| Art Spiegelman | |
|---|---|
 Spiegelman in 2012 | |
| Born | Itzhak Avraham ben Zeev Spiegelman[1] (1948-02-15)February 15, 1948 (age 78) Stockholm, Sweden |
| Nationality | American |
| Area | Cartoonist, Editor |
Notable works | |
| Spouse | |
| Children |
|
Itzhak Avraham ben Zeev Spiegelman (/ˈspiːɡəlmən/SPEE-gəl-mən; born February 15, 1948), professionally known asArt Spiegelman, is aPolish-American cartoonist, editor, and comics advocate best known for his graphic novelMaus. His work as co-editor on the comics magazinesArcade andRaw has been influential, and from 1992 he spent a decade as contributing artist forThe New Yorker. He is married to designer and editorFrançoise Mouly and is the father of writerNadja Spiegelman. In September 2022, theNational Book Foundation announced that he would receive theMedal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.[3]
Spiegelman began his career withTopps (a bubblegum andtrading card company) in the mid-1960s, which was his main financial support for two decades; there he co-created parodic series such asWacky Packages in the 1960s andGarbage Pail Kids in the 1980s. He gained prominence in theunderground comix scene in the 1970s with short, experimental, and often autobiographical work. A selection of these strips appeared in the collectionBreakdowns in 1977, after which Spiegelman turned his focus to the book-lengthMaus, about his relationship with his father, aHolocaust survivor. The postmodern graphic novel depicts Germans as cats, Jews as mice, ethnic Poles as pigs, and citizens of theUnited States as dogs. Spiegelman spent 13 years on the project, completing it in 1991. In 1992 it won a specialPulitzer Prize and has gained a reputation as a pivotal work.
Spiegelman and Mouly edited eleven issues ofRaw from 1980 to 1991. The oversized comics and graphics magazine helped introduce talents who became prominent inalternative comics, such asCharles Burns,Chris Ware, andBen Katchor, and introduced several foreign cartoonists to the English-speaking comics world. Beginning in the 1990s, the couple worked forThe New Yorker, which Spiegelman left to work onIn the Shadow of No Towers (2004), about his reaction to theSeptember 11 attacks in New York in 2001.
Spiegelman advocates for greater comics literacy. As an editor, a teacher, and a lecturer, Spiegelman has promoted better understanding of comics and has mentored younger cartoonists.
Spiegelman's parents werePolish 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 inanglicized form) was a diminutive of this name. He was also known as Wilhelm underthe German occupation, and Anglicized his name to William upon immigration to the United States. His mother was born Andzia Zylberberg, with the Hebrew name Hannah. She changed her name to Anna upon immigrating to the United States. In Spiegelman'sMaus, from which the couple are best known, Spiegelman used the spellings "Vladek" and "Anja", which he believed would be easier for Americans to pronounce.[4] The surnameSpiegelman is German for "mirror man".[5]
In 1937, the Spiegelmans had one other son, Rysio (spelled "Richieu" inMaus), who died before Art was born,[1] at the age of five or six.[6] During the Holocaust, Spiegelman's parents sent Rysio toZawiercie to stay with his maternal aunt, Tosha, with whom they believed he would be safe. In 1943, the aunt poisoned herself, along with Rysio and two other young family members in her care, so that theNazis could not take them to theextermination camps. After the war, the Spiegelmans, unable to accept that Rysio was dead, searched orphanages all over Europe in the hope of finding him. Spiegelman talked of having a sort ofsibling rivalry with his "ghost brother"; he felt unable to compete with an "ideal" brother who "never threw tantrums or got in any kind of trouble".[7] Of 85 Spiegelman relatives alive at the beginning ofWorld War II, only 13 are known to have survived the Holocaust.[8]
He began cartooning in 1960[9] and imitated the style of his favoritecomic books, such asMad.[10] In the early 1960s, he contributed to earlyfanzines such asSmudge andSkip Williamson'sSquire, and in 1962[11]—while at Russell Sage Junior High School inForest Hills, Queens, where he was anhonors student—he produced theMad-inspired fanzineBlasé. He was earning money from his drawing by the time he reached high school and sold artwork to the originalLong Island Press and other outlets. His talent caught the eyes ofUnited Features Syndicate, who offered him the chance to produce asyndicated comic strip. Dedicated to the idea of art as expression, he turned down this commercial opportunity.[10] He attended theHigh School of Art and Design in Manhattan beginning in 1963. He metWoody Gelman, the art director ofTopps Chewing Gum Company, who encouraged Spiegelman to apply to Topps after graduating from high school.[9] At age 15, Spiegelman received payment for his work from a Rego Park newspaper.[12]
After he graduated in 1965, Spiegelman's parents urged him to pursue the financial security of a career such as dentistry, but he chose instead to enroll atHarpur College to study art and philosophy. While there, he got a freelance art job at Topps, which provided him with an income for the next two decades.[13]
Spiegelman attended Harpur College from 1965 until 1968, where he worked as staff cartoonist for the college newspaper and edited a college humor magazine.[14] After a summer internship when he was 18, Topps hired him for Gelman's Product Development Department[15] as a creative consultant makingtrading cards and related products in 1966, such as theWacky Packages series ofparodic trading cards begun in 1967.[16]
Spiegelman began selling self-publishedunderground comix on street corners in 1966. He had cartoons published in underground publications such as theEast Village Other and traveled to San Francisco for a few months in 1967, where the underground comix scene was just beginning to burgeon.[16]
In late winter 1968, Spiegelman suffered an intensenervous breakdown,[17] which cut short his university studies.[16] He has said that at the time he was takingLSD with great frequency.[17] He spent a month inBinghamton State Mental Hospital, and shortly after he exited it, his mother died bysuicide following the death of her only surviving brother.[18]
In 1971, after several visits, Spiegelman moved toSan Francisco[16] and became a part of thecountercultural underground comix movement that had been developing there. Some of the comix he produced during this period includeThe Compleat Mr. Infinity (1970), a ten-page booklet of explicit comic strips, andThe Viper Vicar of Vice, Villainy and Vickedness (1972),[19] atransgressive work in the vein of fellow underground cartoonistS. Clay Wilson.[20] Spiegelman's work also appeared in underground magazines such asGothic Blimp Works,Bijou Funnies,Young Lust,[16]Real Pulp, andBizarre Sex,[21] and were in a variety of styles and genres as Spiegelman sought hisartistic voice.[20] He also did a number of cartoons formen's magazines such asCavalier,The Dude, andGent.[16]
In 1972,Justin Green asked Spiegelman to do a three-page strip for the first issue ofFunny Aminals [sic].[22] He wanted to do one about racism, and at first considered a story[23] with African Americans as mice and cats taking on the role of theKu Klux Klan.[24] Instead, he turned to the Holocaust that his parents had survived. He titled the strip "Maus" and depicted the Jews as mice persecuted bydie Katzen, which were Nazis as cats. The narrator related the story to a mouse named "Mickey".[22] With this story Spiegelman felt he had found his voice.[12]
Seeing Green's revealingly autobiographicalBinky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary while in-progress in 1971 inspired Spiegelman to produce "Prisoner on the Hell Planet", an expressionistic work that dealt with his mother's suicide; it appeared in 1973[25][26] inShort Order Comix#1,[27] which he edited.[16] Spiegelman's work thereafter went through a phase of increasing formal experimentation;[28] theApex Treasury of Underground Comics in 1974 quotes him: "As an art form the comic strip is barely in its infancy. So am I. Maybe we'll grow up together."[29] The often-reprinted[30] "Ace Hole, Midget Detective" of 1974 was aCubist-stylenonlinear parody ofhardboiled crime fiction full ofnon sequiturs.[31] "A Day at the Circuits" of 1975 is a recursive single-page strip about alcoholism and depression in which the reader follows the character through multiple never-ending pathways.[32] "Nervous Rex: The Malpractice Suite" of 1976 is made up of cut-out panels from the soap-opera comic stripRex Morgan, M.D. refashioned in such a way as to defy coherence.[28]
In 1973, Spiegelman edited apornographic andpsychedelic book of quotations and dedicated it to his mother. Co-edited with Bob Schneider, it was calledWhole Grains: A Book of Quotations.[33] In 1974–1975, he taught a studio cartooning class at theSan Francisco Academy of Art.[19]
By the mid-1970s, the underground comix movement was encountering a slowdown. To give cartoonists a safe berth, Spiegelman co-edited the anthologyArcade withBill Griffith, in 1975 and 1976.Arcade was printed byThe Print Mint and lasted seven issues, five of which had covers byRobert Crumb. It stood out from similar publications by having an editorial plan, in which Spiegelman and Griffith attempt to show how comics connect to the broader realms of artistic and literary culture. Spiegelman's own work inArcade tended to be short and concerned with formal experimentation.[34]Arcade also introduced art from ages past, as well as contemporary literary pieces by writers such asWilliam S. Burroughs andCharles Bukowski.[35] In 1975, Spiegelman moved back to New York City,[36] which put most of the editorial work forArcade on the shoulders of Griffith and his cartoonist wife,Diane Noomin. This, combined with distribution problems and retailer indifference, led to the magazine's 1976 demise. Spiegelman swore he would never edit another magazine.[37]
Françoise Mouly, an architectural student on a hiatus from her studies at theBeaux-Arts in Paris, arrived in New York in 1974. While looking for comics from which to practice reading English, she came acrossArcade. Avant-garde filmmaker friendKen Jacobs introduced Mouly and Spiegelman, when Spiegelman was visiting, but they did not immediately develop a mutual interest. Spiegelman moved back to New York later in the year. Occasionally the two ran across each other. After she read "Prisoner on the Hell Planet" Mouly felt the urge to contact him. An eight-hour phone call led to a deepening of their relationship. Spiegelman followed her to France when she had to return to fulfill obligations in her architecture course.[38]
Spiegelman introduced Mouly to the world of comics and helped her find work as acolorist forMarvel Comics.[39] After returning to the U.S. in 1977, Mouly ran into visa problems, which the couple solved by getting married.[40] The couple began to make yearly trips to Europe to explore the comics scene, and brought back European comics to show to their circle of friends.[41] Mouly assisted in putting together the lavish, oversized collection of Spiegelman's experimental stripsBreakdowns in 1977.[42]
Breakdowns suffered poor distribution and sales, and 30% of the print run was unusable due to printing errors, an experience that motivated Mouly to gain control over the printing process.[42] She took courses inoffset printing and bought a printing press for her loft,[43] on which she was to print parts of[44] a new magazine she insisted on launching with Spiegelman.[45] With Mouly as publisher, Spiegelman and Mouly co-editedRaw starting in July 1980.[46] The first issue was subtitled "The Graphix Magazine of Postponed Suicides".[45] While it included work from such established underground cartoonists as Crumb and Griffith,[37]Raw focused on publishing artists who were virtually unknown, avant-garde cartoonists such asCharles Burns,Lynda Barry,Chris Ware,Ben Katchor, andGary Panter, and introduced English-speaking audiences to translations of foreign works byJosé Muñoz,Chéri Samba,Joost Swarte,Yoshiharu Tsuge,[28]Jacques Tardi, and others.[45]
With the intention of creating a book-length work based on his father's recollections of the Holocaust[47] Spiegelman began to interview his father again in 1978[48] and made a research visit in 1979 to theAuschwitz concentration camp, where his parents had been imprisoned by theNazis.[49] The book,Maus, appeared one chapter at a time as an insert inRaw beginning with the second issue in December 1980.[50] Spiegelman's father did not live to see its completion; he died on 18 August 1982.[36] Spiegelman learned in 1985 thatSteven Spielberg was producing an animated film about Jewish mice who escape persecution in Eastern Europe by fleeing to the United States. Spiegelman was sure the film,An American Tail (1986), was inspired byMaus and became eager to have his unfinished book come out before the movie to avoid comparisons.[51] He struggled to find a publisher[8] until in 1986, after the publication inThe New York Times of a rave review of the work-in-progress,Pantheon agreed to release a collection of the first six chapters. The volume was titledMaus: A Survivor's Tale and subtitledMy Father Bleeds History.[52] The book found a large audience, in part because it was sold in bookstores rather than indirect-market comic shops, which by the 1980s had become the dominant outlet for comic books.[53]
Spiegelman began teaching at theSchool of Visual Arts in New York in 1978, and continued until 1987,[36] teaching alongside his heroesHarvey Kurtzman andWill Eisner.[54] "Commix: An Idiosyncratic Historical and Aesthetic Overview", a Spiegelman essay, was published inPrint.[55] Another Spiegelman essay, "High Art Lowdown", was published inArtforum in 1990, critiquing theHigh/Low exhibition at theMuseum of Modern Art.[55]
In the wake of the success of theCabbage Patch Kids series of dolls, Spiegelman created the parodic trading card seriesGarbage Pail Kids for Topps in 1985. Similar to theWacky Packages series, thegross-out factor of the cards was controversial with parent groups, and its popularity started a gross-out fad among children.[56] Spiegelman called Topps his "Medici" for the autonomy and financial freedom working for the company had given him. The relationship was nevertheless strained over issues of credit and ownership of the original artwork. In 1989 Topps auctioned off pieces of art Spiegelman had created rather than returning them to him, and Spiegelman broke the relation.[57] In 1990, he received aGuggenheim Fellowship for Fine Arts.[58]
In 1991,RawVol. 2,No. 3 was published; it was to be the last issue.[55] The closing chapter ofMaus appeared not inRaw[50] but in the second volume of the graphic novel, which appeared later that year with the subtitleAnd Here My Troubles Began.[55]Maus attracted an unprecedented amount of critical attention for a work of comics, including an exhibition at New York'sMuseum of Modern Art[59] and aspecial Pulitzer Prize in 1992.[60]
Hired byTina Brown[61] as a contributing artist in 1992, Spiegelman worked forThe New Yorker for ten years. His first cover appeared on the February 15, 1993, Valentine's Day issue and showed a blackWest Indian woman and aHasidic man kissing. The cover caused turmoil atThe New Yorker offices. Spiegelman intended it to reference theCrown Heights riot of 1991 in which racial tensions led to the murder of a Jewishyeshiva student.[62] Twenty-oneNew Yorker covers by Spiegelman were published,[63] and he also submitted some which were rejected for being too outrageous.[64][65]
WithinThe New Yorker's pages, Spiegelman contributed strips such as a collaboration, "In the Dumps", with children's illustratorMaurice Sendak[66][67] and an obituary toCharles M. Schulz, "Abstract Thought is a Warm Puppy".[68] Another of Spiegelman's essays, "Forms Stretched to their Limits", in an issue was aboutJack Cole, the creator ofPlastic Man. It formed the basis for a book about Cole,Jack Cole and Plastic Man: Forms Stretched to Their Limits (2001).[68]
The same year, Voyager Company publishedThe Complete Maus, a CD-ROM version ofMaus with extensive supplementary material, and Spiegelman illustrated a 1923 poem byJoseph Moncure March calledThe Wild Party.[69] Spiegelman contributed the essay "Getting in Touch With My Inner Racist" in the September 1, 1997, issue ofMother Jones.[69]
Spiegelman was comics editor of theNew York Press in the early 1990s.[70] He was comics editor ofDetails magazine in the late 1990s;[65] in 1997 he began assigningcomics journalism pieces inDetails to a number of his cartoonist associates,[71] includingJoe Sacco,Peter Kuper,Ben Katchor,Peter Bagge,Charles Burns,Kaz,Kim Deitch, andJay Lynch. The magazine published these works of journalism in comics form throughout 1998 and 1999, helping to legitimize the form in popular perception.[72]
Spiegelman's influence and connections in New York cartooning circles drew the ire of political cartoonistTed Rall in 1999.[73] In "The King of Comix",[70] an article inThe Village Voice,[74] Rall accused Spiegelman of the power to "make or break" a cartoonist's career in New York, while denigrating Spiegelman as "a guy with one great book in him".[73] CartoonistDanny Hellman responded by sending a forged email under Rall's name to 30 professionals; the prank escalated until Rall launched a defamation suit against Hellman for $1.5 million. Hellman published a "Legal Action Comics" benefit book to cover his legal costs, to which Spiegelman contributed a back-cover cartoon in which he relieves himself on a Rall-shaped urinal.[74]
In 1997, Spiegelman had his first children's book published,Open Me...I'm a Dog, with a narrator who tries to convince its readers that it is a dog via pop-ups and an attached leash.[75] From 2000 to 2003, Spiegelman and Mouly edited three issues of the children's comics anthologyLittle Lit, with contributions fromRaw alumni and children's book authors and illustrators.[76]
Spiegelman lived close to theWorld Trade Center site, which was known as "Ground Zero" after theSeptember 11 attacks that destroyed theWorld Trade Center.[77] Immediately following the attacks Spiegelman and Mouly rushed to their daughter Nadja's school, where Spiegelman's anxiety served only to increase his daughter's apprehensiveness over the situation.[63] Spiegelman and Mouly created a cover for the September 24 issue ofThe New Yorker[78][79] which at first glance appears to be totally black, but upon close examination it reveals the silhouettes of theWorld Trade Center towers in a slightly darker shade of black. Mouly positioned the silhouettes so that the North Tower's antenna breaks into the "w" ofThe New Yorker's logo. The towers were printed in black on a slightly darker black field employing standard four-color printing inks with an overprinted clear varnish. In some situations, the ghost images only became visible when the magazine was tilted toward a light source.[78] Spiegelman was critical of the Bush administration and the mass media over their handling of the September 11 attacks.[80]
Spiegelman did not renew hisNew Yorker contract after 2003.[81] He later quipped that he regretted leaving when he did, as he could have left in protest when the magazine ran a pro-invasion of Iraq piece later in the year.[82] Spiegelman said his parting fromThe New Yorker was part of his general disappointment with "the widespread conformism of the mass media in theBush era".[83] He said he felt like he was in "internal exile"[80] following the September 11 attacks as the U.S. media had become "conservative and timid"[80] and did not welcome the provocative art that he felt the need to create.[80] Nevertheless, Spiegelman asserted he left not over political differences, as had been widely reported,[81] but becauseThe New Yorker was not interested in doing serialized work,[81] which he wanted to do with his next project.[82]
Spiegelman responded to the September 11 attacks withIn the Shadow of No Towers, commissioned by German newspaperDie Zeit, where it appeared throughout 2003.The Jewish Daily Forward was the only American periodical to serialize the feature.[80]In the Shadow of No Towers is an autobiographical reflection on the tragic events and a partialpolitical satire on thewar on terror.[84] The collected work appeared in September 2004 as an oversized[a]board book of two-page spreads which had to be turned on end to read.[85]
In the June 2006 edition ofHarper's Magazine Spiegelman had an article published on theJyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy; some interpretations of Islamic law prohibit thedepiction of Muhammad. The Canadian chain of booksellersIndigo refused to sell the issue. Called "Drawing Blood: Outrageous Cartoons and the Art of Outrage", the article surveyed the sometimes dire effect political cartooning has for its creators, ranging fromHonoré Daumier, who spent time in prison for his satirical work; toGeorge Grosz, who faced exile. To Indigo the article seemed to promote the continuance of racial caricature. An internal memo advised Indigo staff to tell people: "the decision was made based on the fact that the content about to be published has been known to ignite demonstrations around the world."[86] In response to the cartoons, Iranian presidentMahmoud Ahmadinejad promoted an Iraniancartoon contest seeking anti-Semitic cartoons. The organizers of the contest intended to highlight what they perceived as Western double standards surrounding anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. Spiegelman produced a cartoon of a line of prisoners being led to the gas chambers; one stops to look at the corpses around him and says, "Ha! Ha! Ha! What's really hilarious is that none of this is actually happening!"[87]
To promote literacy in young children, Mouly encouraged publishers to publish comics for children.[88] Disappointed by publishers' lack of response, from 2008 she self-published a line of easy readers calledToon Books, by artists such as Spiegelman,Renée French, andRutu Modan, and promotes the books to teachers and librarians for their educational value.[89] Spiegelman'sJack and the Box was one of the inaugural books in 2008.[90]
In 2008 Spiegelman reissuedBreakdowns in an expanded edition including "Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@&*!"[91] an autobiographical strip that had been serialized in theVirginia Quarterly Review from 2005.[92] A volume drawn from Spiegelman's sketchbooks,Be A Nose, appeared in 2009. In 2011,MetaMaus followed—a book-length analysis ofMaus by Spiegelman andHillary Chute with a DVD update of the earlier CD-ROM.[93]
Library of America commissioned Spiegelman to edit the two-volumeLynd Ward: Six Novels in Woodcuts, which appeared in 2010, collecting all of Ward'swordless novels with an introduction and annotations by Spiegelman. The project led to a touring show in 2014 about wordless novels calledWordless! with live music by saxophonistPhillip Johnston.[94]Art Spiegelman's Co-Mix: A Retrospective débuted at Angoulême in 2012 and by the end of 2014 had traveled to Paris, Cologne, Vancouver, New York, and Toronto.[91] The bookCo-Mix: A Retrospective of Comics, Graphics, and Scraps, which complemented the show, appeared in 2013.[95]
In 2015, after six writers refused to sit on a panel at thePEN American Center in protest of the planned "freedom of expression courage award" for the satirical French periodicalCharlie Hebdo following theshooting at its headquarters earlier in the year, Spiegelman agreed to be one of the replacement hosts,[96] along with other names in comics such as writerNeil Gaiman. Spiegelman retracted a cover he had submitted to a Gaiman-edited "saying the unsayable" issue ofNew Statesman when the management declined to print a strip of Spiegelman's. The strip, "Notes from a First Amendment Fundamentalist", depicts Muhammad, and Spiegelman believed the rejection was censorship, though the magazine asserted it never intended to run the cartoon.[97]
During theCOVID-19 pandemic, Spiegelman worked on illustratingStreet Cop, a dystopian short novel written byRobert Coover.[98] Published in 2021, it tells the story of a crooked cop trying to solve a murder.[99][100]
A biographical documentary calledArt Spiegelman: Disaster Is My Muse premiered atDOC NYC in November 2024[101] and was released in theaters in 2025.[102] The documentary covers the role that tragedy has played in inspiring Spiegelman's work, including the Holocaust, his mother's suicide, and the September 11 attacks.[101] At a Q&A session after the screening, Spiegelman announced that he is working on a graphic novel aboutGaza withJoe Sacco.[102][103] He later clarified that the project wouldn't be a full graphic novel but a three-page comic based on phone conversations the two had had.[104] The collaborative comic called "Never Again and Again" was released in February 2025 inThe New York Review.[105][106]
Spiegelman marriedFrançoise Mouly on July 12, 1977,[107] in a New York city hall ceremony.[40] They remarried later in the year after Moulyconverted to Judaism to please Spiegelman's father.[40] Mouly and Spiegelman have two children together: a daughter,Nadja Rachel, born in 1987,[107] and a son, Dashiell Alan, born in 1992.[107]
All comic-strip drawings must function as diagrams, simplified picture-words that indicate more than they show.
— Art Spiegelman[108]
Spiegelman suffers from alazy eye, and thus lacksdepth 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.[109] He sees comics as "very condensed thought structures", more akin to poetry than prose, which need careful, time-consuming planning that their seeming simplicity belies.[110] Spiegelman's work prominently displays his concern with form, and pushing the boundaries of what is and is not comics. Early in the underground comix era, Spiegelman proclaimed to Robert Crumb, "Time is an illusion that can be shattered in comics! Showing the same scene from different angles freezes it in time by turning the page into a diagram—anorthographic projection!"[111] His comics experiment with time, space,recursion, and representation. He uses the word "decode" to express the action of reading comics[112] and sees comics as functioning best when expressed as diagrams, icons, or symbols.[108]
Spiegelman has stated he does not see himself primarily as a visual artist, one who instinctively sketches or doodles. He has said he approaches his work as a writer as he lacks confidence in his graphic skills. He subjects his dialogue and visuals to constant revision—he reworked some dialogue balloons inMaus up to forty times.[113] A critic inThe New Republic compared Spiegelman's dialogue writing to a youngPhilip Roth in his ability "to make the Jewish speech of several generations sound fresh and convincing".[113]
Spiegelman makes use of both old- and new-fashioned tools in his work. He prefers at times to work on paper on a drafting table, while at others he draws directly onto his computer using adigital pen and electronic drawing tablet, or mixes methods, employing scanners and printers.[110]
Harvey Kurtzman has been Spiegelman's strongest influence as a cartoonist, editor, and promoter of new talent.[114] Chief among his other early cartooning influences include Will Eisner,[115]John Stanley's version ofLittle Lulu,Winsor McCay'sLittle Nemo,George Herriman'sKrazy Kat,[114] andBernard Krigstein's short strip "Master Race [fr]".[116]
In the 1960s Spiegelman read in comicsfanzines about graphic artists such asFrans Masereel, who had madewordless novels inwoodcut. The discussions in those fanzines about making theGreat American Novel in comics later acted as inspiration for him.[47]Justin Green's comic bookBinky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary (1972) motivated Spiegelman to open up and include autobiographical elements in his comics.[117]
Spiegelman acknowledgesFranz Kafka as an early influence,[118] whom he says he has read since the age of 12,[119] and listsVladimir Nabokov,William Faulkner, andGertrude Stein among the writers whose work "stayed with" him.[120] He cites non-narrative avant-garde filmmakers from whom he has drawn heavily, includingKen Jacobs,Stan Brakhage, andErnie Gehr, and other filmmakers such asCharlie Chaplin and the makers ofThe Twilight Zone.[121]
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.[122] 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 ofGIs and other adults".[123] Following the advent of the censoriousComics Code Authority in the mid-1950s, Spiegelman sees comics' potential as having stagnated until the rise of underground comix in the late 1960s.[123] He taught courses in the history and aesthetics of comics at schools such as the School of Visual Arts in New York.[36] As co-editor ofRaw, he helped propel the careers of younger cartoonists whom he mentored, such as Chris Ware,[82] and published the work of his School of Visual Arts students, such asKaz,Drew Friedman, andMark Newgarden. Some of the work published inRaw was originally turned in as class assignments.[54]
Spiegelman has described himself politically as "firmly on the left side of the secular-fundamentalist divide" and a "1st Amendment absolutist".[87] As a supporter offree speech, Spiegelman is opposed tohate speech laws. He wrote a critique inHarper's on thecontroversial Muhammad cartoons in theJyllands-Posten in 2006; the issue was banned fromIndigo–Chapters stores in Canada. Spiegelman criticized American media for refusing to reprint the cartoons they reported on at the time of theCharlie Hebdo shooting in 2015.[124]
Spiegelman is a non-practicing Jew and considers himself "a-Zionist"—neither pro- nor anti-Zionist; he has calledIsrael "a sad, failed idea".[81] He toldPeanuts creatorCharles Schulz he was not religious, but identified with the "alienateddiaspora culture ofKafka andFreud ... whatStalin pejoratively calledrootless cosmopolitanism".[125]
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 asJames Campbell consideredMaus the work that popularized it.[12] 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.[126] It has been examined from a great variety of academic viewpoints, though most often by those with little understanding ofMaus' context in the history of comics. WhileMaus has been credited with lifting comics from popular culture into the world of high art in the public imagination, criticism has tended to ignore its deep roots in popular culture, roots that Spiegelman has intimate familiarity with and has devoted considerable time to promote.[127]
Spiegelman's belief that comics are best expressed in a diagrammatic or iconic manner has had a particular influence on formalists such asChris Ware and his former studentScott McCloud.[108] In 2005, the September 11-themedNew Yorker cover placed sixth on the top ten of magazine covers of the previous 40 years by theAmerican Society of Magazine Editors.[78] Spiegelman has inspired numerous cartoonists to take up the graphic novel as a means of expression, includingMarjane Satrapi.[114]
A jointZDF–BBC documentary,Art Spiegelman's Maus, was televised in 1987.[128] Spiegelman, Mouly, and many of theRaw artists appeared in the documentaryComic Book Confidential in 1988.[55] Spiegelman's comics career was also covered in an Emmy-nominated PBS documentary,Serious Comics: Art Spiegelman, produced by Patricia Zur for WNYC-TV in 1994. Spiegelman played himself in the 2007 episode "Husbands and Knives" of the animated television seriesThe Simpsons with fellow comics creatorsDaniel Clowes andAlan Moore.[129] A European documentary,Art Spiegelman, Traits de Mémoire, appeared in 2010 and later in English under the titleThe Art of Spiegelman,[128] directed by Clara Kuperberg and Joelle Oosterlinck and mainly featuring interviews with Spiegelman and those around him.[130]
Media from Commons
Quotations from Wikiquote
Data from Wikidata| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
| People | |
| Other | |
