Maus

This week I read Maus: A Survivor’s Tale by Art Spiegelman.  I have heard of this comic before but I have never gotten around to reading it.  I thought it was going to be just another story of a holocaust survivor, just with cats and mice, and for the most part I assumed right. What made this comic stand out from other holocaust stories is the way Art Spiegelman drew it and told it.  I thought that the comic was expertly designed with the way that Spiegelman used his line work to get across emotions and mood in the story.  Characters emotions could be seen though beads of sweat on their faces when they are under pressure, as well as stress lines that can be seen under the eyes of all of the prisoners in despair.  You could tell the disgusting conditions of the Nazi camps by the way fumes were drawn emanating from the prisoners outfits and barracks within the camp.

            I found it interesting that Spiegelman portrayed the different races as different animals with Jews being mice, Germans being cats, and the Polish being represented as pigs.  Although Spiegelman did this to make it easy to distinguish the characters in the story, apparently making the different races look like different animals in the story was criticized for promoting ethnic stereotypes.  I liked how Spiegelman showed that the mice were trying to hide their identities by wearing pig masks.  I found the comic easy to follow with it panels being placed in an easy to read manner with not much text per page.

            Before reading, I assumed that the book was a fictitious tale about the holocaust, except the characters were animals.  I did not realize that the comic was about the author’s father telling the story of his family and experience of World War II.  The story was interesting and disturbing.  I would definitely suggest this graphic novel to anyone who has not read it.