Maus - C/D?

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yeah, you know - the one that made it socially acceptable to like comics!

as worthy and admirable as it is on any number of levels, i always found "Maus" hard to love. my main problem is with its use of animals. "rat = Jew" at least has a certain symbolic power, and making the Nazis cats is a queasily effective joke, but when you get to pigs-as-Poles and frogs-as-French (!!!) it just gets fucking ridiculous. if Spiegelman's intent was to startle us into seeing the Holocaust in a fresh way by using Tom-and-Jerry images, he certainly failed, cos "Maus" LOOKS like an underground comic. i don't think the non-mouse animals are particularly well-drawn, either.

the most effective thing about the book, for me, is Spiegelman's unsentimental account of his relationship with his father, which is done so well it makes me wish i liked the rest of the book more. it's the sort of personalization-of-history Martin Amis tried to do with his Stalin book, only Spiegelman does it FAR better.

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Friday, 6 February 2004 07:05 (twenty-two years ago)

I've never read it, apart from skimming it in shops. I've always had the slight idea that it is worthy but dull.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Saturday, 7 February 2004 11:02 (twenty-two years ago)

I think Maus is wonderful... the pigs always seemed fairly Orwellian to me, and the French-as-Frogs is probably obvious, yeah, but it didn't bother me. After all, what animal would they have taken otherwise?

What I love about Maus is that it tells a terrible, horrific story, or rather, stories, and the use of mice and other animals makes it more palatable. I think we're fairly desensitized to images of Holocaust victims, but the use of innocent, sweet little mice manages to hit unexpectedly. Simple lines always manage to convey so much more than intricate, highly detailed works, at least to me. See also: Persepolis.

― Catty (Catty), Monday, 9 February 2004 13:18 (twenty-two years ago)

Well, i can't be all that objective about Maus to tell the truth. It was living proof that comics could be something other than guys running around in tights. Gave me great frustration too when i couldn't find anything else even trying in that direction (Till i finally found a shop that showed me there was more, WAY more being done out there in that vein)

I should go give that a re-read come to think of it, it's been quite awhile since i took a flip thru it. The writing is the strongest part of it, the art just pushing the whole horrid/crazy/sad experience of it along. Him using animals instead of humans, well, to me that was really a smart move. Would it have taken hold the way it did without that "gimmick"...I don't think so. It needed that buffer from direct reality to show how horrible it was. Oh, see also: Barefoot Gen, probably the great grand-daddy of it all in a way...

― Phil Dokes (sunny), Monday, 9 February 2004 22:04 (twenty-two years ago)

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