Maus by Art Spiegelman

I think without question, Maus is truly a literary masterpiece. This novel is told in a past-present format, with the majority of the story taking place in flashbacks but it is still set in "present" day. I thought this was really interesting as were are not just seeing the events from Vladek's point of view, but from the point of view of his son, Art, who is dealing with the aftermath. I thought this was really important, as you are not just seeing a victim's point of view but how the Holocaust has a lasting effect on the people around Vladek. This tragic story was interwoven with familial issues and jabs. Its clear that Art and Vladek are estranged in real life, and it feels almost mundane compared to the retold stories of the Holocaust. It makes this connect and feel even more real and personable; the story is not being reduced to the typical, glorified events we see in media. This also highlighted the flaws in the characters like Art's frustration and guilt while dealing with his father, and Vladek's own prejudices against African Americans, even though he had lived through a prejudice based crime against humanity. Surviving such a tragedy did not mean that he did not style have flaws and I think it was important for Spiegelman to highlight this. A quote that really stuck with me in regards to this was "it wasn't the best people who survived, nor did the best ones die. It was random!"

The use of animals to represent people was an extremely interesting concept to me, and it revealed itself to be more complicated than I initially thought. Prior to reading the story, I have known that the Jews were depicted as rats and the Nazis as cats. That is as far as I thought the metaphor was going. What I was not expected was how self referential and meta this metaphor would become. I was not expecting to see characters donning the masks of other animals and I was impressed by how simple but clever this was as a means to show the characters trying to blend in. The metaphor starts to come apart however, when Spiegelman has a conversation with his wife about what animal to make her, which just goes to show how inane this type of system of dividing is. Another interesting use of the masks is when Spiegelman is talking about his book and to his lawyer, they are both wearing rat masks, which seems to show that the metaphor goes beyond just the book.

The theme of guilt also thoroughly resonated with me. In the second part of Maus, Spiegelman makes his guilt apparent, depicting himself, donned with a rat mask, writing on his desk which sits atop the dead Jews that made the book possible. He also feels some guilt towards his father who, in his frustration, depicted rather harshly. There are also feelings of survivor's guilt from both Spiegelman and his father. Vladek obviously feels guilting for being one of the last of his family to survive. Spiegelman also expresses guilt and conflict in his telling of this story. "Its feels so inadequate trying to reconstruct a reality that was worse than my darkest dream." This quote was critical to me. I feel like this perfectly expresses a lot of our understanding of history. For many people or at least me, knowledge of the Holocaust is a tragic abstraction of what actually went on. I can't truly conceive the events that happened, which is why I think Maus is such a brilliant work, as it depicts the history in a hyper personal account.

Mr. Natural #1 by Robert Crumb

Let me begin with wow. Just wow. We were warned about the offensive nature of underground comics and I'm no spring chicken but man was this a surprise. I truly did not know what to expect but this was definitely not it. Mr. Natural started off innocuous enough, meditation-ok, racist stereotypes- not ok but not surprising, then weird baby oral- yeah what??? While reading this I found myself asking why, many many times. There's just nothing about this comic that I could relate to or understand or justify. There was no overall moral to the story that I felt made any of it okay. The end's never really justified the means. And the artistry did not really do much for it either, it was fine but it was not anything super impressive or high art. I guess that's the point though, these comics were meant to be something alternative, that do not fit into the model of "acceptability." They are simple, "fun," really bizarre reads meant to entertain, which to many people they did. While I personally did not really enjoy this particular comic, underground comics did do a lot to pave the way for a lot of media we have now. As weird as they are you have to give credit where credit is due. 

A Contract with God

A Contract with God is a graphic novel created by Will Eisner. In this novel, a young Hasidic Jew named Frimme Hersh makes a contract with God and devotes his life to him. He believes all his good fortune is a result of this. One day he receives an orphaned baby girl, who he then takes care of. However after a few years, she suddenly passes away, which infuriates Hersh as he feels god has violated the contract. This drastically changes him, he becomes a greedy business man, indulging himself on various vices.  Even with all of his indulgences, he feels an emptiness that he believes can be filled with another contract with God. However almost immediately after it is written, he dies as well. Later, a young boy finds Hersh's old contract and signs it, creating a new cycle.

What struck me most profoundly is Eisner's depiction of grief and irony. The anger in the novel was nearly tangible, you could truly feel Eisner's rage. I originally did not know the author had gone through such a tragedy but after reading this it was obvious. Anyone who has dealt with a loss so deeply tragic, as Eisner had with his own daughter, would definitely feel as though the world or God had turned their back on them. In death especially, things can feel so utterly unfair, no matter what age, but to be so young is so heartbreaking. Hersh had done everything right in is life prior, which made his daughter's death even more senseless and unjustifiable. I felt just a deep pity for Hersh.

Little Nemo in Slumberland

Little Nemo in Slumberland is a really interesting comic strip created by Winsor McCay. The strip depicts Nemo going of fantastical dream adventures and being abruptly awakened by the last panel. I found this comic really interesting just because it seemed so experimental, not just conceptually but style wise as well. It wasn't a typical layout for comics where it is always read horizontally and all the panels are the same size. A great example of this was the 10/22/1905 strip where the panels grew to reflect the mushrooms in the panel.  The use of color also struck me as very unique. The art nouveau style colors felt almost psychedelic in some panels with a variety of saturated and unsaturated color and yet it still felt cohesive. I also loved the formula of it and how relatable some panels felt. I know I've had plenty of dreams where I am falling in a dream and i wake up because I'm right about to fall off a bed, or when I call for my mom in my dream only for her to be waking me up in real life. It made these comics seem oddly personal and acted as though it was a look into the human psyche.