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S39E3: Art Spiegelman: Disaster is My Muse | Clip

Art Spiegelman wrote this comic about his family’s experiences on 9/11

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When the Spiegelman family witnessed the towers falling on 9/11, they noticed that the gray of the buildings fell first, leaving bright red beams hanging in the air that slowly disintegrated. Art Spiegelman later depicted this in his comic, “In the Shadow of No Towers.”

TRANSCRIPT

(soft music) - My high school was right underneath the World Trade Center, and it was my second or third day of high school when 9/11 happened.

And it was a very difficult day, which my dad then wrote about in this book.

The school was shaking.

The lights were going on and off.

Teachers were running out of classrooms.

Some kids were glued to the windows, watching people jump.

And my parents came to get me.

- We went dashing down there.

We got her out and began walking to the West Side Highway.

We turned to see the towers.

At that point, the other tower was on fire as well.

And what we saw was so astonishingly unreal looking.

- My dad and I, and my mom as well, witnessed something that you never see in the footage of 9/11.

It looked like all of the gray of the tower fell first, and then there were these bright red beams that hung in the air for a really long time.

And then those bright red beams slowly disintegrated.

And I remember seeing that so vividly, and the fact that my dad saw it too and then drew it, is really beautiful.