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S39E3: Art Spiegelman: Disaster is My Muse | Clip

The double meaning behind Art Spiegelman’s “Maus”

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Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel “Maus” was about both his father Vladek’s experiences in the Holocaust and the difficult relationship they had with each other.

TRANSCRIPT

- "Maus" is a twin story.

So it's about Art Spiegelman's father Vladek's experience in the Holocaust.

Another thread of the book is the story of an adult cartoonist who is struggling to visualize the Holocaust in comics form and is also profoundly struggling with his relationship with his father.

(pages rustling) - On the indicia page is a quotation.

"The Jews are undoubtedly a race, but they are not human."

Adolf Hitler.

Rego Park, New York, circa 1958.

It was summer, I remember.

I was 10 or 11.

Last one to the schoolyard is a rotten egg.

I was rollerskating with Howie and Steve till my skate came loose.

Ow!

Hey.

Wait up, fellas.

Rotten egg.

Ha ha.

Wait up.

Snk, snf.

My father was in front, fixing something.

Artie.

Come to hold this a minute while I saw.

Snrk?

Why do you cry, Artie?

Hold better on the wood.

I, I fell, and my friends skated away without me.

He stopped sawing.

Friends?

Your friends?

If you lock them together in a room with no food for a week, then you could see what it is, friends.

So that sequence was there to sort of frame what happens in the rest of the book, which is a difficult relationship with my father and one in which nightmare visions drop out of nowhere into my kid life.