and not restricted by the world. For instance, regular comics or cartoons have a specific targeted audience, especially children or teenagers. This means they cannot easily put something controversial like drugs or alcohol. Everything is limited and whatever the readers are offended by, they can always complain and the artists had to follow their requests. The “Funny Book” was different. The artists were revealing their desires that they had hidden to the world.

Therefore, I could empathize with the underground artists because I would rather make stuff for myself than cater to an audience.

Underground Comics: Air Pirates Funnies

Underground Comics are new types of comics that usually come from small or private publishing companies that started in the United States in the late 1960s. As comics were gaining popularity as a form of art, the new concept of comics, the underground comics, appeared. The increase in youth counter-culture of the early 1970s modified different styles of comic movements, and targeted more adult readers in graphic narrative ways.

One of the good examples was an underground comic named, Air Pirates Funnies,

created by Dan O’Neill. The Air Pirate Funnies was a parody of Disney characters, which became famous with lawsuit issues from the Walt Disney Production. O’Neill basically set the Mickey Mouse characters as villains to symbolize a conformist hypocrisy of the American culture for the purpose of satire. The antagonists usually dealt with the usage of sex and drugs. It also contained another parody of the Disney characters; they were parodies known as the Big Bad Wolf and Three Little Pigs, which offended the appropriation of US folklore. By using Disney characters without permissions from the Walt Disney Production, they battled with lawsuits over O’Neill and his employees in 1971.

I would always read generic types of cartoons or comics. However, now I read underground with a new fresh perspective, which I can use to interpret the works in realistic ways.