ART SPIEGELMAN CROQUIS SIGNÉ KAZ PETITS LIVRES ÉCLAIRÉS X3 points de vente AUTOGRAPHES 2000 FANTASTIQUE

3 COPIES OFLITTLE LIT GRAPHIC HARDCOVER BOOK EACH SIGNED BY BARBARA MCCLINTOCK,FRANCOISE MOULY, ART SPIEGELMAN AND EACH WITH A SKETCH BY KAX OF AHORSE. ALL BOOKS IN VG-EX CONDITION

ISBN0-06028624-5

LittleLit: Folklore and Fairy Tale Funnies

Hardcover

ISBN 10:0060286245 ISBN 13: 9780060286248

Publisher: ARAW Junior Book / Joanna Cotler Books, 2000 / an imprint ofHarperCollins Publishers

Atreasure and a treasury!

Innovativecartoonist and renowned childrens book artists from around the worldhave gathered to bring you the magic of fairy tales through thewonder of comics. The stories range from old favorites to newdiscoveries, from the profound to the silly. A treat for all ages,these picture stories unlock the enchanted door into the pleasures ofbooks and reading!

BestChildrens Books 2000 (PW)

Review:

Thesedays, most comics really arent for kids. But Little Lit fixes thatwith funny and fractured all-ages fairy tales by some of the bestcomic artists around. Annoying magic pumpkins, a horrible ogre queen,and strangely hungry horses are just some of the strange charactersguaranteed to delight both children and adults.

Twelvegreat tales, some new and some retold classics, with weird and wackypictures fill the pages of Little Lit. Comic fans will recognize thetalents of Dan Clowes, Kaz, Joost Swarte, and many more. Kids willlove the unexpected twists on old favorites, like the lions whopopulate Barbara McClintocks "The Princess and the Pea."Like all good fairy tales, many of these stories have lessons hiddenin them. Maus creator Art Spiegelman tells the story of a youngprince who finds out he doesnt have to change the thing he likesbest about himself in "Prince Rooster." And Harry Blisss"The Bakers Daughter" finds out the hard way that sheshouldnt be stingy.

WaltKellys 1943 "The Gingerbread Man" gives todays kids ataste of the comic books of yesteryear. There are even activities,like Charles Burnss "Spookyland" and Bruce McCalls silly"Whats Wrong with this Picture?" But the very best part ofthe whole wonderful package is the hilarious game included on theendpapers. Its called "Fairy Tale Road Rage," and itsbeautifully illustrated with the exquisite, nostalgic art of ChrisWare (Jimmy Corrigan). Players race to complete a silly story.Bedtime was never better! (All ages) --Therese Littleton

Aboutthe Author:

ThePulitzer prize winning author of Maus and Maus II, Art Spiegelman wasborn in Stockholm, Sweden, and grew up in Rego Park, New York. He isalso the co-founder/editor of RAW, the acclaimed magazine ofavant-garde comix and graphics and the illustrator of the lostclassic The Wild Party by Joseph Moncure March. Spiegelmans work hasbeen published in more than sixteen languages and has appeared in TheNew York Times, Village Voice, and Playboy, among others. He has beena contributing editor and cover artist for The New Yorker since 1992.

Spiegelmanattended the High School of Art and Design in New York City and SUNYBinghamton and received an honorary doctorate of letters from SUNYBinghamton in 1995. He began working for the Topps Gum Company in1966, as association that lasted over twenty years. There he creatednovelty cards, stickers and candy products, including Garbage Candy,Wacky Packages and Garbage Pail Kids. He began producing undergroundcomix in 1966, and in 1971 moved to San Francisco, where he liveduntil 1975.

Hiswork began appearing in such publications as East Village Other,Bijou and Young Lust Comix. In 1975-76, he, along with Bill Griffith,founded Arcade, The Comic Revue. His book, Breakdowns, an anthologyof his comics, was published in 1977.

Spiegelmanmoved back to New York City in 1975, and began doing drawing andcomix for The New York Times, Village Voice and others. He became aninstructor at The School of Visiual Arts from 1979-1987. In 1980,Spiegelman and his wife, Francoise Mouly, started the magazine RAW,which has over the years changed the publics perception of comics asan art form. It was in RAW that Maus was first serialized. In 1986,Pantheon Books published the first half of Maus and followed withMaus II in 1991. In 1994 he designed and illustrated the lostProhibition Era classic by Joseph Moncure March, The Wild Party. In1997, Spiegelmans first book for children, Open Me ... Im a Dog waspublished by HarperCollins.

ArtSpiegelman has received The National Book Critics Circle nominationin both 1986 and 1991, the Guggenheim fellowship in 1990, and aspecial Pulitzer Prize in 1992. His art has been shown in museums andgallery shows in the United States and abroad, including a 1991 showat the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Heand his wife, Francoise Mouly, live in lower Manhattan with their twochildren, Nadja and Dashiell.

Art Spiegelmanis one of the most famous, influential and admired comic artists ofall time. He is celebrated for his autobiographical graphic novelswhich often tackle highly controversial topics, such as the holocaus(Maus, 1980-1991) and the 9/11/2001 terrorist attacks on New YorkCity (In the Shadow of No Towers, 2002-2003). His signature workMaus reflects on his difficult relationship with his father, whosurvived Auschwitz. The book is a milestone in the history of comics.He surprised many people with this solemn and deeply movingmasterpiece. It became the first comic book to be deemed seriousliterature and even win a Pulitzer Prize. Maus not only convertedcountless adults to reading graphic novels, but also inspirednumerous other cartoonists to tell their own personal tragedies incomic book form. Spiegelman is also one of the mediums mostprominent spokesmen. He drew numerous comics which experimented withcontent, lay-out and narrative style. He also highlighted severalartistic comics in essays, books and lectures. Together with his wifeFrançoise Mouly he established the groundbreaking magazine Raw(1980-1984, 1986, 1989-1991), which offered comic innovators from allover the world a platform. Few people have done so much to exploreand promote the endless creative possibilities of comics, bringing iton par with other media. Above all he elevated its status furtherthan any other comic artist.

Early life

Ihtzak Avrahamben Zeev Spiegelman was born in 1948 in Stockholm, Sweden, as son ofJewish-Polish immigrants whod left Poland three years earlier. In1951 they moved to Norristown, Pennsylvania, settling down in RegoPark, Queens, New York City in 1957. His father was a businessmanwho, together with his wife, had survived Auschwitz. The rest oftheir family was executed during the holocaus. Much of their traumasand depressions carried over into Spiegelmans own psyche. At age 20,he suffered a nervous breakdown, which wasnt helped by his frequentuse of LSD. He was interned in a mental hospital and learned afterhis release that his mother had committed suicide. All these eventsshaped the highly personal and dramatic nature of his work.

Graphicinfluences (1)

All throughouthis life, comics offered Spiegelman escapism. During his childhoodthey gave him his own identity, because his parents had no affinitywith the medium. His father was even blissfully unaware of Dr.Fredric Werthams witch hunts against comics. As such, the boy couldread whatever he wanted, even stuff he wasnt supposed to read at hisage, such as the horror and mystery titles published by EC Comics.Among Spiegelmans early graphic influences were Carl Barks, ChesterGould, George Herriman, Lyonel Feininger, Winsor McCay, Jack Cole,Bernard Krigstein, Charles M. Schulz, John Stanley, Will Eisner,Harry Hershfield, Harold Gray, Basil Wolverton and Al Capp. At age 12he even signed his own primitive gag comics with the name "ArtSpeg", inspired by Capp. The most profound influence was MadMagazine, particularly when Harvey Kurtzman was chief editor(1952-1956). Spiegelman loved its healthy disregard for U.S.politics, media, advertising and society in general. Every issueexperimented with covers and lay-out. Their comics satirizedeverything, even other comics. It opened his mind to what comics(magazines) could be and how they could be marketed in anartistically interesting way.

Between 1963and 1965 Spiegelman studied at the High School of Art and Design inManhattan, followed by a study in art and philosophy at HarpurCollege (1965-1968), which he never finished. During the decade,comics gained more academic interest. Spiegelman started analyzingcartoonists from past and present in the same way one would study apainting or a novel. He felt that some of them were worthy of thename "artist". This naturally led to heated arguments withhis professors, who looked down on the medium. Spiegelmannevertheless managed to open up professor Ken Jacobs mind aboutBernard Krigsteins Master Race (1955) in a thought-provokingessay. Master Race was interesting as one of the first comics todeal with the holocaus, but in itself a fascinating visual narrativetoo. In 1975 Spiegelman would expand on this essay in a new articleabout Krigstein and Master Race. Likewise, Jacobs liberatedSpiegelman from his equally snobbish prejudices against modern art bytelling him to look at painters and graphic artists "as if theywere cartoonists." Soon Spiegelman warmed up to the work ofPablo Picasso, George Grosz and Otto Dix, though he always remainedunimpressed with Roy Lichtenstein. In 1990, when the Museum of ModernArt organized an exhibition about the struggle between comics andhigh art, titled High/Low, Spiegelman was quick to criticize thepatronizing way comics were treated. He expressed his anger in acomic strip, High Art Lowdown (1990), published in ArtForummagazine.

Pop Goes thePoppa -or- the Vengeance of Dr. Speck (Real Pulp Comics #1).

Undergroundcomix

In 1963Spiegelman founded his own fanzines, Blasé and Smudge, which ran hisfirst cartoons and comics. A year later he sold his firstprofessional cartoons to The Long Island Post and United FeaturesSyndicate. As a student at Harpur College between 1965 and 1968, hewas staff cartoonist and editor for the college newspaper. Halfwaythe 1960s many of these fanzines grew into counterculture magazineswith a special kind of adult comics named "underground comix".The cartoonists tackled many taboo topics, such as politics, vulgarlanguage, drugs, bloody violence and sex. Spiegelman was instantlyattracted to the new creative possibilities it offered. He gotinvolved in the scene and met many of the artists who inspired him,including Robert Crumb. Spiegelman illustrated a few covers of TheEast Village Other in 1969 and made short comics and flyers, such asA Flash of Insight (1965-1966), This Is A Sheet Of Paper! Look AtIt And Touch It (1967) and Yes, Play With Your Cells, and BecomeYour Own Food (1967). Most of his early underground comix from thelate 1960s and early 1970s appeared in magazines like witzend, GothicBlimp Works, Bijou Funnies, Young Lust, Real Pulp and Bizarre Sex.

Two WackyPackages, painted by Norman Saunders based on Spiegelman lay-outs.

Topps: WackyPackages & Garbage Pail Kids

While incollege, Spiegelman met Woody Gelman, art director of Topps ChewingGum, who invited him to join his company as freelance illustrator. In1966 Spiegelman became Topps creative consultant. Inspired by MadMagazines satirical advertisements, Spiegelman developed a series ofparodies of famous brand names and logos, collectable as tradingcards and stickers, the so-called Wacky Packages (1967). Hedesigned many of them personally, but also brought in some of hisunderground comix colleagues, like Kim Deitch, Drew Friedman, BillGriffith and Jay Lynch, but also George Evans, Norman Saunders, BhobStewart and Tom Sutton. Wacky Packages mocked huge corporations andlooked so identical to their real advertisements that lawsuits werealways a genuine threat. However, Topps kept the trading cards onlyin roulation for a short while. By the time the companies sent aletter of complaint, the specific cards were already off the marketand replaced by other ones. The franchise inspired posters, T-shirts,books, erasers, binders, but also five comic book issues with artworkby Jay Lynch, Joe Simko, Neil Camera and Brent Engstrom. It providedmany with a steady income, including Spiegelman himself, while theycould still remain true to their anti-establishment ideals.

In 1985Spiegelman launched another lucrative idea for Topps, namely theGarbage Pail Kids trading cards, though he credited Stan Hart withthe basic idea. The cards featured children doing disgusting things.Some were illustrated by Tom Bunk, John Pound and Carole Sobocinski.They were an instant hit among school kids and even spawned alive-action film adaptation, The Garbage Pail Kids Movie (1988),which was not only a colossal box office flop but also widelyregarded as one of the worst films of all time. It effectively killedthe franchise and in 1989 Spiegelman broke off his partnership withTopps over legal ownership. All the time he had kept his involvementsecret, out of fear it would shy away potential readers of Maus, ifthey knew he had created these "gross-out comedy cards".

Comics for nudemagazines

From 1969 onSpiegelman made many well-paid erotic cartoons and comics for nudemagazines like Cavalier, Gent and Dude. He once applied for Playboy,but his work was rejected. It wasnt until 1978 when Playboy cartooneditor Michelle Urry picked up specific samples of his work for chiefeditor Hugh Hefner that he was finally allowed inside its pages. Withsome help of fellow Playboy cartoonists, Spiegelman reworked his artstyle a bit so it looked more appealing. In December 1978 his gagcomic Ed Head (1978-1979, 1981) made its debut. Ed is a man who isall head and lacks a body or limbs. Most of his gags feature himresting on the side of street, begging for money. The first fewepisodes were all self-contained. From May 1979 on Ed was visited bya fairy god mother (or "fairy god head" as he describeshimself) who grants him a few wishes, bringing a longer narrative tothe series which seemingly concluded in November of that year. Twoyears later, in October-November 1981, two more episodes appeared inprint, after which Ed Head was discontinued. Spiegelman enjoyedthis little gag series because it cost him little effort and hedidnt take it all that seriously either.

In January 1979Spiegelman published a 12-panel pantomime comic, Shaggy Dog Story,in Playboy. The story features a woman having sex with a dog, butpresented in an amusing way, with stylized visuals. In October hedrew Jack n Jane / Rod n Randy, a comic presented in twoframes, which can be read horizontally as well as vertically. The topframe depicts a man, Jack, who gives a woman in the street, Jane, atissue after sneezing. In the lower half the mans groin, Rod, has avulgar conversation with Janes groin, Randy. Spiegelman and LouBrooks made Teasers for Playboys January 1982 issue, which werebasically low-brow sex jokes.

Graphicinfluences (2)

While hissex-related comics were best-sellers, Spiegelman felt most werenothing more but crude masturbation fantasies with shocking images.Ultimately they would never reach general audiences and even amongfans the novelty was bound to wear off. He admired female undergroundartists like Mary K. Brown, Aline Kominsky and Diane Noomin whocreated titles like It Aint Me, Babe and Wimmens Comix in reactionto all the misogynistic stories in the male-dominated undergroundmilieu. Three male underground cartoonists convinced him even furtherthat adult comics could tell mature stories too. Rory Hayes was anamateurish artist, but managed to tell compelling stories despitethese graphic limits. It gave Spiegelman more confidence in his ownlimited graphic skills. He also cited Robert Crumb and Justin Greenas major inspirations, because during the early 1970s they both movedto more personal comics about their family background andpsychological issues. Particularly Justin Greens graphic novelBinky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary (1971) influenced himdeeply, because it examined Greens Catholic upbringing and sexualguilt complexes.

From theoriginal Maus story (1972).

Maus (1)

He got in touchwith Justin Green and in 1971, when Green moved out of his apartmentin San Francisco, Spiegelman moved in. A year later Green approachedhim to make a graphic contribution to the one-shot underground comicbook Funny Animals (1972). The title was meant ironically, since allthe stories about anthropomorphic animals were intended for matureaudiences. It was here that Spiegelman made a first attempt at anautobiographical comic strip. It already dealt with his fathersholocaus past under the title Maus, and used a cat-and-mousemetaphor. The Jews were depicted as mice, while the Germans are cats.Using animals as stand-ins for humans is as old as mankind itself,and humans have often felt sympathy towards tiny creatures victimizedby predators. But Spiegelman also picked out mice because nazpropaganda often compared Jews to vermin, like the infamous scene inthe propaganda film Der Ewige Jude (1941) where footage of Jews isintercut with footage of rats in a sewer. While the basic concept ofMaus was already there, this embryonic version still looked vastlydifferent. The 1972 version is only three pages long and limited to aJewish father telling his son anecdotes about his war traumas as abedtime story. The drawing style is also more cartoony, while alldirect references to Spiegelman himself are absent. Here the littleboy is even called Mickey. Nevertheless Spiegelman abandoned theproject again for the next five years. The 1972 Maus was reprintedthree years later in Comix Book, an underground comix anthologypublished by Marvel.

Prisoner onthe Hell Planet.

Short OrderComix

In 1972Spiegelman created Zip-a-Tunes and Moire Melodies Featuring SkeeterGrants Skinless Perkins, which appeared in Zip-a-Tunes and MoireMelodies (San Francisco Comic Book Company), with the intention tolook like a Tijuana Bible. A year later the story was reprinted inShort Order (1972-1974), an underground comix magazine co-edited bySpiegelman, Justin Green and Bill Griffith. Spiegelmans mostmemorable comic for this publication, Prisoner on the Hell Planet(1972), appeared in issue #1. The four-page story deals directly withthe effect his mothers suicide in 1968 had on himself and hisfather. Inspired by 20th-century woodcut artists like Frans Masereeland Lynd Ward, Spiegelman used distorted visuals, shadows andblack-and-white contrasts to provide a more visually inventivelay-out. Prisoner on the Hell Planet can be considered his firstmasterpiece in the sense that it actually impacted its readers. Hisfather once stumbled upon it and felt quite distraught about thememories it brought back. In 1975 Françoise Mouly also read it andwas so moved that she and Spiegelman hung out more, becoming acouple.

In other comicsin Short Order, Spiegelman experimented with narrative techniques andlay-out. In issue #2 (1974), for instance, he made the story DontGet Around Much Anymore, where a string of seemingly disconnectedpanels are combined with neutral comments about different topics. Itgives the comic strip the same feeling of a literary or cinematicstream-of-consciousness scene. Other comics were more humorous, suchas the film noir parody Ace Hole, Midget Detective, which appearedin the same issue. The witty story stars a little person who works asa private investigator. He then follows a Cubist painting walkingthrough the streets, which leads to all kinds of visual jokes.

Arcade

In the springof 1975, Bill Griffith, his wife Diane Noomin and Spiegelmanestablished Arcade, a more professional underground comix magazine.It attracted many big names from the underground scene and providedSpiegelman with an outlet for even bolder graphic experiments. Someof his comics were inspired by dreams, such as A Hand Job (issue#1) and Real Dream (issue #2). Others were more challenging works.In the second issue Spiegelman also published Day at the Circuits(1975), which depicts two drunks in a bar. The story has no clearbeginning or ending. Each panel has an arrow pointing to otherpanels. No matter what direction the reader follows: each makes senseas a self-contained story. Some short, others longer. This also fitsthe comics theme, since alcoholics also find themselves stuck innever-ending spirals. The work is a clever narrative masterpiece,which proved how much Spiegelman had grown as a cartoonist. In the6th issue he cut out scenes from Nicholas P. Dallis newspaper comicRex Morgan: M.D., drawn by Marvin Bradley, and juxtaposed them withdifferent images. This collage comic, Nervous Rex the MalpracticeSuite (1976), plays with optical illusions and different scenesflowing into one another. While Arcade sold well, Spiegelman movedback to New York City near the end of the year. He became lessinvolved with the production and the magazine was discontinued afteronly 7 issues.

Day at theCircuits (Arcade #2).

Life and careerat the end of the 1970s

In themid-1970s Spiegelman met Françoise Mouly, a Frenchwoman whom heeventually married in 1977 to help her gain a visum. They shared apassion for comics and their artistic possibilities. Mouly oftenhelped her husband with his essays about the medium. In 1978Spiegelman found a steady teaching job at the School of Visual Artsin New York City, where legends like Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elderalso taught classes. He taught his students about the history ofcomics and focused on cartoonists he admired. It led to more demandsfor lectures, essays, articles and books. In December 1977 acompilation book was released by Bélier Press under the titleBreakdowns, partially selected by his wife. Unfortunately it didntsell well, because he wasnt a household name yet and most of thecomics were too experimental. Spiegelman came to realize that he wasbasically working in a small niche, namely experimental stories forunderground comix readers. It motivated him to return to morereadable narratives, fit for general audiences. Mouly felt thatBreakdowns also suffered from bad presentation and marketing. Shetherefore studied offset printing, becoming very skilled in thisprofession.

In 1978 thecouple travelled to Europe, where they built a network with manymagazines, publishers and editors. Through his wife, Spiegelmandiscovered many European comics hed never heard about, especiallyFranco-Belgian, Spanish, Italian, Dutch and British ones. He wasamazed that in Europe, comics were not only taken more seriously, butthat there were genuine adult comic magazines, like LÉcho desSavanes, Fluide Glacial and (Á Suivre). In the U.S., on the otherhand, the only real adult comic magazine that wasnt porn was HeavyMetal... a translation of the French Métal Hurlant!

Two-FistedPainters.

Raw

Realizingtheyd better fulfill the need themselves, the couple establishedtheir own publishing company, Raw Books & Graphics (1978). Theydistributed postcards, comics and maps, of which the Streets of SoHoMap and Guide proved to be the most lucrative. The map soldadvertising space to merchants in the Soho neighbourhood inManhattan, New York City, and had to be updated annually, thusproviding Raw with cash on a regular basis. In July 1980 Mouly andSpiegelman went one step further and founded their own annualmagazine: Raw. It presented itself as an alternative comic magazinefor more experimental artists. Thanks to Moulys connections inEurope and Spiegelmans link with the alternative scene in the USA,Raw had a global outlook and thus a worldwide readership. With itstop-notch print quality and classy image, its content looked muchbetter than the grudgy underground magazines of yesteryear. All whilestill appealing to cult audiences too - like the tagline summarized:"Now its safe for adults to read comics... or is it?" -Raw lasted until 1991, with a hiatus in 1985 and 1987-1988. Dozens ofcartoonists owe their international career to the magazine. The samewent for many European and Japanese cartoonists who received theirfirst English translation. It also helped the medium being taken moreseriously outside comics circles.

Mouly andSpiegelman were co-editors, with Robert Sikoryak joining in asassociate editor in 1985. Spiegelman occasionally colored andtranslated some of the comics, but the majority of Raw was mostlyMoulys labour of love. He designed the cover of the very firstissue, doing the same for issue #7 (May 1985) and 9 (July 1989).Naturally he created a few exclusive one-shot comics for the magazineas well. In the first issue (July 1980) Spiegelman created thetwo-parter Two-Fisted Painters/The Matisse Falcon, whichsimultaneously spoofed superhero comics as well as the art industry.A few pages further, one could read Drawn Over Two Weeks While onthe Phone, an experimental comic strip made from unconnected panelswhere each speech/thought balloon is unreadable due to the use ofsquares and triangles. In the fifth issue (March 1983) the cartoonisttoyed around with speech balloons again in the more self-reflexiveOne Row. Spiegelman provided a free-spirited adaptation of BinLabutaus In Search of Eden, titled An Aborigine Among theSkyscrapers in the next issue (May 1984). Along with Ever Meulen andCharles Burns he created The Passion of Saint Sluggo, a crossoverdeconstruction of Ernie Bushmillers Nancy (issue #7, 1985), whilemaking a solo parody of Chester Goulds Dick Tracy with Dead Dick(issue #9, 1989). In the final issue of Raw Spiegelman created LeadPipe Sunday (1991). Most of these one-shots were signed with thepseudonym "Spieg". But his most famous comic strip in Rawwas, of course, Maus, consequently the only serialized comic in themagazine. From the second issue until the final it was prepublishedin its pages, leaving only the final chapter for people to buy thebook.

Maus 1.

Maus

Since 1978Spiegelman had revisited his Maus concept, when his father casuallytold him more anecdotes about his life in the 1930s and 1940s. Thismotivated him to find out the entire story, recording theirconversations on tape, while also talking to his dads friends andrelatives. Spiegelman documented himself thoroughly about the timeperiod and Auschwitz, even visiting the camp twice in 1979 and 1987.However, right from the start, it was a highly ambitious andcontroversial project. Adapting one of the worst human tragedies inhistory in a medium generally associated with "childrensstories" was a bold undertaking. Using anthropomorphic animalswas even riskier. In fact, Spiegelman once admitted that Raw waspartially founded because no other magazine dared to run Maus!

Yet, as he didhis research, Spiegelman actually discovered animal comics aboutWorld War II made during the conflict, namely Horst RosenthalsMickey à Gurs (1941) and Calvos La Bête est Morte! (1944).Especially Mickey à Gurs baffled him, because it was a comic madeby a POW camp inmate starring Mickey Mouse visiting the very camp hewas imprisoned in. Even the idea of an artistic comic strip about theholocaus had a predecessor in the aforementioned Master Race (1956)by Bernard Kriegstein, although this was a mere short comic story. Itstrengthened him in the belief that his plans werent thatfar-fetched. Using anthropomorphic animals also rid him from theproblem of visualizing people his father described to him, but whomhe never encountered. The animalistic faces helped him keep someemotional distance from the severely depressing subject matter aswell. Still, Spiegelman was careful in capturing the right mood.While drawing he played music by the 1927-1933 German-Jewish vocalgroup the Comedian Harmonists. He studied photos and artwork by campsurvivors like Paladij Osynka, Alfred Kantor, Mieczyslaw Koscielniakand Waldemar Nowakowski. Looking for anthropomorphic animal artists,he modelled his characters after imagery from J.J. Grandville, LouisWain and especially Carl Barks. Barks Donald Duck stories wereessentially "funny animal comics", but his charactersbehaved like believable human beings, thus making readers forget thatthey were looking at talking ducks and dogs. Spiegelman also imitatedthe way Uncle Scrooges pince-nez was drawn to depict his fathersglasses in Maus. In an early stage, Spiegelman drew everything in aluscious style, inspired by the woodcuts of Frans Masereel and LyndWard, but soon abandoned this, because the visuals were toodistracting. He eventually settled on a sober, scratchy style whichfit the somber tone. The earliest pages still show very animalisticmice, complete with whiskers and a tail. But gradually they evolveinto humans with stylized animal heads.

Like thetagline explains, Maus is a survivors tale. Spiegelmans fatherVladek tells his son about his life in 1930s Warsaw, how he met hiswife Anja and raised a family. When Hitler occupies the country in1939, all Jewish citizens are systematically persecuted or forcedinto hiding. Vladek and Anja manage to escape for a long while,though many of their friends and relatives are deported, killed andnever seen again. At the end of the first volume the couple iscaptured and sent to Auschwitz. Their gruesome experiences in thedeath camp and eventual reunion unfold in the second volume. Apartfrom being a powerful family chronic about a black page in history,Maus is also a psychological study about a troubled father-sonrelationship. Spiegelman doesnt romanticize his father, nor himself.Vladek is obviously scarred by numerous traumatic events. He isneurotic, stingy and wants everything to be in order. Money ought tobe saved at all costs. Nothing is allowed to be thrown away. But henevertheless wants his son to be and look well off. Spiegelmanstruggles to comprehend the horrors his dad endured. At times hedoesnt understand his actions in the past, nor in the present time.Vladek constantly complains about his new wife, which sometimesdelves into paranoia. He is obviously emotionally manipulative andsees no hypocrisy in being racst to black people, while barelyhaving survived racial discrimination himself. Spiegelman shows hisown negative side as well. He is too impatient to deal with hisfathers nagging. Sometimes he yells at him. Other times he downrightlies to avoid doing chores. The artist even shows his ownmanipulative behavior, as he has less interest in his fathers needsand more in finding out the rest of his holocaus past. Spiegelmanalso portrays his own guilt and insecurities, to the point that hevisits a psychiatrist. He also wonders whether Maus as a conceptisnt just too complex and over-reaching...

Maus 2.

In order toreach audiences who normally didnt read comics, Spiegelmanenvisioned Maus as a literary book, divided into chapters. Most ofthe plot is told in flashbacks, with present-day narration by Vladek.He kept the reading rhythm in check at all times. Many pages weresketched and re-sketched for hours, in search of the right pagecomposition. The lay-out had to be easy to follow. The speechballoons werent allowed to look crammed and the images had to lookunderstandable. Spiegelman also took full advantage of the comicsmedium. The lay-out on some pages is visually clever. In one scene along line of prisoners waiting for food is divided over three panels,but actually one continuous drawing when seen from a distance. Otherimages use visual metaphors, such as the swastika-shaped path thatwaits ahead of Vladek and Anja. Above all, Spiegelmans simple buteffective drawings manage to suggest the real-life events behind theanimalistic characters. Vladeks gut-punching commentary makes themresonate even longer.

Success &cultural impact

Since Mausran in Raw, it was mostly unknown the outside world until Ken Tucker,a critic for The New York Times, noticed it and gave it anenthusiastic review. His readers got curious and wondered where theycould buy this book, which at that moment hadnt appeared yet! Themedia buzz motivated Pantheon Books in 1986 to publish the firstvolume. The second followed in 1991. Maus was an instant criticaland commercial success. While Will Eisners Contract with God(1978) had already set general acceptance of graphic novels intomotion, Maus became the first to solidify it. Jules Feiffer andUmberto Eco praised it. The work was accepted in intellectual circlesas genuine literature. Its multi-layered narrative invites repeatedreadings and academic study. Maus is nowadays part of anyself-respecting library and one of the few comics acceptable forschool book reports and university theses. In 1991 it became thefirst and still only comic book to win a Pulitzer Prize! But Mausalso reached general audiences, many which normally didnt readcomics. The book was translated in more than 30 languages, includingGerman, Polish, Hebrew, Chinese, Korean and Japanese. Just like theoriginal English-language publication all translations have keptVladeks broken English and incorrect sentence structures intact.

Spiegelman was,of course, amazed that the comic he worked on for more than 12 yearsbecame such a literary success. It made him able to quit his teachingjob. He received numerous commercial offers, but refused all attemptsat merchandising, including film or cartoon adaptations. To himMaus only works in comics format. He is also very protective of howthe book is presented in the media, once taking action to make sureit is sold in the "non-fiction" section. In 2012 the Frenchpublishing company Flammarion sued a parody of Maus by the Belgiancompany La Cinquième Couche, which plagiarized the entire book onlyto draw cats heads over each mouse head. The "artist"behind this pointless work remains anonymous, but is presumed to havebeen Illan Manouach.

In 1994 theVoyager Company published a CD-Rom, The Complete Maus, whichcombined Spiegelmans original graphic novel with never-before-seenarchive material, family photos, historical documentation andcommentary. This was expanded upon in 2011 with MetaMaus, whichoffers the same background material, but with extensive interviews,essays and two bonus DVDs worth of audio and video recordings,including Spiegelmans original conversations with his father. Hemade it all available to the public to avoid having to answer thesame questions about Maus forever, and finally focus on otherprojects. Indeed, the success of his signature work left him withless time to draw new comics. Even the few works he made afterwardsnever reached the same amount of praise. Spiegelman expressed hismixed feelings about all this in a comic titled Mein Kampf,published in The New York Times Magazine on 12 May 1996.

The New Yorker

Between 1991and 2002 Spiegelman was creative designer and columnist for The NewYorker. He contributed cartoons, illustrations and thematic one-shotcomics. Some were interviews or essays about artists like HarveyKurtzman, Maurice Sendak (In the Dumps, 27 September 1993, on whichSendak collaborated as well), and Charles M. Schulz (AbstractThought is a Warm Puppy, 14 February 2000). Others dealt with morepolitical issues, such as neonaz violence in Rostock, Germany (A Jewin Rostock, 7 December 1992). Yet Spiegelman caught most attentionwith his often highly controversial magazine covers. Some even had tobe slightly altered in order to be published. His Valentine Daycover (15 February 1991) showed a rabbi kissing a black woman, inreference to the race riots between Jews and African-Americans inCrown Heights, NYC. The illustration conveyed a pacifist message, butmany readers misinterpreted as either being rcist and/or depicting arabbi visiting a prostitute. Four years later a lot of dust roseagain when Spiegelman drew Theology of the Tax Cut (17 April 1995),which showed the Easter Bunny crucified in front of a tax document,satirizing the annual tax innings at Easter. Many religious readerssent a letter of protest, including the Christian Anti-DefamationLeague. The cartoonist caused uproar again on 8 March 1999, with acover depicting a policeman aiming at regular civilians in a shootinggallery. His cover, Fears of July (8 July 2002), was criticized toofor depicting an atomic mushroom cloud during fireworks atIndependence Day.

Other coversreceived more positive feedback. Saul Steinberg praised his 1996cover Family Values, depicting a happy family of marginals.Spiegelman was also praised for his iconic cover in remembrance ofthe victims of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks. In reality,he merely came up with the initial idea, while his wife FrançoiseMouly (who was art editor of the magazine since 1993) streamlined thedesign. On first glance, the cover appears to be completely black.But on closer inspection one can see the contours of the World TradeCenter towers in a slightly lighter shade of black. Mouly still gaveher husband credit, though, because he "came up with thecreative spark". A compilation of Spiegelmans work for The NewYorker can be read in Kisses From New York (Penguin Books, 2006),featuring a foreword by novelist Paul Auster.

Little Lit

Spiegelman andMouly were also responsible for the Little Lit anthologies, ofwhich three volumes were published by HarperCollins between 2000 and2003: Little Lit: Folklore & Fairy Tale Funnies (2000),Strange Stories for Strange Kids (2001) and It Was a Dark andSilly Night (2003). The series collected artistically crafted comicstories aimed at children; not only by Spiegelman and other formerRaw artists, but also by prominent authors and illustrators ofchildrens books. In 2006 a selection from the original three bookswas published under the title Big Fat Little Lit by Puffin Books.

In the Shadowof No Towers, by Art Spiegelman

In the ShadowOf no Towers.

In the Shadowof No Towers

As New Yorkcitizens Spiegelman and Mouly were in the city on the day of the 9/112001 terrorist attacks. Their children went to school not far fromthe World Trade Center. After much panic and chaos they eventuallydiscovered that the principal had already evacuated the school, hoursbefore the towers started to collapse. Although his family survived,Spiegelman was just as traumatized and depressed as his fellowcitizens. The only thing that gave him escapism were old comics. Thisconvinced him to express his feelings in a comic strip, since"tragedy seems to be my muse". In the Shadow of NoTowers, as his comic was titled, is mostly a series of anecdotes andsatirical metaphors. The first few pages deal with how he personallyexperienced that dramatic day and the effect its aftermath had onordinary citizens. Since Spiegelman has always been a slow worker,the completion of new episodes took a while. As the months rolled by,the comic strip gradually became more politically charged,criticizing blind patriotism, president Bush Jr., his "War onTerror" and the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. Because old comicsbrought the cartoonist relief, Spiegelman added parodies of classic1900s newspaper comics, reimagined in the post 9/11 climate. Amongthe spoofed series are Winsor McCays Little Nemo, George McManusBringing Up Father, Gustave Verbecks The Upside Downs, FrederickBurr Oppers Happy Hooligan and Rudolph Dirks Der KatzenjammerKids.

In the Shadowof No Towers, as his 9/11 comic was titled, was Spiegelmans firstbig project in a decade. Ever since the conclusion of Maus in 1991,most of his comics had been one-shots of barely a page long. He triedto prepublish In the Shadow of No Towers in the New Yorker, but hiseditors felt some scenes had to be censored because they were toopolitically charged. They also claimed that they werent too keen onserialized comics, since the New Yorker is known for stand alonecartoons. Spiegelman soon found out that no other U.S. magazine daredto publish it either. In Europe he found a more receptive market. Inthe Shadow of No Towers debuted in the German newspaper Die Zeit in2002, and also ran in the British paper The Independent and theFrench weekly Courrier International. Eventually the only U.S.publication to pick it up was the Jewish Daily Forward. In 2003Spiegelman quit The New Yorker. When the 2004 presidential electionswere near, he rushed a book publication of In the Shadow of NoTowers in the hope of influencing some U.S. voters. The only problemwas that the book was still rather short, so Spiegelman added somereprints of old newspaper comics with coincidental thematicalconnections to the 9/11 attacks. Despite Spiegelmans efforts, Bushwas re-elected, but the comic book did inspire composer MohamedFairouz to write his symphony In The Shadow Of No Towers.

Politicalcontroversy

In the yearsthat followed, Spiegelman became more outspoken in his viewsregarding rcism, religion, censorship, U.S. politics and freedom ofspeech. In June 2006 he wrote an article for Harpers Magazine,regarding the then recent public outrage over a series of cartoonspublished in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten which depicted theProphet Muhammad. The essay, Drawing Blood: Outrageous Cartoons andthe Art of Outrage, looked back at the history of cartoon censorshipand made a stance against it. His article unfortunately had troublefinding publication. In January 2015 editors of the French satiricalmagazine Charlie Hebdo were murdered by terrorists for ridiculingMuhammad. It once again sparked debates about the freedom of speech.Spiegelman made a one-shot comic, Notes From a First AmendmentFundamentalist, in which he expressed "the right to be offendedin cartoons".

In 2019Spiegelman wrote a foreword titled Golden Age Superheroes Were AidedBy The Rise of Fascism. It was intended for Marvel: The Golden Age1939-1949, a deluxe compilation of classic Marvel Comics by theFolio Society. In this prologue he spoke about how the earliest U.S.superhero comics were mostly written, drawn and published by artistswho, during World War II, pitted the characters against nazs andFascists in propaganda-themed comics. Spiegelman concluded his textby drawing a parallel with present times when global raism andfascism rose again and "an Orange Skull haunts America".This reference to U.S. President Donald Trump (who has a notableorange tan) didnt go unnoticed by Marvels editors and they askedSpiegelman to remove it, as the company wanted to be apolitical.Spiegelman then withdrew his commission and offered his essay to thenewspaper the Guardian on 16 August of that year, who made thecontroversy public. Spiegelman pointed out that Marvel Entertainmentchairman Isaac "Ike" Perlmutter is a longtime friend andpublic supporter of Trump, which explained the censorship.

Breakdowns -Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@&*!.

Portrait of theArtist as a Young %@&*!

In 2008Spiegelman and the publishing house Pantheon relaunched his 1978comic book compilation Breakdowns, but added a longer and morerecent comic strip, Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@&*!(2005-2006), originally published in the Virginia Quarterly Review.Portrait is a non-chronological overview of his life, told in comicstrip form. It could be described as a personal "coming-of-age"tale, focusing on key moments which had a profound impact on his wayof thinking. Among these are the first time he discovered MadMagazine and EC Comics, but also things his parents told him that henever forgot. Spiegelman shows how a cheap marketing trickdisappointed him as a kid and made him "discover America".He also included moments early in his career when he was still tryingto find his own voice. Like his original conception of Maus as ametaphor for African-American history of raist repression throughcats and mice, only to realize he knew nothing about it and keptbrainstorming what other direction he could take with the idea.Another selection of Spiegelmans work was published by Drawn &Quarterly in 2013 under the title Co-Mix: A Retrospective of Comics,Graphics, and Scraps.

Childrens bookillustrations

Spiegelman hasso far written and illustrated three childrens books, namely OpenMe Im a Dog (1995), Jack and the Box (2008) and Be A Nose(2009). While they are technically picture books, he made use of thecomic strip format. Open Me, Im a Dog, published by HarperCollins,sparked off a far more ambitious publishing company, Toon Books, runby his wife, Françoise Mouly. Toon Books publishes child friendlyand educational picture books, illustrated by professional comicartists. All his childrens books have since then been published byToon Books.

The SeveralSelves of Selby Sheldrake, by Art Speigelman 2001

The SeveralSelves of Selby Sheldrake, from Little Lit: Strange Stories forStrange Kids (2001)

Graphiccontributions

In 1971Spiegelman paid tribute to Don Dohler in the collective homage albumProJunior (Krupp Comic Works). More than 20 years later heillustrated a 1994 reprint of the 1923 poem The Wild Party byJoseph Moncure March. On 3 August 1999 political cartoonist Ted Rallcriticized Spiegelmans power of influence in the cartoon industrythrough an article published in the Village Voice. While Spiegelmanhimself didnt react to it, cartoonist Danny Hellman did. He mailed35 cartoonists and editors, pretending to be Rall, only to reveal asatirical hoax letter. When Rall sued for libel, Hellman publishedtwo comic books, Legal Action Comics (2001, 2003) to finance thecosts of his trial. Spiegelman, feeling somewhat responsible for thewhole brouhaha, joined several other famous cartoonists to make agraphic contribution titled Sketchbook Drawings in the secondvolume.

Books andessays

Apart fromcomics, Spiegelman is just as famous as a comics essayist. He and BobSchneider edited the best-selling quotations manual Whole Grains: ABook of Quotations (1973). On his own he also edited DavidMazzucchellis 1994 graphic novelisation of Paul Austers novel Cityof Glass (1994). Together with Robert Sikoryak he co-edited TheNarrative Corpse (1995), a crossover comic in which 69 cartoonists(many from RAW) create a chain story, where one artist takes overfrom where the previous artist left off. Spiegelman contributed theforeword to Tijuana Bibles: Art and Wit in Americas ForbiddenFunnies (1996), about the history of Tijuana Bibles, and to a 2010compilation of the work of Lynd Ward, Lynd Ward: Six Novels inWoodcuts (2010). He wrote the self-reflecting article Getting inTouch with My Inner Raist for the 1 September 1997 issue of MotherJones. An article about Jack Cole published in The New Yorker on 8March 1999, Forms Stretched To Their Limits: What Kind of PersonCould Have Dreamed Up Plastic Man?, eventually became a completebiography about the cartoonist: Jack Cole and Plastic Man: FormsStretched to Their Limits (Chronicle Books, 2001), co-written withChip Kidd.

comic art byArt Spiegelman

Recognition

Art Spiegelmanmight be one of the most honoured and awarded cartoonists of alltime. He won the Playboy Editorial Award (1982) for Best Comic Stripand a Yellow Kid Award for Best Foreign Author (1982). Between 1983and 1985 he received three consecutive Regional Design Awards,followed by the Joel M. Cavior Award for Jewish Writing (1986). Hewon two Urhunden Prizes for Best Foreign Album, respectively in 1988and 1993. At the Festival of Angoulême he received the Prize forBest Comic Book twice, in 1988 and 1993. The same festival honoredhim in 2011 with a Grand Prix dAngoulême for his entire career.After winning an Eisner Award (1992) he was inducted in the EisnerAward Hall of Fame (1999) before the decade was over. Spiegelmanfurthermore added an Inkpot Award (1987), Max und Moritz Award(1990), Pulitzer Prize Letters Award (1992), Harvey Award (1992), LosAngeles Book Prize for Fiction (1992), Sproing Award (1993), NationalJewish Book Award (2011) and Edward MacDowell Medal (2018) to hishonors list. The Binghamton University gave him a honorary doctorateof Letters (1995), while the French government named him Chevalier delOrdre des Arts et des Lettres (2005) and the American Academy ofArts and Letters made him a honorary member in 2015.

Mediaappearances

Spiegelman wasone of many famous cartoonists to be interviewed in the documentaryfilm Comic Book Confidential (1988). Along with Daniel Clowes andAlan Moore he was special guest voice in Matt Groenings TheSimpsons, namely the episode Husbands and Knives (2007).

Art Spiegelman

Legacy andinfluence

Art Spiegelmanremains one of the most famous and widely respected cartoonists inthe world. Daniel Clowes even satirized him as Gummo Bubbleman inPussey (1989-1994). Spiegelman made many people look at comics withdifferent eyes. His experimental comics and thought-provoking essayswere a strong influence on Scott McClouds Understanding Comics(1993). Maus paved the way for other autobiographical graphicnovels about real-life tragedies, such as Joe Kuberts Yossel andDave Sims Judenhaas, which also deal with the holocaus, but alsoworks like Marjane Satrapis Persepolis, Alison Bechdels FunHome, Joe Saccos Palestine and Chris Wares Jimmy Corrigan.Spiegelman was also an influence on Blexbolex, Cosey, Emil Ferris,Matt Groening, Jean-Louis Lejeune, Ulli Lust, Stewart Kenneth Moore,Wilfred Ottenheijm, Mimi Pond, Thierry van Hasselt, Katrien VanSchuylenbergh, Ted Stearn and Chris Ware.

Books about ArtSpiegelman

For thoseinterested in Spiegelmans life and career, Joseph WiteksConversations (University Press of Mississippi, 2007) contains manyinterviews with the maestro.

FrançoiseMouly (French: [muli]; born 24 October 1955)[1] is a Paris-born NewYork-based designer, editor, and publisher. She is best known asco-founder, co-editor, and publisher of the comics and graphicsmagazine Raw (1980–1991), as the publisher of Raw Books and ToonBooks, and since 1993 as the art editor of The New Yorker. Mouly ismarried to cartoonist Art Spiegelman, and is the mother of writerNadja Spiegelman.

As editor andpublisher, Mouly has had considerable influence on the rise inproduction values in the English-language comics world since theearly 1980s. She has played a role in providing outlets to new andforeign cartoonists, and in promoting comics as a serious artform andas an educational tool. The French government decorated Mouly as aKnight of the Order of Arts and Letters in 2001, and as Knight of theLegion of Honour in 2011.

Contents

1 Biography

1.1 Early life

1.2 Move to NewYork

1.3 Raw Books

1.4 The NewYorker

1.5 Raw Junior:Little Lit and Toon Books

2 Recognition

3 References

3.1 Works cited

4 Externallinks

Biography

Early life

Mouly was bornin 1955 in Paris, France, the second of three daughters to Josée andRoger Mouly. She grew up in the well-to-do 17th arrondissement ofParis.[2] Her father was a plastic surgeon[3] who in 1951 developed,with Charles Dufourmentel, the Dufourmentel-Mouly method of breastreduction.[4] The French government made him a Knight of the Legionof Honour.[3]

Map of Paris,with the 17th arrondisement, where Mouly grew up, highlighted

Mouly grew upin the 17th arrondissement (in pink) of Paris, France.

From a youngage Mouly had a love of reading, including novels, illustratedfairytale collections, comics magazines such as Pilote, and comicsalbums such as Tintin.[5] She excelled as a student, and her parentsplanned to have her study medicine and follow her father into plasticsurgery. She spent vacation time assisting and observing her fatherat work.[6] She was troubled with the ethics of plastic surgery,though, which she said "exploits insecurity to such a highdegree".[7]

At thirteen,Mouly witnessed the May 1968 events in France. The events led toMoulys mother and sisters fleeing Paris. Her father stayed to beavailable to his patients, and Mouly stayed as his assistant. Shedeveloped sympathies with the anarchists, and read the weekly radicalHara-Kiri Hebdo.[2] She brought her radical leftist politics with herwhen her parents sent her in 1970 to the Lycée Jeanne DArc incentral France, where she has said she was expelled "twenty-fouror twenty-five times because [she] was trying to drag everyone todemonstrations".[8]

Moulys fatherwas disappointed when, upon Moulys return to Paris, she chose toforgo medicine to study architecture at the École nationalesupérieure des Beaux-Arts. She lived with a boyfriend in the LatinQuarter and traveled widely in Europe, took a two-and-a-half-monthvan trip with friends in 1972 that reached Afghanistan, and made asolo trip to Algeria in 1974 to study the vernacular architecture,during which she was robbed of her passport and money.[9]

Mouly grewdisenchanted with the lack of creative freedom a career inarchitecture would present her. Her family life had grown stressful,and her parents divorced in 1974. The same year, she broke off herstudies and worked as a cleaner in a hotel to save money fortraveling to New York.[9]

Move to NewYork

With noconcrete plans, Mouly arrived in New York September 2, 1974, with$200 in the midst of a severe econo.

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