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The Graphic Novel. Not Funnies. The most innovative novels being published now may just be those of some seriously strange cartoonists. Charles McGrath, The New York Times Magazine.
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Not Funnies • The most innovative novels being published now may just be those of some seriously strange cartoonists. • Charles McGrath, The New York Times Magazine
As most graphic novelists themselves will gladly tell you, you have to be a bit of a weirdo to want to pursue this odd and solitary art form.
Graphic novels, or the good ones anyway, are virtually unskimmable. And until you get the hang of their particular rhythm and way of storytelling, they may require more, not less, concentration than traditional books.
HISTORY -- R. F. Outcault • The father of the American Sunday Comics • The creator of the Yellow Kid • Published in black and white originally, but the Kid received a bright yellow shirt to show that he was the central figure
He typically focused on Blacks living in the imaginary town of Possumville or Irish tenement street children living in NY City • He created these cartoons for adults, not children • Outcault and the Yellow Kid established the comics as a permanent part of the American newspaper
Maus I – a graphic novel • By Art Spiegelman
Freud’s essay on Mourning and Melancholia • In mourning, the subject grieves for the loss of the beloved, and gradually comes to terms with that loss through the sustained reflection regarding the multiple meanings of that loss. Mourning is characterized by an initial withdrawal from the external world of things and events, and centers upon the subject’s feeling of the loss of a significant aspect of one’s life.
Historical subject-positions • Pre-holocaust • The Holocaust • Postholocaust
Kinds of text in Maus • Images • Dialogue boxes • Commentary • Graphics • Maps of Poland and the camps • Diagrams of hideouts • Real photographs from the family archive • Detailed plans of the crematoria • An exchange table for goods in Auschwitz • A manual for shoe repair
Many small narratives • Vladek • Anje • Artie Death of his brother Suicide of his mother The murder of the European Jews Nazi Book-Burning
Maus is an allegory • A figurative representation of one item in terms of another; ie, the Jews are represented as mice, the Germans as cats, the Americans as dogs, the African-Americans as black dogs, the Poles as pigs
Note: • Spiegelman’s use of masks • Scenes of brutality • The social and economic status of Jews • The use of both textual and visual to convey a story