Retardely Late Ludicrously Late Review #2!!!!

Well, I'm being an insomniac even though I have a meeting tomorrow that hopefully will help me out, so I figured, why not write the review I promised everyone who (will eventually) read this blog like two days ago. So, without further ado, I present to you...

Ludicrously Late Review #2: Art Speigelman's Maus.

This book, which if you have not read then stop reading and go fucking read it, is one of the seminal works in the world of comic books (who cares about the term graphic novel, comic book snobs are annoying). This, along with Alan Moore's currently STUPIDLY POPULAR Watchmen and Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, are arguably the most important books ever to come out of the comic book world. They are proof that the medium of pictures and word balloons is a legitimate and extremely impressive one. But this one has always been important to me. A bit of explanation is in order.

I (and I can't believe I'm admitting this) have not always been a comic book nerd. I know, take a moment to let it sink in. Actually, I've only been a major fan of the men in tights and hard to understand pictures for about 4 years. But I read this one at a good, impressionable age. An english teacher of mine, who was EXTREMELY known for being a complete bitch, assigned us to read the book in tenth grade. Now, while many of my nerdy brethren were worshipping comics at the beautiful age of fifteen, I was absorbing as much about the performing and acting world as I could. So when I was handed a book with a picture of two horrified looking mice standing in front of a swastika with a caricature of Hitler in the middle, and realized it was a comic book that I was required to read for an english class, I was suitably surprised. But, man, this book hit me like a ton of fucking bricks. I had read the Diary of Anne Frank (You all should really click this link). I had seen Schindler's List. I'd even thumbed through a couple of Hitler biographies just to try to fathom an event as huge as the holocaust. But this book nailed me. From the haunting image of Art Speigelman's father (as a mouse, of course) sitting on his exercise bike with his number tattoo showing beneath his rolled up sleeve, I was enthralled.

And I read it once. And immediately forgot all about it. I was way too interested in playing Edgar Allen Poe, or learning how to properly do a script analysis, or learning how to find a card you RANDOMLY selected from a "normal" deck of cards. Comic books just weren't on my radar.

Fortunately, I was given a copy of the book about a year ago by a friend who had just gone through a pretty bad breakup, and her loser of an ex had a ton of comic books, so I got a nice chunk of cool books! Maus was one of them, and I've read it about ten times since I got my new copy. From the story, to the composition, to the art, to the fucking dust cover, this book is a work of art. And of Art.

For this review, however, I will assume you've not read nor heard of this awesome book.

Art Spiegelman is NOT a holocaust survivor. He's an amazingly talented comic book artist, who's put PLENTY of awesome work out there. However, he always wanted to write a comic book about his father, Vladek Spiegelman's, experience in being a holocause survivor. This book, Maus, is the story of Art getting the story from Vladek AND Vladek's redicously moving story. I can't honestly say which part of it I believe is better. Vladek's tale is one of heroic levels of bravery and strength, along with a TON of luck. He survived visits to Auschwitz, along with a GREAT many other concentration camps during the holocaust. But the start of the story, him meeting a girl who turned out to be crazy, then finally finding his wife (and Art's mother) Anja. It's serenely romantic and makes you understand him later wanting nothing more than to find his wife while they were separated during their tour of all the different prisons in Poland and Germany during their ordeal.

Art's story, however, is a completely different (yet relevant) one. He is being pressured, by himself, to write a story about his father. Unfortunately, he realizes his dad, being an octogenarian when he started the interviews, is basically a living stereotype of a cranky old Jewish man. He's cheap, mean, yells at his new wife for basically no reason, calls Art at 5:30 AM to tell him about his gutters being dirty, and loves to sneak into a local hotel for free bingo. These are all somewhat standable for Art, but when Vladek begins insulting Art's wife for not being Jewish (She converted!) and demands that Art and Francios (She's a Frenchie!!!) live with him for a year since he fell ill, the strain on the Father/Son relationship becomes QUITE strong.

I'll stay away from any major spoilers (though you should have read it by now), but there are a couple main points from the story which deserved to be mentioned.

"Prisoner on Hell Planet", which is a comic that Art Spiegelman wrote after his mother killed herself (It's in the first five pages, it's not a damn spoiler), is simply brilliant. It's moving, disturbing, morbidly funny, amazingly drawn, and fucking DARK AS HELL. The reason it's in Maus is because Vladek finds and reads it, but it is an AMAZING example of how a person can bare their soul on four pages. If you don't read the full novel, find this and read it. It's easy to find online, and you will thank me for reading something this moving.

Many of the small things that nobody ever thinks of that were necessary for a Jew trying to get through the holocaust are shown in this book, but one of the most moving and scariest images for me comes in the first half of the book. When the Germans are gathering up old and sick Jews, a diagram for where a family hides their grandparents is shown. It's a tiny cupboard hidden underneath the family's coal reserve, maybe 5 feet by 8. The idea of a couple of 90 year olds hiding in a dank, smelly, horrifying place such as this is just.... amazing.

Lastly, at the beginning of book II, there is an image of a human Art Spiegelman sitting on top of hundreds of dead bodies, wearing a mouse mask, talking about the pressures of writing a book such as this (The first book came out 6 years before the second one). He reverts to childhood while being hounded by agents, reporters, and fans. It's a moving section that has nothing to do with the holocaust story, but is just as, if not more, personal.

By the way, since I think it's funny, here's a list (Got it from Wikipedia) of the ethnicity's in the book, and what animal they were drawn as. (Go America! WOOF!)

• The Jews are represented by mice.
• The Germans are represented by cats.
• The Poles are represented by pigs.
• The Americans are represented by dogs.
• The Roma (Gypsies) are represented as gypsy moths (found on page 133 of Maus II, page 293 of The Complete Maus).
• The French are represented by frogs.
• The Swedes are represented by reindeer (found on page 125 of "Maus II").
• The British are represented by fish (found on page 131 of Maus II, page 291 of The Complete Maus).
• The Russians are represented by bears.
• Two children of a Jew and a German are shown as a mouse with cat stripes (found on page 131 of Maus II, page 291 of The Complete Maus).
• The background of page 34 of Maus I (pages 36 and 171 of Complete Maus) also depicts a rabbit, a moose, a horse, an elephant, a goat and a llama all of which are unspecified as a group.

So, obviously, I recommend this book. Go find it now, and realize what a genius that Art Spiegelman was. Talk to you guys next time...

P.S. I CAN'T STOP LISTENING TO ASher Roth!!! Go buy his CD, or just keep his myspace page up and listen to it! He is AMAZING!