Okay so about Maus since it’s come up lately.
This thing was huge in my life and I don’t just mean as using comics to tell stories beyond superheroes. It’s very well crafted imho and if the subject matter wasn’t uncomfortable (I’ve met survivors, lost family in the camps, knew about this from fairly young) I would probably be copying all sorts of pages to study them.
Okay so about Maus since it’s come up lately.
The part I remember best was in book 2, Spiegelman talking to his therapist, who’s a survivor. The therapist basically defines CPTSD. This was one of the first things that made me realize my childhood wasn’t ideal, that I had problems.
Also if you look closely some of the double triangles on the camp uniforms? Even in black and white he acknowledges that Queer or Communist Jews existed. That was huge to me, coming from GA at a less enlightened time.
Okay so about Maus since it’s come up lately.
What really impacted me is he goes beyond a simple morality play. The survivors aren’t saints, they’re humans, this experience would break most people and Spiegelman’s parents are very broken. As resourceful and tough as Vladek is, he’s up against this huge horror; a lot of his survival is luck.
Okay so about Maus since it’s come up lately.
There’s no shame in coming out of something that big scarred, or not at all. There’s no happy ending (the only time I met Spiegelman I said that, and we agreed about *hating* the end of Schindler’s List where everyone who lives winds up blissfully happy in Medinat Yisrael), life keeps going and winds up with Vladek’s family and old age. The whole thing is very humanistic.
Anyway, these are great comics. If you can do it okay I can’t praise it enough.