Who is Art Spiegelman and what is Maus?
May 11, 2020 · When did Art Spiegelman start writing Maus? A three-page strip also called "Maus" that he made in 1972 gave Spiegelman an opportunity to interview his father about his life during World War II. The recorded interviews became the basis for the graphic novel, which Spiegelman began in 1978. Click to see full answer.
When was Maus published?
Feb 11, 2022 · Art Spiegelman, (born February 15, 1948, Stockholm, Sweden), American author and illustrator whose Holocaust narratives Maus I: A Survivor’s Tale: My Father Bleeds History (1986) and Maus II: A Survivor’s Tale: And Here My Troubles Began (1991) helped to establish comic storytelling as a sophisticated adult literary medium.
How old is Art Spiegelman?
Feb 11, 2022 · BIANCULLI: Art Spiegelman speaking to Terry Gross in 1987. His graphic novel, "Maus," was published the year before, won the Pulitzer Prize and is now more than 35 years old. Yet very recently, it...
Who influenced Maus by Steve Spiegelman?
Feb 14, 2022 · Spiegelman, a monumental creator of comic books, began drawing his seminal work Maus in the early 1970s. It tells the story of his father’s journey through the Holocaust and of his own struggle to...
When did Spiegelman start writing Maus?
Art Spiegelman's Maus was originally published in serial form beginning in 1980, in the comic anthology Raw. It appeared in book form in 1986, when volume I, “My Father Bleeds History,” was published by Pantheon Books.May 12, 2011
Why did Spiegelman write Maus?
An unprecedented genre, Art Spiegelman created Maus to record his father's experience in the Holocaust, and in doing so, recorded his experience being the son of a survivor, and his experience writing about the experience of being the son of a survivor (what a demanding task!).Nov 7, 2018
How many years did Art Spiegelman work on Maus?
Then, in about 1978, Spiegelman felt that he had come to a turning point in his cartooning work, and he decided to further develop his three-page comic strip, Maus. He turned the three-page comic strip into a 295-page book which ultimately consumed 13 years of work.
When was the complete Maus published?
1980Maus / Originally published
When did Art Spiegelman born?
February 15, 1948 (age 74 years)Art Spiegelman / Date of birth
How did Art Spiegelman life experiences influenced his writing?
In an interview with Nancy Pearl, Spiegelman described how he was heavily influenced by underground comics of the 1960s and 1970s (e.g.: Art Crumb), many of which featured anthropomorphized animals.
What year did Maus win the Pulitzer Prize?
1992"Maus" won the Pulitzer Prize in 1992. The vote, which comes amid a series of efforts in Republican states to ban schools from teaching books about racism and sexuality, was first reported by the Tennessee Holler, a local news outlet.Jan 27, 2022
Why is Maus black and white?
In Spiegelman's 'Maus' the comics themselves are devoid of colour, relying on textures and shading to evoke the perception of depth and character.
Why are French frogs in Maus?
At the beginning of the second volume of Maus the autobiographical character Artie worries about the way his French wife Françoise should be depicted. The French are conceived as frogs, another stereotyped image since, in the English-speaking world, 'frog' is used as a slang expression for the French.
How did Maus first appear?
In 1972 he published two strips that represented a break from his previous work. The first was Maus, originally a three-page story that appeared in cartoonist Justin Green's Funny Animals anthology.
Who was Maus written by?
Art SpiegelmanMaus / Author
What year is Maus set?
Central Europe, 1900s-1940s; Auschwitz, 1944-45; New York and Florida, 1970s-1980s. Maus follows Vladek Spiegelman in Poland in the years leading up to World War II.
What is the story of Maus?
The second, Prisoner on the Hell Planet, was an attempt to understand his mother’s suicide through panels that evoked the bold intensity of German Expressionist woodcuts.
Where did Spiegelman live?
The family settled in Queens, New York , and Spiegelman, inspired by the clever artwork and subversive humour of Mad magazine, studied cartooning. As a teenager, he attended Manhattan’s High School of Art and Design, and he embarked on a career as a professional artist, selling illustrations to the Long Island Post.
Who is Michael Ray?
American author and illustrator. Michael Ray oversees coverage of European history and military affairs for Britannica. He earned a B.A. in history from Michigan State University in 1995. He was a teacher in the Chicago suburbs and Seoul,... Art Spiegelman, (born February 15, 1948, Stockholm, Sweden), American author and illustrator whose Holocaust ...
Is Maus II a nonfiction book?
In addition, Maus II became a New York Times best seller. Initially appearing on the fiction list, it was moved to nonfiction after Spiegelman appealed for the transfer on the basis of the book’s carefully researched factual scenes .
Who is Art Spiegelman?
Art Spiegelman ( / ˈspiːɡəlmən /; born Itzhak Avraham ben Zeev Spiegelman on February 15, 1948) is an American cartoonist, editor, and comics advocate best known for his graphic novel Maus. His work as co-editor on the comics magazines Arcade and Raw has been influential, ...
Who were Art Spiegelman's parents?
Art Spiegelman's parents were Polish Jews Władysław (1906–1982) and Andzia (1912–1968) Spiegelman. His father was born Zeev Spiegelman, with the Hebrew name Zeev ben Avraham. Władysław was his Polish name, and Władek (or Vladek in Russified form) was a diminutive of this name.
Where was Spiegelman born?
Spiegelman was born Itzhak Avraham ben Zeev in Stockholm, Sweden, on February 15, 1948. He immigrated with his parents to the US in 1951. Upon immigration his name was registered as Arthur Isadore, but he later had his given name changed to Art.
Who was the first cover artist for the New Yorker?
Hired by Tina Brown as a contributing artist in 1992, Spiegelman worked for The New Yorker for ten years. Spiegelman's first cover appeared on the February 15, 1993, Valentine's Day issue and showed a black West Indian woman and a Hasidic man kissing. The cover caused turmoil at The New Yorker offices.
Who is Spiegelman married to?
Spiegelman married Françoise Mouly on July 12, 1977, in a City Hall ceremony. They remarried later in the year after Mouly converted to Judaism to please Spiegelman's father. Mouly and Spiegelman have two children together: a daughter Nadja Rachel, born in 1987, and a son Dashiell Alan, born in 1991.
When did the garbage pail kids come out?
In the wake of the success of the Cabbage Patch Kids series of dolls, Spiegelman created the card series Garbage Pail Kids for Topps in 1985. Similar to the Wacky Packages series, the gross-out factor of the cards was controversial with parent groups, and its popularity started a gross-out fad among children.
Arthur (Artie) Spiegelman Quotes in Maus
The Maus quotes below are all either spoken by Arthur (Artie) Spiegelman or refer to Arthur (Artie) Spiegelman. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one: ).
Arthur (Artie) Spiegelman Character Timeline in Maus
The timeline below shows where the character Arthur (Artie) Spiegelman appears in Maus. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Overview
Maus is a nonfiction book presented in the graphic novel style, written by American cartoonist Art Spiegelman. Serialized from 1980 to 1991, it depicts Spiegelman interviewing his father about his experiences as a Polish Jew and Holocaust survivor. The work employs postmodernisttechniques and represents Jews as mice, Germans as cats, Poles as pigs, Americans as dogs, the British as fish, the French as frogs, and the Swedish as deer. Critics have classified Maus as memoir, biogr…
Synopsis
Most of the book weaves in and out of two timelines. In the frame tale of the narrative present, Spiegelman interviews his father Vladek in the Rego Park neighborhood of Queens in New York City in 1978–79. The story that Vladek tells unfolds in the narrative past, which begins in the mid-1930s, and continues until the end of the Holocaust in 1945.
Primary characters
Art Spiegelman Art (born 1948) is a cartoonist and intellectual. Art is presented as angry and full of self-pity. He deals with his own traumas and those inherited from his parents by seeking psychiatric help, which continued after the book was completed. He has a strained relationship with his father, Vladek, by whom he feels dominated. At first, he displays little sympathy for his father's hardships, but he shows more as the narrative unfolds. Vladek Spiegelman Vladek (190…
Background
Art Spiegelman was born on February 15, 1948, in Sweden to Polish Jews and Holocaust survivorsVladek and Anja Spiegelman. An aunt poisoned his parents’ first son Richieu to avoid capture by the Nazis, four years before Spiegelman's birth. He and his parents emigrated to the United States in 1951. During his youth his mother occasionally talked about Auschwitz, but his father did not w…
Publication history
The first chapter of Maus appeared in December 1980 in the second issue of Raw as a small insert; a new chapter appeared in each issue until the magazine came to an end in 1991. Every chapter but the last appeared in Raw.
Spiegelman struggled to find a publisher for a book edition of Maus, but after a rave New York Times review of the serial in August 1986, Pantheon Bookspublis…
Themes
Spiegelman, like many of his critics, has expressed concern that "[r]eality is too much for comics ... so much has to be left out or distorted", admitting that his presentation of the story may not be accurate. He takes a postmodernapproach; Maus "feeds on itself", telling the story of how the story was made. It examines the choices Spiegelman made in the retelling of his father's memories, and th…
Style
Spiegelman's perceived audacity in using the Holocaust as his subject was compounded by his telling the story in comics. The prevailing view in the English-speaking world held comics as inherently trivial, thus degrading Spiegelman's subject matter, especially as he used animal heads in place of recognizably human ones. Talking animalshave been a staple of comics, and w…
Reception and legacy
Spiegelman's work as cartoonist and editor had long been known and respected in the comics community, but the media attention after the first volume's publication in 1986 was unexpected. Hundreds of overwhelmingly positive reviews appeared, and Maus became the center of new attention focused on comics. It was considered one of the "Big Three" book-form comics from arou…
Overview
Art Spiegelman is an American cartoonist, editor, and comics advocate best known for his graphic novel Maus. His work as co-editor on the comics magazines Arcade and Raw has been influential, and from 1992 he spent a decade as contributing artist for The New Yorker. He is married to designer and editor Françoise Mouly, and is the father of writer Nadja Spiegelman.
Spiegelman began his career with Topps (a bubblegum and trading cardcompany) in the mid-196…
Life and career
Spiegelman was born Itzhak Avraham ben Zeev in Stockholm, Sweden, on February 15, 1948. He immigrated with his parents to the US in 1951. Upon immigration his name was registered as Arthur Isadore, but he later had his given name changed to Art. Initially the family settled in Norristown, Pennsylvania, and then relocated to Rego Park, Queens, New York City, in 1957.
He began cartooning in 1960 and imitated the style of his favorite comic books, such as Mad. In t…
Family history
Spiegelman's parents were Polish Jews Władysław (1906–1982) and Andzia (1912–1968) Spiegelman. His father was born Zeev Spiegelman, with the Hebrew name Zeev ben Avraham. Władysław was his Polish name, and Władek (or Vladek in anglicized form) was a diminutive of this name. He was also known as Wilhelm under the German occupation, and Anglicized his name to William upon immigration to the United States. His mother was born Andzia Zylberberg, with the …
Personal life
Spiegelman married Françoise Mouly on July 12, 1977, in a New York city hall ceremony. They remarried later in the year after Mouly converted to Judaism to please Spiegelman's father. Mouly and Spiegelman have two children together: a daughter, Nadja Rachel, born in 1987, and a son, Dashiell Alan, born in 1992.
Style
"All comic-strip drawings must function as diagrams, simplified picture-words that indicate more than they show."— Art Spiegelman
Spiegelman suffers from a lazy eye, and thus lacks depth perception. He says his art style is "really a result of [his] deficiencies". His is a style of labored simplicity, with dense visual motifs which often go unnoticed upon first viewing. He sees comics as "very condensed thought structures", …
Beliefs
Spiegelman is a prominent advocate for the comics medium and comics literacy. He believes the medium echoes the way the human brain processes information. He has toured the U.S. with a lecture called "Comix 101", examining its history and cultural importance. He sees comics' low status in the late 20th century as having come down from where it was in the 1930s and 1940s, when comics "tended to appeal to an older audience of GIsand other adults". Following the adven…
Legacy
Maus looms large not only over Spiegelman's body of work, but over the comics medium itself. While Spiegelman was far from the first to do autobiography in comics, critics such as James Campbellconsidered Maus the work that popularized it. The bestseller has been widely written about in the popular press and academia—the quantity of its critical literature far outstrips that of any other work of comics. It has been examined from a great variety of academic viewpoints, th…
Bibliography
• Tijuana Bibles: Art and Wit in America's Forbidden Funnies, 1930s-1950s (Introductory Essay: Those Dirty Little Comics) (1977)
• Breakdowns: From Maus to Now, an Anthology of Strips (1977)
• Maus (1991)