on yoLrr twentieth play? Oh ycrth.

lirtstt'r'
eggs! Per{ect for a Jewish lrool<! I cliclrr't
even have a concept like that irr rny lrcrt<I,
let alone a phrase for it. All thesc rhirrgs
are part of what it meant to mzrl<c thc
drawings around a restructuring of rny
father's narrative.

Thc first page of the "Time Flies"

section in *laus ,, i$ to me one of
the ky pages ln the book'

II think of

"Time Flies" as t MetaMaus-

commentary on the whole project. It

sits on top of Maus the way my character
in a mask sits on top of all those bodies.
ln its earliest iterations it was longer and
more abstract, starting with a page of flies
btzzingaround in blank panels. I was
really moving back into my "experimental
comics" land. It certainly focused one on
how time rnoves through panels by just
having this page that could either be flies
in space or flies in time. But it would have
tipped things way too overtly toward my
interest in comics structure and the whole
section already risked unbalancing the
book. Mostly I kept my structural interests
sublimated and below most readers'
consciousness, like the hidden swastika on
lil<e

told NP& "l think anybody

who liked what I did in Maus had
to acknowledge that it couldn't
have happened in any other ldiom."
rdhy tell Maus in comiss form?
You onc6

It

never could have occurred to me to t('ll

it in any other form. Comics are jr.rst thc

idiom that naturally came with trying rrr
fulfill a mandate I wasn't conscior'rs of
fulfilling when I went back ro Maus it'r
'78--gy motheq's desire that I somchow
teil her story.

'$7hat

consciously motivrlre(l

me was the impulse of wanting to c{o it

comic that needed a bool<mrrrk.

the first "Time Flies" page. It's difficult to

see, but it's there: made out of the angled
black shadows that define the spotlight

lgng

Eveiy tims I rc-rcad i,laus, I {ind

thlng* I hadn't $een before.

What is most interesting about contics

for me has to do with the abstractiotr ;rrrtl
structurings that come with the comics
page, the fact that moments in rimc rlrc
juxtaposed. In a story that is trying t<r
make chronological and cohererrt tlrt'
incomprehensible, the iuxtaposirrg of prtsl
and present insists that past ancl Prcscrrt

My obsessions with comics form do

are always present-;ne'doesn't displac,'

the other the way it happerrs in filrrr.

inform the whole book, but it's not exactly

a matter of trying to embed-what do

ls

they call those extras hidden inside a

video game that you might stumble into

describe w[rat comics does?

on the drawing table. The blacks travel

through the page and make a broken
swastika that holds the page together on
top o{ the pyramid of bodies.

LtFT: Self-portrait, 1999.

lt useful to talk about other formslike einema, or theate[ or music-to

&E

I gtrcss every medium has its strengths and

lirrritarions. Despite the commonly held
lrclrr.l tlrar comics are some sort of storylro;rrtl waiting to become a movie, maybe

(cr(itin kind of comics

has more to do
wrtlr r lrcrter. lt offers encapsulated sets of
r I rst ra cti ons that trigger a .esporrre._B.ri.
rlrt'rrtcr, like cinema, straps the audience
to :r chair and hurtles you through time.
Wh:rtt'vt'r's dramatic in a comic can be
stoppccl with the blink of an eye.
rr

Most dlarratic fiims have a hard time with

thc I lolocaust as a subject because of the
rrt'tlium's tendency toward verisimilitude
,rrrtl reproduction of reality through
rrrrvinlE photographic images. Holocaust
rrrovit:s Lrsually look like they're populated

by l';rirly well-fed inmares, for example.

Movic rnakers can get involved in some
liirrd of crazy trying-to-rebuild the camps,
.rs r,pposcd to creating it as a mental zone,
wlri. lr Mnas does.
Do you have a func(immol
dcscription of qomics?

I ltrst slrrck with the dictionary definition

I lorrrrtl ycars ago: comics are "a narrative
st'r'it's

oI crrrt<)ous." That's what mv old

pane of glass has become a

panel in the bottom half that
repeats what you saw in the
top half in terms of the family
groupings. One Pane shows
Anja, Vladek, and Richieu.
And you get to see that again

American Heritage Dictionary said, and

it'll do. No definition can be all embracing and inclusive; definitions are more like
indications rather than recipes. One can
always keep refining and sag "No, no, a
narrative series of juxtaposed cartoons.
And why'cartoons,' maybe we should use
the word 'diagrams,' or just 'drawings'!',
But what was very useful for me is that
when I looked up the word "narrative"
right after reading the definition of comics,
I found that a narrative is a "stor11" and
that a "story" comes from medieval Latin
historia. It refers ro those very early comic
strips made before the invention of
newsprint: the stained-glass windows that
told a superhero story about that guy who
could walk on water and rurn it into wine.
This is how in English, the word "story"
has come to mean both story as in stories
of a building and srory as a narrarive.
And at that point one is steered toward
an architectural model for what a comic
is, something very basic about comics
narrative. Comics pages are structures
made up of panels, sort of the way the
windows in a church articulate a story.
Thinking of these pages as units that have
to be joined together, as ifeach page was
some kind of building with
windows in it, was something
that often happens overtly in
Maus, and sometimes is just
implicit in the DNA of the
medium. I also used to talk
about the page by comparing

it to a paragraph with each

panel or tier of panels like
a "sentence." But all these
comparisons are attempts to
gct et what lhe:rrclritcelorrir's
lrntl gllrrnrn:rl of .r rrltrr:ilivt'
lll I llt,

AiltItrr ttt lltilliltlt I)tt tn)iltily, l,)l \

rrl'r rrrrrtr,,lrrlr," wrllr l rrrrI llrr,,lrrrtillIr,..
rlt,rlr,lrrrlr,rlr( il,,rr 1,,t,. lltI llIl|illtVl, l,r,ilIl)l(,
l)r,lrrrrlrrrrr

Allovl l)r,rll t,,rj, /r, lil(,lll

1,.0r,,

/{,,|rl //

on rhe bortom half of the page

as the characters are identified
in the caption below And
naming is what helps give
people their individuality in
a visual sign-system where

'llZ({A^J ri,
Lrcxy .1X*

ttg dtF{; UAM

ilNAtntd

!f"u1*X*1,'ffi,Io.

everybody tends to look alike.

Something is told about each
of these characters in each
temporal panel that repeats
a fragment of the large top
panel. It allows me the sPace

to give necessary information.

At the end of the page, that
system is interruPted bY
an inset of Vladek on his
Exercycle, as at the top, but
there's no frame around this
drawing-which allows re-

rnight be in the case of comics. I end up

having all of these top-pieces and footl)otes and end-spots, because a page is

entry for a moment into the present that

holds that page together as a unit.

visual paragraph.
One of the most literal iterations of the
;rrchitectural approach to a page appears
when Vladek re-enters into Ania's
fnrnily's household before they're moved
to the ghetto, on page 76. There's kind
of an inset window at the top, of Vladek
in the "presentr" on his Exercycle, saying
th:rt the house looked exactly as it did

bclirrc he'cl been tal<en off to prisoner

ol: w:rr catnp. Your cyc cntcrs itrto thc
I rotrsclrold tlt rotrglr it wi rrrlow-i tt t lt;tt
st'nsc rt c:l:tssit: "cittt'ttlttic" pnrtcl. l lrc
lrrrtt's ol lltrtl wirttlttw ittlo lltr'lrotrst'lroltl
:ttt' lltt'tt tt'pt';tlt'tl,ts lltt' Irollrttli lr'tll ol
tlr.rt p,r11t', ro lll.tl ttou,, lrlcr,rlly,,.r, ll

Then, no longer mediated by the window

panes, the next page shows the members
of the household interacting at their dinner
table. It demonstrates the sort of thing that

(,ilil,,, .lrr It.t(l( lr,

,1,,, ,rll,,tr

rrrli.r

r r,,rr.rl

t.tlt\( l() Ir)l 1,, .t ..tttt1,l, lr.rlt l.tlrott

tlrl lcrl l{r. Irrrrr .,prllrrrri sorrp rs.r srrlr
lr.tt

ol

r.rIr\,r' Ilt.lt ll.tl)l)( tts r,r,lrrlr. Vllrtlt.l< is

l,, irr1l ..rtrlllrt rrP orr wlr;rl lilt.in Sosrrowicc
lr,rs llt.,,rnc rrrrtlt,r l lrc Nezis. It's c()nrl)lctcly
visrr:r I rr r rtl oI Icrs rli l:fcrerrt infornrirtion
rr.rr

lhurr rlret in tlrc spccch balloons. It's what

c()nlics d(). I elways had to be czrLltious in
Mr.//,/-s ir[)()ut how t<t renlair] in service tn my
tltl-ro:'s deposition-his voice-while not

\rlu \\.ttl lr) ln(lt(.tlt llr,rl

()n thc strips

{iilri
iv'l

t"$(.}

{],*rrrs{

)/{i:i{'"r {r}r$l}*}t;{(d {hdt/ i!!

L'u ,,rhlr*.i. ${}${$

"" ". $.." i '.,,{i "ri(."r..

''lllir;;

*l

j'1,1,"-J

ti

cD(

Du{ riDu

^\N

lJrcttkrlotrtrrs.

Eidl

t*trk flli}i"tr *r*r.*ut yu,,*r i*$lt"ll

t*

IVf/ CABLE BILL IS PAID UP FOR

THE NEXT THREE MONTHS ,...

*$i}$$ }

by I(en J:rcobs, lirnic Gehr,

and Stan Brakhage became
important to mc.. They lecl
me to ask, at what point do
juxt:rposed pictures becomc
comics? Ancl tl.rat led nre

,ft

il*vf {$

to clo a page in I973 called

".r{L}s{.tt

r:{1..._}

"l)on't

I have the mosr difficulry

looking at ilrc the ones thar
are more illustrative, because
they're thc ones that break rhe spcll rather
than create it. There's :r sub-genre of comics kncrrvn as firnetti-the photo-crxrics
that have been very popular in Mexico arrd
Italy-that tend to really not work well
formally. Photos tend to have roo nruch
infbrnration; it's vcry hard to suppr-ess the
Lrnnecess,lry. The worl< that actually worl<s
hest cleploys informarion visually to give
you the necessafy signs ancl llot too ltlllch
rnore. I love doodle-rvriting and pref'er
signs made lvrth verve that exprcss the

personality of the sign-maker.

"fhe cartoon is a drawing that gets ro
e\scn( e\. Arrd rrlr|ltf ir ('lv, r'{)tniL\ ar( tn
cs\cntiJlizeJ iorrrr of dieglrmrrrirrg I lrrrrative movemer-rt thror-rgh time. For me, it's
an art of compressiort that breaks nar.rntive e vents dorvr.r to tlreir most rlecessary

If

Get Ar:ound Much

Anymorc." It mostly shows

a n'ran sitting in his living
room, and details of thrrt

If anythtng, the comics tlrirt

momerits. If yr>u show the sanre panel

three tirnes, that is a lot of time passing.

l.rrr,l ol,lut,rlrolt

l(

I'd become interested in the av;rnt-garde

cinem:r of the '6Os-r'ronnarrarive filrrs

ii{r,{xMiii-i1{ g},H,'

$*, i$$tilsd \,$ri 1*Jh

il

:i &}i8tri$r{ 6

ustration.

f,*riln, *:*mi(.t d{:${tsfi'1t

,1

rt':rlly ;'rrt'ocerrpit'tl rnr. wlrcrr I w:ts rvorl<irtg

rcclucing rhe im:rges to mere

iII

illill(

\\ .tll(.illt.tlt.tl lrtrtts
Io rr;rlit"it rt,liistt.l- llrt.st sorls ol llllrgs
rtr lrlrtl rt I.rl\(.:

roorn. T[re captions are just

flzrt, alierrated sentences,

like "The refrigerator is empry." Ir w:rs

AM

SOME CRACXERS
AND ,.

/N THE CUPBOARD,

based on something I'd wlitten rvhile

dcPrs.\5c.; and I dccrded t()

nrrio for

a crtrnic even

u\c ir :r\ J

fhoLlgh-o!

\(.e

rather,

l)e(irilse-.rIntost nothing, hill)p!rls. I wxilt

iird <'rrt r,r h,rt ctruld h:rppen wlrerr

nothing's happening. Ever:ything's "our of
sync" between the wor:ds ancl thc illustraed ro

tions-thcy're not functioning

,,AIL
0F THE

'UT
FLICK OFT

as ilh-rstra-

tions so rnuch as visual tugs that l<eep your

eye moving aronncl the page bllr trapped
on it, wl'rich I guess is why the strip is titled, :.rfter the Duke F,llington song, "Don,r
Get Around Much Anvrnore." There's only
one moment of conttnuous movement on
thc page: out the window, your eyes skitter
back and forth betweerr two panels to see
a kid bouncing a ball. It's the only cscapc
into life ancl phvsical movement. It was a
har:d-won pa[Je, one I rernain irrordinately
proud of, trying t<; fincl a ner.v way of using
these words and pictures together to indi-

V/ith Mazs I hacl thc rtlveltl;r11 ,rl lr.tvtttl',

ollce I Llntangled it, llbotrt ils t()lrll)( llrrr)i
a story as one ever tlcctls lo litttl,.rl''rrrt
surviving itl extremis' I spt'llt .ttl lttt tlrlrlrlr

cate the languor ancl timeless depression I

sti[1 rernain prone to: the leeling that "Oh,
lrc're I am again, tr:rpped, and I aitl't never
gonna be anywhere else."
L.l

lrl' l'lt'r:it;lr,rrri

t('1rEr, f i

,i1{iilill": 0i

ilir tl nii
'{

&p

t'0t

'illii'i tll /illlritd

Ilttr h xrtilrttttttL f

ir'l

.ilil()unt ()f tirne figuring out what I

to see what one could do as a structured
,rl,s.lrrrt'ly needed ro draw and couldn't
thing that had the beats and rhythms of
li( r ,rwiry with not drawing. It's not exactly a novel. After finding that my first book,
tlrc s;urrt. lrs minimalism,

Breakdowns, had an

l,rrt rt is ebout getting it

Llowrr lo what can't be
rrol lht'rc. If something
,,rrltl bc prersented in
)il( l);lllc ratl-rer than
lr,,', I would aim for
lr:rt, I licpt trying to
ilirrrt orrt what could
,t' lclt rrnsaid but still
,t .lt':rr. A corollary of
li't lit't1's "cver:y wOrd

audience of maybe
3,000 readers or so

:; ;r

'" t{.}li: (rf {I:tri

i

ir

ested in the concerns

that filied that work,

I had to think about
another part of my
private de6nition of
comics, which is
"intended for re-

slrrirr <ln silence and

I guess.

rot lrirr13rrcss,"

i,'

at best, with most of

them kind of uncomprehending or uninter-

r'.

f:,t,}il'rit*l+l'* fi}iT$ie".S

it it, i{:r,ilil$

t:}l

&

*{' n xf,ldiul*l--uhu-d

rr Arrrcr-ica comics got very wrapped up

vitlr tht'sLrperhero in the'30s and'40s.

I lrt srrpcrhcro craze went into remission
rltt'r' World XTar II in favor of other genres
rIt' lrollor and crime cornics-maybe
r'.rrlt rs rt.:rIizecl

that Captain America

orrltlrr't K() I litler without a lot of Rusr.rrr soltlit rs et his lrack. The heroes came
,.r, li witlr :r vcngc:lnce by the early 1960s
lrcr rlrt ( ,orrrics Clodc sl'rut down a lot of
Ir, rrror t. lrrr irl peths comics were taking
,,w.rr il ,,ltlt r rcrrclcrs. And superheroes of
(,lr (,( it'( tlrr' lit.ltrc lttost American readrs tlrrrli,rl lirst whcrr thcy think about
()ilil( l)()()l(s rrl ;rll. 'l'hc rrrccliurn <tf comics

rrrtl'lt rlr'Il,vs .t lrttrt,lt,,l lrttlrrrr.s,

usu

lly wrtlr l('\(,l() f',('t y()lr yorrr story. l'his

llrlcr
,,

y ryslt.rrr, t.vt'rr wlrt.rt strpt'rltcrocs

r, llyrrrli lrililr, rrlso tlclivt.rt'rl w('st(.nls,

( !l()t t(.s. ltrtilty :utittt;tl slrlt.it.s, W:tf

ot rr',,, .rilvcrrlrrr. slorics. st it.rrtr. lit liolr
oil(,,, lt()ilr)t !lo|( ! lols ol 1,,r.lttt.s ll
*'.r', rlt,lro',t tl lou,,utl ,ury 1,,( lr(., tl w.l\
lililrll r r)nlt(,, \r) A1,lll,, rr,,r.,.1il .lll{ iltl)l
,r!!.ilr(

production." Comics are different than

working on a suite of paintings, say, that
use comics terminology. At least for me,
the printed object is the final goal, nor the
original drawing that might be printed.
!floody Gelman, my mentor at rhe Topps
Bubble Gum company, put ir perfectly:
"You can make one and sell it for a million
dollars, or make a million and sell them for
a dollar each." I had a class bias toward
the latter and Breakdowzs sure wasn't
going to get me there.

\:
6\*
iIJ '

+\{

L.

,l:\
'",'t ,i
',';\
"
'rl,'
r;, ) ri

r)Ii

i ..,i-'.,i
,.,1&

ffi:t
l,f
W\

',!_

\!'s'*$d y**r .ia{k ah*lilt }.l.}q tffr'}$i,s$,i **{,rvec;rl

;i"1fi

llt-qilr{ii,$iTi i.lnd

the

$}i3$s-rfi $y${et

rnrx"J

,:rr"idi#il(tr {$rn{ ifi$r}r&t$ ys#r ?fff}{{?

tf,fu

I guess it's no different than the tensions in

any other medium, though until my generation I don't think there was such a thing as
avant-garde comics-pleasing the audience
was the name of the game. Although catering to rr rnirss-market isn't at the core of
nry work-cxccpt, I gucss, for nry dcc:rdcs
Iorrr diry job with rht:'lirpps buhblc-gtrnr
(rlrrtll.rry I ,lo lrli, rrl ( ()nur)lrli(.ttr.

,6- bqt
wlr,rt l-rappens in the more rarefied precincts

ol rrrt

is tl-rat the

word "communicatioll"

li('ls rcplilccd by "cttt'nmuni<ltt," :rncl onc

rs irrvolvctl irr e kincl tri rcligiotrs e xpt'ri
trrt t witlt tlrc artist ils sll:rlllllll. Arttl tlr;rt's
,,'.rlly tlillt'r'errt tlrrrrr, "l lcy, I'll t.'ll y,rrr,r

rl.:i

t*

dss.

lend themselves to direct colllllltllliclltl(l

and clar:ity. Tlrcir show-rtrrd tcll ettribrrr
ere wcll stritccl to tht' t;tslt by irrvit illl', lr'
hrtlvcs of tht'hrrtirr lo 11r-;rplllt witlr tlrt'

,lt':u ly. Il's rr plt rtsrut - Arr,l ,ts sr)()n ;rs ()n(.

y.rrr," ()r'tvt'rr "l'll tt'll yorr ;r 1,,tr',ll'1t," il

\'1)u w,,rrrl 1,,lr, tli,lrtttit. Arrtl ll'\:llw.lv\

irrlontt:tliort. I lil<t lllt itlt',r ol tt'llirr1" yr

lr,,w ,t ttt,rliit l l ti li is tlorlt' .rlrtl :l ill rrr'rli
it st't rrl lili. ttl tl"tt wltt'lt )',tr :r't'tl ll's
.rlly ,rt tlr, lrr',tl l ol rvlt.tl trrlct ( ''l', lrl('

rs rrr,,,lt,r',1 wil lr t,,ltuttrrrr( :ll r( )t), ( )n(.'s

,rlr, ,t,ly .,u,,1)( ( I rrr tlr I lr1llr Art,,. A lot ol

li.t,lt,y rlr,rl I try

l,,r'rr crlltct .r
"lirll,,r,t,l,
1,, ttt,tl.-, ( (,lll,l( I rvtllt ollrr-l ;'r'r'1rlr I rottt

Wlt,rt w,r'. yottt lvotltttt'l

'

lrl(){ (""' ltllr' 'ttt'

,. i,' rrr-rkr Al-r

li'r,,,',mil.$;qr

*.I
ir(L hi.L k, dns flur{ hl\.ru I Eai lrck&
ft.n.n hnh A"d !1, I anJ h. Idpd N_.d
w,ll tsn8lish, aiJ dls nny rr (,as
u l!q.we.ks, I donl r.$nF..rarlt!
d(
r D&'Inu, ( {is - norn Lh! $J.r hnuary
I krd y.u I l noe I rcmnt.rscl rh.
Au:. hwirz we Jrdn r [n uur i (].(rhr
Aus.hwu luu.rl iweiry n)uilh, t9r5 his I
J wd$ in DachJ! tr.n) l.brrar!
!U lh. rill

$UtS$ W$"ffi.ffiffiS$$

I with a transcript of interviews

tdek (A) I search for a page
own in my notebook (B), looking
qir:al narrative unit of information
r .r clrawn page out of key scenes.
tlrrough a transparent grid (C),
,rrrcl rewrite possible text (D) to
them to fit in my boxes, trying out
grage schemes (E, F, and G) until
.rt a workable page draft (H).

il

h.vlhl a lildo brl .!!'!r kr.abe I ntr{ rh!

n,!f.!.r!
drv, &r.u!. I nil ri)r 5on\. . I had
.n,xher shiil, rJ hnvr ix ert.r 3t,rt Noi r) hnv, ir
rlt nr rho\lrr$, rhi!| r: ilerh
sirr I .oulin L.nr rouih t rlrp And r Bo]
qii! i iol of p.dplc (ilnrs th.n nom
was

nrn:tlhulF !d...hrnEu

,{,
i9*

(!PhB fuver O .our

/f=

1:9
I l.-r

ro th. W C , rl (is tiiLl {uli iin rhr pta.e in

pr.p[-, v.u n. -.]"ldn'l 80, rn!

hends ril, ilr! ird r\rr k-r! $

tt[lbk,, Fril!,
sL,|f$i
\o sl*uv
lfu f(!d, rl, iltr.,
'ra.
'U,l and yor *,en,, vorr r,qarr
lhe ski. wls jlifPrl,
thrLrttr tht rLnr nk talinlts
lorn r\nd lhis h,as crer! n)Ehr
,N.\,
Now - nral ilrr I r'd,
rl i\ mv tin! I
il,hrnt
fLrr i t,t.
rhis on.. and nrnehdy trili 5(!,r, rP b;r r!!.r't\r 'LttJuf r ,ia, ,rtl oi,"., rnu
rrhen Ur. guy r.mr Irnh il1e lnli.i1.!r\, ind.!e\t.d
h,q rlc,B]r.
hrj
lmkirS here, n, I rf rh!ilrd
I kru hnn, r trm F.In8 ..rv b;1. t' dnh.r nap
d ni8nl," ind h. kbk rtu irlrr nrd t. rrs er.n rhdt 1 nj{ r,err nrnf rrrir
,\nd hc {a)l ,\..'8h( i!Lj} r' rh. n\ttrrlrrv

ARI tlok d,nr* drc othil tlill.

,rtr{

{.nj!h!.

b, r ir{(B,hFgB h}6Xt
l.r,t tbn Srd.t{ 6VE|{G fiF

(,d.n I LLi.r rr th. rn0.x,irr .jlso,

\,1-l\l)Il( [h.aLrsi h! !uidn i nr) r( ti hiffr

sarvile H. - he *l th)rr lo{i m!c, "[vtrrbGl!

\tudies are then made for each panel, usually in

t,rogressively darker colored felt-tip pens, to bring
rlre;rawing into focus (1, J, K, L and M). The finished
,rt is then traced and further tweaked directly in ink
llrrough a light table. (All pages were drawn at the
',,rrne size as published in llaus.)

(rt !] i.$1 ilx,r ! ()rih

utr Uji.t .onlillFr

sh.urinr ina, !ifr] oi

vl lr)'iK Hc tlt lhn nckncss, ind I. diri iri.r i L1\rtf,, rt [.rr\, nlpr thi+
6nr hours and n-.{,ndl!, th lilil t.nn\. t!.fv nr! (. Lh.r!: fhrv (nnre

a1 {16r{{ r Hh9 {o

Go

{o -(HE {ol![ DO[ul' lT wA,

lx#;1i*, {l#l,l:t ::sffi';' it I}sJFP

{.rr HADlo6,0 0rlfHLRl{ErDr,A$DtHl' t hrT4}.RIS tgt-f^$re t( irrts F

rte ,Kur,.tDi i,tiid*( You rR fAl.Llild. Airg THt, Lri, argnY Nu{t
i,

'vi;r*v,

ltr'

i:l Jrt 1,,

itattl,,

.n1

rH,<--.-----

lar.Tl{lfi

,.

'.l
.\

,.,t0ql.1)

,I

fi

"-,.*"'-.'l
#,rE1iJ*,.tii*1,,r - *.
*- l::.n'urElrrrtrs['lrIi

,l

I decided to work same size as

publication: the drawings that
you see in the book are in exactly
a one-ro-one ratio to the size

.r]

tightens it up, makes the art look

more crisp and .,professional.,'
Reproducing one,s own mark_
offering up a facsimile of one,s

own handwrirrng-makes it more

like looking inro an actual journal,
like Anne Frank's or maybe Alfred

of Auschwitz. This approach

led me to abandon rnost of my

art supplies for Maus, to work

on typrng paper. Using stationery store
supplies. bond papcr, rypewriter
correcrion
fluid and a fountain pen made it more like
wriring. like offering up a manuscripr.
something made by hand.

forrntain pen_actually
two. Orre wrs a \randard gold-ripped I;eli_
kan fountain pen, and the other orr.
*", ,
specially retooled pelikan made by an
old
penmaker; I(enneth planck, who
modified
tl.re pen-point to make it as flexible
as a
dip-pen and hollowed our the chamber
so
it could withstand waterproof Inc.lia ink. I
went rhroulJh a few of those planck pens
and nrourn hirn ancl that olc.l pen.

I usr.tl clt'rmstick etltlrr.ss I:rht.ls rrv:rilrrlrlt.

rrl tlrr. sllrtiolrt.ry st()r(, (lvlriclr I n()w r(,11t.(.1
t' rrrlrl\ .rs I rr.rt. Ir llrl rilrrr \t.rrn\.rl\l,r.u)
.trrtl I rtlrlil l',r|t 1 1,,1 nl\.( ()t lr.t lrrrrtr,
.rrrrl

tt

**{

hePm*rl?

lrcrfect metaphor, but OK, so is Maus. And

r he grid allowed those sentences and those
p:rr:agraphs to be visible to me. It was

Kantort norebook drawings

{hq

violate them until I come up with something that does the iob. I tried to keep to
nry grid because it made the beats and
rhythms easier for me to find when planning the story. I worked with the metaphor
that each panel was analogous to a word,
,rnd each row of panels was a sentence,
,rrrd each page was a paragraph. It's an im-

upsize. Drawing large and

reducing the art for publication

th* ittlp*rt*rtc*r

m,*klngX

l'm kind of a structlrralist who keeps

losing his moorings. I give myself an
ebsolutely mathematical set of rules, and
rlren find that I'm not quite able to make
rrry things work within the set of rules, so
I poke at the edges of the rules and then

they're drawn. It affords a degree

of intimacy, an ..I-thou,, kind of
moment, that doesn't allow me to
take refuge in the minimi zing of
one's hand rremor and possible
lack of skill that comes with the
common practice oI drawing

I worked with

y{u"$ e}iffi}{ii{1

ir* grid t*r

a lot of tracing paper and layout paper

for
my studies.
So the process

with

for doing Maus started

thumbnail breakdown of my visual

"paragraph,,, then a direct sketch draft

of
the page-just a first stab at making
the
pagc. Then l'd refine each oI rlre panels,
try_
ing to 6nd a zone soflewh.re b"t*..r,
th"'
casuaLress of handwritir-rg and the precision
of a typeface. I could only arrive airhat b.,,
doing study after study, building up try...
of tracing paper with colorecl felt_tips.'

All rhese pages were drlwn ovcr a gricl

tlrar coulcl trsc citlrcr thrce ticrs or four
1i115-1;1' :r corrr[lin:ttiorr oI thr-, two_elttl
p:rrrt.ls wt.rt' irr it i;r lly tlivitlt,tl irr h,r
lvt.s,
llrtrrls, or r,;u iorrs int r.t.ntt,rrls itr ;r lr.l:tlivt.l\r
ll, rrl,l, l,111 11111',ltl,llt t(, lr, .,r.t,,1
1,,,.,,,11,1,.
1.5 oul., lor r',r, lr
1,,r1,r.

very important that I not be constructirrl',

run-on sentences that could iust go trrrtil
a sequence was finished. And tl-re sizc ol ,t
panel was of utmost importance, wht't lrt r.
a picture takes up a half a page, a thirtl ,l
a page, or is part of a row of narrtlw lroxt'r
has meaning.

l{t'lp

im

t$lfr$m

*t;tua ${e{,fls ds }dsu lit,i":i'/*)

pr*nm{r thn{ neewt

lisrf large

tffi tillqe

ilr*li

{.hm

$*t}s?

A large panel aliows yoll to entcr, [)irtrs(',

and understand the importancc of rt tttt,
ment. These weren't just used tlccor;tlivt ly;
though they do fight "eyebzrll fatigtrc,"
'l'lrt'
they had to be used sparingly,
1',,,;rl
was to make a Very Long (lorltit llook.
but I believe comics ere iln.l(l ,l itllt ttrt
condensation. The phrascs h:rvt' (o lrt'

condensed a lor to fit into those little bal_

lrxlns. l7ithout wanting to do a captionbox kind of storytelling, I did want it to

hirve the kind of urgency that would come
fronr a story told as efficiently as it could
bc. Of course sometimes that efficiency
necds to make room for ..,inefficiency,,
irrrd digression, when that,s called for in a
givcn scquence. Still, everyrhing had to be
rcwritten until it took up as little physi_
cul space as it could. Maybe it was very

l)irnel sizes were very consciously thought_

through, so rhat in the first volume the
lrrrgcst image in Maus, up until the end,
is wlrcn my parents first see a swastika,
()n pngc 34. It's a half-page-sized picture.
'l'hc only panel that,s bigger
in that volume
is rtt thc very end when they come to the
girtcs of Auschwitz, and the image bleeds,
litcrally-this is the phrase that printers
usc-off the edges of the page; and rhat,s
tlrc lirrl;cst panel.

t,,r* ,;t,,Irrlh

each pagc?

I lt,tvr, rr,, irh';t. None. 'l'lrcrc wcrc pirgcs

lltrtt r,ttttl tolit'tltcr rclntivcly fluidly, and
rrlltlr orrcr tlrirt clidu't, ancl n<lt always the
tlter y,rrr',1 prctlict: somctlling that seemed
lrrlstlvr,ly rllirightlorward could take me
trl,vn to pr't riglrt. . . and in some cases
I ttnvru ,lrrl, rlirnrurit, I struggled for days
rll lrrr, rrotlrirrg prrncl of Vladek's father
lllvlrtrrg ovt'r' lrirrr in [rcd, trying to get
lllltt ltrr';,,rlctl to cvade the draft-and for
T0P

L[fT:

s()nlc rcirson I jrrst eotrldrr't Ect tlrc scirlc ol

thosc ligurcs t<l nrirtclr. lt wns thc first tirrrr
Vlrrclck's frrthcr Lrppcarctl irr tlrc story, rurd

I hacln't figurctl out how to rlrirw lrinr, but

worst of all, I just coulcln't rrccornplish thc
rnost basic cartoouist journcynrirn work <ll:
situating one char?rcte r in space strrrrdiug
next to a bed, and anothcr charactcr lying
in it. It's just one exanrplc among nlauy,
but once I got hung up, I kcpt spinrring
rny wheels despite dozens of stabs at it.
That panel first appeared in RAW in 1 982,
and I even tried to redraw it, along witlr

Pdqe 34 and page 159. BtLoW: Study

for page 159, includinq bleed area.

you say more about the

It was

a matter of finding
how much drawn information
each box could contain and
imply in a flowing and easyto-unpack way so that things
remain prioritized, The story
should unfold in the reader,s
head. It involved a lot of
rejiggering each composition
to make it work, and since I
was drawing so srnall, it was

sometimes difficult to make

that the essentials stayed
clear. Working in that scale

'l'lritt prrge, when my parents

first see a
swilstika ou the train to a sanatorium in

sure

(lzcchoslovakia after my mother,s

break_
rkrwrr, is itn cxact visual rhyme of that
lrrst pngc of thc book's flashback to the
llrltcs ()f Ar"rschwitz. I didn't expect this
to corrsciously register on most readers,
htrt rrssurncd it would somchow reverberrrt"c rlllyway. At thc top of thc pagc therc,s
rr lrrrlf-hcight hrlrizontal of a train, rhen

ilt ir ticr of pirncls

Can

Hrw krrrl dld lt tokc you on avcragc to

quality that you were trying

to capture in condcnsation?

rnouselike that way.

rt convct'ltitti(rrt

lhrorrgh thc wirrclow ol thc trlin, rrrrtl tlren

thc hnll-prrgc of llrc pnsscrrgcrs lookirrg
orrt rt tlrirt swilstika through thc window.
At thc cnd olc tlrc book, tlrere,s thc truck
across rhe top half-height horizontal pirrrel
with Vladek and Anja being herdecl inro ltl
then a conversation in a tier of panels seen
inside the enclosed truck, and then the
large last panel. (That panel on page l59
also has, although somewhat off-center
and smaller, the same swastika
on the side of the truck that
was the flag in the center of the
panel on page 34.l The scale
and size of panels is just one of
the most basic aspects of structuring and making a comics
story happen.

kept me honest, because there

just wasn't room for flourish
and decoration. Somewhere
between composition, eye-fl ow,
and information content, the
panels had their own demands,
and had to be worked out
individually and therr witlr crrch
other on thc page,

srrclr

(/)
-7
(_-..

'S

----.-:

'-fr'5-:2

-_.L
1

176

&fD&: hYEXAnrdATt.ra r'',r[t]

ltllt'l>.
/LffoeY: Vos'n
'q.if-%+
', lI Pr{{- rDo nJq.

il rlLrlnber of other panels in the early

chapters when I was plttting togethel the
lilst Pantheon volLrme in 1986, but I just
rrcver could nail it. Far more complex
lrrurels came together

with no problem, but

I froze up on that one. \7hen I refer to my

rclrrtively lir:rited drawing skills, I am not
jrrst being modest. Of course, neurosis and
ohscssive behavior:rlso do play their part.
lrr thc worlcl before computers I found
rewriting eacl'r phrase rraybe twenty
tinrcs. \(hatever zrppearred in a balloon
wor-rlcl sometin-res look like concrete poetr:y

rrryself

,ritcr I finished clistilling the language on

,r sheet of paper. Sitrce every eiglrth of an
irrclr rn as significant, I cor,rldn't use Vlrrdek's
lrurguage verbatinr. I'cl fincl mysclf trying to

that still l<ept the caof his brol<en langtrage, but woulcl
r',.'cluce it dowr-r. So, [or exanrple, I n'right
rrst' "go" instead of "wa1k," since it only
trxrl< up two characters rather thal four. I
It t l sorry for all the poor foreign transla-

rcphrrrse something
,lt'rrces

tors of Mals, since often my decisi<lns can't

lrt rcplicated itr irt'tother larrguage.

.,{\t,& u(, VLA}4<

|/'& .tzlil'td e
-\d

il@

funre ur\
i.V&e9o<1
I rtJ0lol'tr/Ct I

/ *,*t6ttelr' \

'l lrt lrottom half of page 1.24 is a relatively

r.llc cilse of staying as close to my father's
vr'r-b:rtim l:rnguirge as I colrld. I'd listen to
llr(' tirpc ancl choke up while I r,vas listening,
r,r I hecl to step back and allow it to retirin
rvhrrtcvct^ et'notional resonances

,1

r,r1'"\
,,$

\ \ i,\'l

it has. Still,

WAKE Ur, VrAgE,Kl

You'RE rlEerliA foo r{lwll,

i j
,lL

r ll

,r,r

l.j

1l,tr / \

Itr,,, ,t

rri.,,

,1,,
I. \
,'i,,'
li,'r,i

,,

\1"

lr

! t,,'; ,'
''',.,1r',J iltr
, \.__,
Ir
,. :.--,{

rl,.f

]]

,J'

',:;

; I"*ilr,,/. ; ,'

I u,.rs rrlrv:rys rrying to capfure the essence

,r t:rtlcrrcr, the essence of a phrasing,
and

oI

,l,r'rorr:lr ll)(. (.sscn(.e ol fhc information.

I

ir. '

I r,

1li1;lLr\r ,i'lilii,r, iL"ilri-tLlirl(e{i. Wliqti"n

. l i,li,-i,r.

;i

!uN,irlql[,;,,,1 I ilq,*$$i:.tq.l

i!r i il{ri,t,{ liir li,lurlii[l.lrlil]

\\( ll, orr

Irrrr,

prrgc I93, ther:e,s a spotiight rhar

rr,r)s,liIli'l.t.lrtly tharr spot lights

or:

\/l;r,lt.k ;rrrtl Anja clsewhere in the bool<. It

of a sun, a radiar-rt center on

( r( .rt('s rr kirrcl

tlrr' lrrrrit,- I twcrrkccl the phrasir-rg, bi_rt only

.r l'.rrr. I l(. w;r\ I)roud ol how hc looke<l
rrr lris lrr':rrrtJ-ncw uniform, ancl I,m
pretty
',rrrr'rlrrrl what hc said was, .,\Tith this
uni_
l, rr rrr, I lookccl like a million
clollars.,, By
, rrrirt rlrt.w.rtl '.r,l.llars.. off
the pl:rasc,

.rr ;rrr .rrltlltl nlclnillg: I looked likc

rnilliorr. I krol<ccl like six nrillion.

rr t, rr rl.
.r

(ut ll,:rtttr:rlly lhrcc, with

tRo.,A

Dl(KeilAv wrtAl l^rtg

r wArI6ACHlil, !Notrr$.

w$Efl

thlough, and therefore, whether I was

thinking about it or nor, I coulcl coniure

'l he sequences in the

l)xst reqllired very diflcrcnt visual strategies,

those experier.rces fairly fully and it led

me
toward what one could cri_rdely cornpare
to theater, since theater also uses con_
densed dialogue and compressecl rime.

to have
notion. The
nrore I strived to create
the same kind of verisirnilitr-rde for the past, the
rnore hollow and madeUp the story would feel. I

continuous scenes. Beyond the actual use

lracln't inhabited it and I

rrceded to keep Vladek's
voice in the foreground.
Yct I couldn't not show,

up every secorld of it. Though clearly

conderrsed frorrr reality, I could rcc,,n.tr.uct

bur

"feels" likc rcal time a,,

1ou experierrce it
in its moment-to-ntomert rnovements. And
those parts of the book are presented
as
of the mouse masks, there are only rare
overt netaphors that break into that pres_
ent, and the movement from box tO box
is just that. So I used a dual approach;
fbr
rlre prescrrl. lmosrly u5ed sitnpl(,, slntc_

.urcl often had

,r grapl.ric

irr this show-and-tell

rnedium, so I had to

lind representations
hat would allow much
shorter bursts of interaction between charactcrs in the past story. I
br-rilt, whenever I could,
\( quences of people talkirrg, but knew that they couldn't go on rhar
Iong, and I couldn't move them easily as
they talked from space to space because I,d
srart moving through outer space, through
il vast invented space.
t

| ,,lr,,rrlrl ;roin1 oul rt hitsic principlc of

the
',llt( llr( itr ful,ll.s: llrr,r.c el.t.fwo ltasic tirne

.., lr,.nrr.,i

rll],Ito{nD0ul sYwol(KLR,

l)('r'()nrc irrvisiblc, so rxre

(.u) cllter into thenr ancl
:t't, for examp[e, Vladek
.rrrtl Arl walking around
.r l{ego Park street.

,,".,1 , '.; " ,r," .", I

L

rtlf 0tr6lrv^// /6 | KilEw

qlltY ttER xuMBtn, A$p THAT
,Hr hlA, IHER6.{d blR(4CArt
rrr

rtzt'tl hoxcs.'l'hc borr.s

'' .l' ti'

ll

/r

l El"L ME As|our MoM.

W6R'f, You tN foUCH
wltH HER tlr Aw(lrrrtl'r

..-[.inre

I lrr',,"). I lr,.rt.'s Ilrt.stor.y irr tlrr.Pest tlr:rt,s

1,.r,,,,I ,,rr \/l.rtlt.li's tlt.Position rrnrl
thcrc,s

\W

llrr rrllrcr rlort.ol

Ar.l .r1tl Vllttlr.lt llgt,tlrt.r..

I Ir,',,lr.rrr,lr .rrr. rlr.,rlt rvitlr vt.r.y
tlillr.rr ttllt ttt tlr, n I ltt lltrrrs .trrtl llrt. lr.rr
r.rrlit,t,
',tr.rt,1,r,.,,. I lrr':,trrll rrr llrr.
;rrrt.rrl I livt.rl

l,llI

The page when Vladek and Art are talking about Auschwitz in the Catskills is an
example of butting those two systems up
against each other: Vladek and Art are

talking in a series of same-sized boxesrelatively even beats for the conversation.

But on this particular page, what would
have been a grid of fifteen small boxes,
sorne have fallen away t<: reve:rl wh:rt's

underneath. Since the clialogirc is abour

mc trying to l-lct ir scnsc of whr.rr. Vlrrtlr.l<

w;ts irr Arrschwitz,:rrrrl wht.rc Alrj;r wrrs,

l'rrr Irrrsically rrsliirrll for r nr;ll). lly pt.r.lirrli
,rwiry wlrill r,nrorltl lrrrvt.lrt,r.rr srri ol llrr.
;r.rrrr'1., orr tlr.rt liltr.r.rr lirr,l p,r1',,.. llrr.;rr.rp ol
lirl l'll, ll r) rtrrl rt 1,ri;, , il ! I I r1 , l,1rrlr,,t,

r
chrlpteL on page 24, rnrhen
i\nja gcts thc [ettcr. fronr
Lucia, arcl sirys shc got :l
lettc-r tl'rat srys rhtlr "you
h,rvc rr vcry l.tacl reputation . . . thlrt you havc- I
Ior oI gitlfricncls, :rrrtl tl-rar

rll t() the s\,vlstil<a logo clcsrg,n. Ncnr the

lrcgirirrirrg of the first volunrc, on pagt- .3-5
lsec MctttMttls, pilge.S'11, it's uscrl rirthcr
.lcarlv. Ilight aftcr tl're page thrrt hrrs thc
lct,s in tlie trrriu tall<ing al)()ut whirt's hrp

A4drl-s Isee

l)crling in (iermirny, thc sr,v:rstika rs useci as

is given

Lincl olt :l uro()n irrnging ()vcr thcsc vltrioLrs

you're marrvirg rrrc lor

visual evcnts, in

rhroug,l'r rl'rat circu lar

panel. Diegonallv
down rrt thc b()ttonr
of thit page, thcre is a panel u,hcrc thc
Nazi looks at Vlaclek's h:rncls rrncl srys:
"You ncvcr rvorl<ed ir.lny in 1.our liit'l" lt's
also put insidc a sp()tllght. 'I'hose things
u,r-rc useful lrs nrlrkcrs ancl compositiottal

nry rrroney." Sirc's isolated

fronr the nr:1n shc $,ellts
r() nrarrv, ancl the tilted
g..trrcl
clcst,r

\rr,,r lrrvrtz

tltitl un(lerlits our prescltt is rc_

r,,rl,,l..rrrtl tlrr.rcetlcr clln

thc leap tlrirr

lr.r,, l. lrr.,rr,r,l,. lrI- rnr front oilc stnitll llox
ro rlrr t)( \t to i.lj11111 ()VCr thc ntap;lcd
r{ rr.rn ()l i\rrsclru,ilz. lutd trtrtlerstarrti whlt

rrn l.rtlrcr ls lt,llirrg

sec

rr.rc.

\\ r Il, rl ,rrrrrr.rtt.s thr' plrgc. At thc risk of

,,rr r r rIl,rrnrn1i, tlrt. first tiurc ] used a tiltccl
l,.ur( I rt rr,rr lo 11.P1.1.5gnt;l phot() of Anja
tlr.rt Vl,r,l, k rs ursP1,1.1i11g llncl placillg on
1,,, rrr rrrt, l, {,n l)ilg,( l9. It ntel<cs scllse to

rl,,,rr'

lr, r' lit,.r :rll1

[rilizctl; ir inclicatcs

the cnrotion:rl jolt thar othc-ru,isc wtitrlcl

hrrvc becn subrnclged wirhin rhc grid of thc
p:rncls surroundin.g ir. TI-re lcttcr irself is
fir-rttcrirrg to the gr()uncl in ;rn echoirrg tilt,

panel itself becon'rcs iut:llogous

to thc lemcr. r\nd the ]tcxt riltc(i p:urel, ()n
|;1gg i i. r' ,r LrrrJ of lt rclt.r t.nc iltg ol tlrt.
one on prge 24, rvhcrc Arr jrr bcgirrs to hrrvr:
her ncrvous hrcakclorvn. Ir's arr crtrcnrc
closc-up: thc lirrcs ncrurlly sct r)luch
nrorc expressionisfic; titc r,vorcl coLlnt gcts
snrrllle r insicle rhe brrlloon, antl thc lcrtt.ring
gets larger: "liut I clolt't cilrc, i iust (l()n't
wzlut t() live." -l'hc pxnel rgein shows l,rer
ll( l-\()lts. It-:til, :tl,,ttc. r),1 (,t \l( l\.
s() f h:1t rhc

ch:rptcl callcd "Tht'

Iloncynro()n." Arrcl just tw() p:rlles alter
rr

tht srv:rstrl<rr-nr()()ni ()n page -l7, Vlaclck

,rntl Anja rlrc sccn boncling-thev're:tu
ircrn,:r rcal coLrfrle. Thcv're clancing in a
'1r,,tlrglrt. iln(l llt(rr ntr)vrn'tcilt\ irr rt:r'rirU
I, l( r(rlLe t]tU srt.t:ril.:t' llt:tt 1r'11 llt\l >:l\v.

Mttrt Matt s,

pege 1421, a Nez-i

se1's, "\{ic shoulcl
hung vot.r risht hcre

lt

on this spot."
e

n'rp[rirsis

clt-rnents throughotrt rhe storv.

i\rrc], of cor-rrsc, circles lrre allv:rys uscful
lor [ocLrsing nrerrning. Vladek is c:rpturcd
,urtl tlrkcn to l pris<lrtcr of rv,tr ctrt.np lrtrcl,
irr thc Lrppcr right prrne I on pxgc .5-l of

Orr ;rage 6,S, tllat honeyn'roon th:rt

wc s:,r\l/ earlicr is rcflectcd rgrtin when
Vlaclel< and An jr rlrc rrllowc.l to l<not,

tcr

conre top,cthcr, aftcr: Vlaclel<

rcturns fronr thc front. Did

we

trlk

ir v

nt-g.i r(le til rlrnra l<er,

i1l)out the c()ncept ()f

krrottings and branchings?
I(lrus \rli/yborny, I (icnlr,ut
i1

clicl sonre expc'rirnents

in r,olvecl

\Xr.

that

rc-filn'ring clirssic

lilnrs like Cjti

I).

1,1.r,, rlr,rr

lrlrolo orr .l scpit,-lite plitne fror.r.r

tlr, ,,tlrcr 1,, ,r .rrrtl ipli tlt-erviitgs rlror-11c]
rr, .ur(l lll,tt lt:;uitl tlr.r,ict' lr,tS it hep;lcn.
lr ()r .r lrlt,,r porlririt ()f Anix elonc.'I'hc
rrr . I trltr'rl l, lr,.l is ;rt llrt' cltr-l ()l.that very

rlr

:t:

rt .l(./rrr,

so111c

(irrIllth tihns. rnrl

othcrs.

shoor r ccrt:lin rrurrbcr

of framcs cvcry tirile tlrcre'nvlts
:r cut in thc original film, so
thrrt ,vorr u,oulcl scc the rvholt:
filnr svnopsiz-c.1 dor,r,u t,r [rc,
irrstcacl of irn hour long filnr, e
nrirrrrtc-lorrg filnr. A .f olrn Iiorti
filnt r'r,otrltl he lr lot sholtt
tlr.rrr .r lilrrr lil., ( r/r', r /r.lr,,
lrt'clrust' i( lr,rtl l, rvt'r t rrls. lrr
llrt torrrsr'ol tloirrrl tlr',. r'l
l,,ltt, ttn,, rr',,t l, ,l,,tt tt lltt.ttr,,lt
llrr: rrrtr lr,rnr',lrt r, lrlrrrrrrr'.
I Ie'cl

(,ircLrlar nr()rifs (lo havc a privilegecl rolc irr

thc' bool<, iI nothirrg elsc, bccausc it's inrc

Ir, ,lr',,,,r, ,,,1

t.rll.rrrr'.rl',,rrt

,,,,1'.,,,1,,rr.r

l,,r rrr'

l,

,'

{it.

tir"it!.r'

r;iil
it,

1.loirrtecl ()ut thitt alI rrarrrrtivt.s lrrtvt. t.t.rrlrrl

characters who are showrr withirr rr fcw
cuts as being in the san're physicnl spacc.
'l'[re villain, the hero,

stilrfinll ol corrlst, witlr rrsirrg lht. irrrirlrrl

hcacls, but if Mttus wus ovcrlo:rtlt'rl witlt
visual stunts ancl iclcas it wotrltl hccorut.

the beautiful girl,

whatever. That's the setup.

'l-hen there are "branchings"

WILL L

WALI<

wherein the characters move

away from that space into

different spaces. Two of the

three characters might come
together, until finally all
of them come together; so
there are these branchings
and then knottings together.

l^ltu 1' nvil

something else. I hacl to usc srrch tlrirrl3s

sparingly. Irr orrc prrrrcl,
on page 127, whcn Vlrrtlck
TITY
N,E,,,
and Anja arc in hirlirrg,
they walk along n nrirtl,
not knowing whcrc to
go for safety, and thc
branches of the roatl
form a swastika. It's tltritc
visually drarnatic, bLrt
that kind of metaphorir,

Turning narrative into

5H00r Met
use of space cor.rlcln't bc
geography is a much more
allowed to overwhclnr
sophisticated way of talking about boy
the literal use of space, because thcn yotr
meets, loses, and gets girl. It's a vocabulary
wouldn't believe in the space anym()rc.
that I ended up inrernalizing.
These metaphoric panels are much closcl

H:a'
sl).;r.l
t*-

to the cartoon project, rather than thc

comics project. The nature of cartoonirrg,
is to emblematize: the political carto()nr
the gag cartoon, is always about finrlirrg l
representation for many moments ilr orrt.
image. But it's not exactly the samc as

When Vladek and Anja are brought

together on page 58, it's a kind of knotting and that moonlike motif behind them
rnakes it more emphatic. And on the very
last page of Maus, page 296, after all
they'd been through, they finally come
together inside that same circle.
-.-

the more nuts-and-bolts comics-mrrking

project of creating individual monlents

that add up to having some overarclring
meaning beyond the individual monlcnts.

Could you talk about the few instances

in the book where you decided to
use oYrtly symbolic panels?

Walking along the swastika ancl hnving

choices, all of which left yor.r srucl< irrsitlc
the swastika, was the kind of inragcmaking that's often effective in post(,rs irn(l
led to the Op-Ed style illustrirriolrs thrrt thc
New York Times used to rclv on.

It would've been crazy to not use all the

elements of visual language at my disposal,

You talk about comics as a form of

diagramming, and thre arc pagcs
in *laus that show comlcs to be dlagramming in a very litcrol way , . .
Ycs, like on pagcs ll2-l l.l, whcrc ir
lrcconrcs pirrt o[ thc srrbjcct lnitilct.(,1 tltc
1-xr1.1c. ln orrlcr lo r,xplrrirr wlrrrr ltc w;rs
l

l l l: "(itorrto,rrlr." l rlhorl,tph. l,m(lotn

l,lt,l\,

1,)(t6 l0l,:

185

lhl,tll, |l,t(lI

ll/

,1lt0Vl :

lliltrl llx(ly, ||,llr, Ilt

r
I hc

next pagc nroves from thc cliagranr to

cut-away-a dimensional reiteration of

the diaglarr.r-to br:ing you back ir-rto tl're
21

lritlirrg, Vlaclek actually had to draw a

oi the vely complex bunker that
wrrs built under a coal bin. On ;rage 112,
rr grirl of wl'rat wor-rld otherwise be twelve
Iittlc boxes in the prescnt is interrupred by
rr close-up of what Vladek is drawing in
nry notebook. To explain that bunl<er to
Art, he rnade a rather clear set of di:rgrams
thet I approximated.
tlirrgr-nnr

story in the past. In that cutaway, wl-rich

takes up the top two-thircls of page 113,
the small box in the lower left shows
their bunker, the little comer thar they're
sclr-reezed into. h'r the tier right below tlrat,
you have pretty mucl-r the slme panel, the
sarrle scene, but now with balloons. lt's n<.r
longer part of a cliagran-r, lrut part of the
ongoing exposition in boxes that lets the
story get told.

Right after that sequence Vladek talks

about his next bllnker-up in an attic, rhe
entrance concealed by a chandelier. In the
three-page versron of "Maus" I'd already

rlt'pictt'tl thirt

st

tlttt tttt' | ,\,1r'l,I&l'trrs,

()(rl rtrrtl rlrc,rcll, h,rtl ,t ;,, tt.lr'ttrl

P;rgc
lor clilgratlt't-trtic parrels, 1)ut rlry (lcgrcc
ol:sophistication about these things l'racl
I

ilrr'r'lj.rscLl e

lt'r ilt the illlerr

ertitlP.

ycJr\'

l'age 1 l.5 dilect[v reiterates the scene in

tlret three-page tr-Maus where the family
Iooks down at the itlfortler sitting below'
'l'hey then bring hirn ir-rto tl're bunker
,urcl ]-rave to decrde whether or not to kill
hinr. They take pity on him, let him go,
errd the next day he does indeed return
with the Gesti'rpo. To set that up visually
presented a problem in panel progressiolr
hrr me. If I troped to retain the cut-away
of the farnily huddled in the attic, it had
to be on the r:ight-hancl side of the page'
I jLrst couldn't put it on tl.re left and still
kcep the horizontal at tl-re bottonr of the
page showing tl-re Gestapo marching the
family oif without either losing crucial
panels that caune before or aclding a lot of
ulrnecessary ones' Sit'rce we read fr:om left
1o liglrr, I wrs \luck wirh rlrc ptoblem ol

stacking two panels to the left of tl-re vertical par-rel and arranging them so the reader
r'vould reaci them in the right order'
Most hastily constrLrcted comic bool< pages
to ignor:e this or use awku'trrd arrows
to steer yor-r t[-rrough. I invellted a device,
liter'
t lrc balloon-"He's lying! "-tl.rat

rusecl

rs flE hRtr\M, {e

ally bridges to a furthcr closc tt1' ttl l'olcli

talking. You're yanl<ecl dowlt llt'{ott v,tt'rt'
allou,ed to go to thc right, rttltl tltclt st t'
that the division bc'twcetr tllc trvrt l"'xt's tt
r-ro longer a clivision into two sl'Pill.ill('l)'lrl
els-but the cut-awrry vicw witlr illr()llr('l
balloon now rravcrsillg thc two ll' rot s 'l ti l
literally holding it togcthcr'.
r

Thiti vltiu.iu{ r'mumhutflr} r'arnins"is tilc ol yottr

(ilt urtr'"
fftea$rdc)${Y}$'wlt} &lfi$fi "fi}oy at Lhc

Yup! All of thc thirrgs I lr;rtl lrtt rt t r1'lotrtrl''

in tl-re I970s irl llrclkdrttt'trs lo olr:lrttt
ancl slrlw tlrlwtl ttltrrlrlivt'e()llll)l( ll( ll"loII

GAlt q qfiW tuo!

t,,,w lt,t,l lo lrt' sPtttt llt t t vt t tt ' titl' t

M,llt.r's lltittt;ttr ,rlrliA.ttr"tt u l\ l(r ll"
stoly. "l)ly:rt thc (lirctlits \\il\ 'r l) r,lt'
hrittrrttirrg witlt ltt-torvs, \() \1()ll !"tlltl t'"t'l
lllc sc(ltltllc(s tlt livt ,rr stx tlrllt t( lll \\"1\"

lla Ml! r Ad lNtouR IHE

thlrir iH\& WuLrE0 Fr[nM]

rls vrtl itltts ( \l)illlsi()llli,

vlttirtttls ttl t:lrlt olltt't.

(()llll

l( ll()11". {'l

lt\
ll \\"1\ lll''lllltrl
lt
llll.l
ttttltt
t
itt
('.tt
lcrsott:
A1,i,/
l\r
rrtv
"
" "(
rr\! llr ll
l Al llll, l'j\r,l llrl'l l l l l'rrl' ll' rtll I i lll l
tr,ft, lli llll l)r'lril lrrrlr ll' Allo\/l 'lrrLl! I rrlr ll'

ilt/

MI

T'E

TIE

flY ftTTHE f,lfif,UlT5=r

I

tlrt' tirtrc I wrrs rc;rlly

crrtcring irrto it: how

OI{LY O&If{K To I(EEP FRo,v\

rrrlr{o io DAmil DEPlfssEDl

cloes one inrmerse

oneself in the death

camps and show that

\{l

oxymoronic notion of
life in a deatl'r camp?

It was so hard to
visualize, but obviously,
I had no choice. So I set
up a key sequence in
whic}r, after wandering
around the bungalow
colony with my father,
page 184 ends with
a very small panel, a

!,J,r

close-up of a snarlir-rg

Nazi, that interrupts

the failly fluid stroll
through the country.
It's very abrupt and
perfunctory in that it
doesn't allow for the
momentollsness of
the moment. And on
page 18.5, you have
no choice but to read
down the vertical
panels in the present,
orrrlrirrr.tl with contemplating a circuit
,lr.r1ir';rnr :urrl clcciding it could make a
.

leyr>rrt. But even though it was

ils
Ir('s|rrlt'tl u "funny page" of some kind,
rr w.rs v('ry rnrrch cngaged in the process of
rrynrli r() rrrrlcrstlrncl how eye movement
$,,r lis ,ril il ll:tgc.

,l.rrrtly

1r;t131'

Irr llrl st.torrtl vr>lurne of Mazs there's

orr( \( (lu( nr'r':rlong these lines that made
cllt t livt' rrst' ol thc srnrc principles. Vladek
r', ;trst lrt l,,trtrrirrg t6 tcll rttc ahotrt life i,
Arr,;r lrwrtz. l'lris is rhc ()nc scction of the
lrroli llr.rt Inrost tlrt,:rtlccl cloing llcfbrc I
,,l.rr tcrl .urtl lr:rtl rrrr. ;rlrtrost pltralyzccl by
AlloVl lr r\/,rl llr,( ilr ilr1,, l,.i/', lil(,lll
Ai lili l'Al,l l)r.tll ,Ill ,llIly lr,lrlr,llir,

',lU(ly,

l),!l| lli/i

lill lri.it'l

t:

thq.

iil, i

:.lt,l )l il

r11

il

l{iri

lir,.llt,r0uli",(: r on{lttrii,tIlI t{} l{fIli

{:l{:ti{lb'ilitrX/i
6rIslr']ill;$,,]nfl ill,l {)rl. L(:}f {li( ri

,,,i/lilL

You're being clroppcd tlt>wtr itrto the hcllpit, into the beast's maw iu the lower right'
,.r.r*it g, "Shut uP, Yidsl To the bath\With whatever little you
house. Quick!"
Auschwitz, you'd be as
about
might know
explains, "'We knew
who
scared as Vladek,
were brought to
we
time
the
everything by

Arr.h*itr." That descent is accomplished

through strictly forn:al means, where
the top panel has these people in civilian
clothes; the second has them now either
naked or in striped uniforms being struck
by gr-rards; ancl the third one has them
up
nakecl, hu<1dled, and being told to shut
strucpanel
The
bath-house'
the
atrcl get to
ture is how the narrative is delivered'

t.r[ ti.n ,;tt r"6l,tlcifil.: r'iltuliirfl 'r'l)(;,1h(r$'11(\'

My most central influence was l{ar:ve y

to
I(urtzman's Mad.It's what doon-red me
cartooning. His Mad (different from the
Mad that caflre after) was a thoroughly
radical invention. He left after the first
twenty-four issues. It was postmodernism
avart la lettre in that it fed off other
media, and fed it back to itself through
a cracked lens, and was verY self-

referentially engaged in its own form' One

in
story was iust about the sourrd effects
comic books, told through sound effects'
Orre wrs xn cssay ott hutnor's conneclion
to pain and to comics style in the form

of a parodY/analYsis
of George McManus's
classic Bringing UP
F ath er striP. I(urtzman
was the editor and
for:mative sensibilitY

of what became Mad

ar-rd

the centu[)i

Mala again: if he can avoid talking about

will. I rather unpleasantly

san "Auschwitz, tell me about

Auschwitz." He explains, "Auschwitz was
in a town called Oswiecim. Before the
war I came often here to sell my textiles.
And now, I came again." Now you must
read down
again and reenter the past

for a second
time, liter:ally
clescenclir-rg into
A rrsch

witz.

has since become

American culture: Mad

really entered deeP to
ir-rform the second half of

separated by a wider-than-usual gutter

from the panels to the right. Vladek is
pulling me back into a discussion of
Ausch'u.",itz, he

ii$ryrHijr#fl
[

]ltil

rl {)l l!r\l{Vt

\:rl.lll{ltr(rlllt!(r

,lrrl,l

,r\r

Ill

Irrl

lrllll L'A"li'/'l'llJ(,
/lill l/ llll /,lr1l.'or,1 L'1'1"1, l()r'll llrl
"(
l\)f\l l,
t()Ml Nlt()llllll\1 ,,r)l\4l r)tlt 1.,.,1/\tlt)ll1r,()lJlllr,lAll."V.//\"l,r

t)lU\1,:,rrMlr{,r.()YIilt ',/(Atllt)

wil()ll, l()()t/frtlll

I lr rr r., ,r(,t ,rl\

II't(.tl

,ltlt.,l

rvlr, \r.rs

t,',,.u,lt,,l rlottr r ol
\\.Il lll.ll (.il1tI lt()n].
il rtol rur rut(ilr,;tr
Irosirion ('xltctllr

fi

\ r.r r

rrt llrotlit rrl ut

lris tlr,ru,irrii iln(l tilUgllt nlt'
Lrltintetcly horl to

'de

h*,

:*iili

hLrrlcl e cilrrr,r,irrg in

I:r1,c-rs,rrcl trrke rval

too lont on eilcll

pattel--[)ilt Ite wi]s
also a cotlificr of
irnpot'tent rlspects

of thc grlrrlnrrrr
of colnics stor',,tclling. Ilc n,es vL.rv llwitrc

ol lltt lrt.tts ol

.1 p.p-1.. |i,1.1.1,1111p1i.. 1;.jp1q

c(lu:tl-sizc(l l)iutcls. FlL.'d Lrsr x rhrc.(,-ticrcd

gl i.l. rl:,rr r'otrlrl rrrtrsist,rf orr1.
1r.11g1.1 ;1.;i,.r.
of t\\/()) thret'or fotrr.p.lncls ilcross. I)Ltt
ell nqoroLislv the slrnre size to cnrphlsize
thosc bcrtts. I Iis scrrrpulous pJrsrtg of the
1-rrtgc

is r,vhat pLrllecl ntc rrrto thc slructrlrr-

ol conrics. Ilis corrrerrt tcnclcrl to l.e lrlrout

eulturc, in thc forrn of satirt. nrostly. \X/hcn
hc rves l.e16clyiltr ru6vics he w,,rrlrl cchr,
tlrc Iook of thc nrovi.rt his prrotly rrds
Iool<cd I il<c thc rce I rrtl v.r,rtiscnrcnt...orr I v

rl()tr'\(). lf lt.tr.rll l)(.\()r)l(..,, lr.tsi. tr, \\ll.tt

lvc n()w thirrk of its hunr()r in Anrcriclt
t it's rr lrrosr in r, i si blc--cr,er). th i n g
iroil.frrrr Stcrvirrt t() thr, liltcst l)trrrtlt ttttl
l)runltt'r nrovic irirs roots irr I(urtznlirn's
w.ork. ,VIy Tirirps lltrb[rltgtrnr job corrsisrecl
oi frcclrns hrrclr nrr' ,&{,rr/ lcssons to
thrt

:.trrt>ther gcJ)e

rrrtior) in thc fornr ol \I/ai.Al

/'.i, /.'.r,q,'i. (,,trl,.t\,'1',ril /rr./s, .rrrrl lors t,l
otl'rcr Icss succcssilrl c;rrcls ltncl stickers.
sornctintcs illustreteci bl, tlrc sarnc, r1-1iq1q_
nr1, ch

ilrlhooti iclolsl--thet I\ u rtzur:l

collabtrrrrtctl r,r,ith at M;r/.

l(trrtzrnrrrr's

tttl't-Mttl vvorl<*thc

rr

c()lni.s thrrt ht.wr()tc, e(lifcd ltrrcl sonte_

Iinrcs tlrcr,r, irr rltc terlr, '.\0s. l:ronllittt:
( )trrrlt,tl ;urrl /ilo I.istct!
lhlas--t,orc r,r.cll_

I'VI AS(ED ARI SPIEGELMAN

HEI(T

I.]

pcrlreps :t hrrnrrrnistic
-l
t r':rclition.
hr.y lr,tre

SHOW YOU SLIDT.S OT HIS WORI] .

I 1,5 A CHANCE FOR YOU TO BE E{POSED
ITJ 11\5 FRE.SH NEU] PERsreCTIVL5, AIID

in shlrp colrtrast
to thc propirgantla
pin-rrps oi the other.
\,\/llr cotitics rhltr r,rrere
corling orrt tlLrrirrg
tlre l..orc;rn \\,er, likc

lr'5
I

A ClIANCE F0R

o//\0RRoW'S IOP

HIM-Ic ltlELiYOU,
C

ARTOoN\ST.S.TODAY

$I)1" I\lAINLY I1,S A CHAN\CE FoR ME TD DO

/. CLASS W\THOUT LIFTINT" EVTN A PlNI(IE ]
IM Ail oLD MA$, E{ CEOPGI

Sterr l.t.c's ( ltntlt;tt

1(c/h,, ,,yhcrr. r,r,c'rl gct

BUT

HtY

HARV,

LOOK.

DIDN'T

BRING SLIDLS
OFMY WORK.

SROUGHT
SLIDE.S OF

y0uR woRi(l

i.

v,

AFTER ALL
YOU'RE WHAT
MADE ME
WANNA BE A

CARIOON\5T

dv/

e_

Ktrrrznr:rn's (ils r,vcre scerrtl clrilclr.cn irr

unif()nl rvlro rrre Jb()Ltt to gct killctl in

s()nrctlting too ltig ior tltcnt to rrrtdcrstirrrtl.

srol'ics \vcrc s()ntch()\r, 1troIotrrrcl,
lr i storice I I t, rtcc rl rirt(' .r n cl thcy
rr nclo Lt [rrcrl lr.,
irtli,r'nrt.tl tlrr. rrr.rl.irrrt ol \4,ur:.
'I-hc

rlrl{

Evt'n in tcrnrs oi r lre so-crllccl graph ic

rrovel, it rrrilkcs scnsr to nrr that l(ul.tznrxlr
l<cpr 1;1,11,* to scll orrc bcforc thc rernr

,ri

c\istc(1. Olrc inrporrent \\,()rl{ thirt hc tlid

aiter his Ma,/ crrreer lrlerv up rrr his feee
wrrs i:r t.rlilss ntrtrkct ltirpcrbrrck ceIlccl

"t,F
r*-\.

r'\\-z

Ititrt,ct'

KurfT.:t,ur"s .!u rzt/r, lloolr. lt lvrrs

h;rrclll lr I)ig conrncrcirrl srrccess, [.rrrt it lr,,rs
:r collccliorr ol neu, stories thlrt errclr

p:rroclied rr cliffcrcnt:rs1-rcct oi the lrr:rss

nrcclia, in whlrt norv citn onlv bc uncicrsro()d lls a gr.aphic r)ov(,1. As r.r clrrtoonist

,ttttl ,trr ,..lilr,r. I Iitt.\(.\ \v.t\.1 \ i\iun.tt-\.

Sincc I tl'rirstccl for rrpJrrovlll on sonrc levcl
kirl, I(rrr.-r, l(l/ sh:rpcrl tlv irtistic

irs a
rv

@TruJI

grizz-lcrl (il tr>ssing;r urcnrrlc r,r.lrjlc snrrrl

ing, "IJerc, ye Ir:llon,-skinnccl (.onrnrie
nronl<cr,! 'l his one's lr-orn lrry. ,\urtr Tillie !,.

rlsptrxti()lts. It was tltc onc collic sf riP

ther foLrntl :tn cscrpc clausc in flte grr.rcral

for c<.rnrics. I lil<ed it rvell crrough,

[rut tlirlrr't rcrlll), understrrrrti w,h1. it hacl
clisulrrin

gotlc'n thc crrlttrr.al hrsh sirrr rvirhhcltl frorrr

ll

I \^]I\:, IgS8.I SHOWEDHIS CLASS -THE RICOROUS STRUC.

II II. iNG AND JAZZY RHYTHMS THA'I HARVEV BROUGHT TO

III , { ARLY "HL\ LOOK" PAG6.S, AND i {AL('D ABOUI MAD,

f,1r(_t{tY RoDLNT"

r [lANGED MY
r \r

e.0MLTH\NC,

. IN\STER WAS
l,rvt,AL-LD BtLoW
lltr_ sAttl1lT{D
,,\]RFAC[. OF

I'r,oS D]SNEY
AMER\CA,

SELF"REFLLXIVE AND CI\EL.RTULI.Y VI)I 1,I\!', \II\11

EARLY MAD COM\C BO0X WA5 t tVt ll{ l{ Arir) f.^olrl
VERS\V6LY ANARCH\S{\C THAI..\ \T\T I A1( 1T I^I\1.I\/II
MADWAS AN UR6AN

JUNY.

COLTAGE-THAT SA\P 'PAY

ATTENT\ONITHL MhS:)
'TC,
ME D\ A ARL LYII{G

YOU,,, II{CtUDING T}1\:,

I THINK HARVIY'!, MAD

v..l A! IAoRL I M?oRtAr\ l
'IHA\\ PO1

Ai\!

].-I,D \N

s,!lAPlN(, 1!\r, a.[.ilt RA

PRrrl t',\ t L)
flr vlt l rlAM wAtr,

1l0N 1\141
\

IIT\R! DIDN'T
lUP"f- orlLY

8{

CHANGE-THE CVL.

cRrnrrHc,

e Nrw

MOPF. OF SATIRI. ATIHEH ](,+{T

(]T IIIF- T.OREAN WAR HE EATED,
WP.O] q ANU DREW WAF. COMICS_
NOl JI}I(,OI5TIC TRASIT EUTTHOR"
()o (,HrY RTSEARCHEp NARMTTVES

\^]\1I{

tr!rf

GREAT

MORAL fuRPOS'.

(,UrE, ftAS;E
L

t
;
,f

ir

ft

ilul
Fl

ANAIYT ED I]ARVEYS VISUAL STOR\'TELLING STRUC,

l.,K[ Tb SHOW HOW HE CR6A'TED A PRECISE FORANAL

.;RAMMAR,'OF COMICS,
MI NTIONED HIS IMPORTAI{CE AS AN
NNOVAIOR OF EDITORIAL FORMATS,

IHI

CLASS SAT IN AWE SARAH DOWNS HARVEY's ASSISTAN\ wAs wEEprN6 SoFTLY. oNLy HARVEy'S SWEEI,
FR AI L VO ICE, TREMBLI I.IG \NITH TH E PARX INSOTT S P ISSAS
THAT RAVAGED HIM, BROKE THE SILENCE,

\ut

CONCLUDED BY TALKTNG AB0UT

IlII !KILI-S AS AN EDITOR WHO
-TALLI..ITs
OF OTI,IERS
I\)t<I URt,D THE

cE[, AR,TI[,. THAT VJAS TERRIFIc

COULDJA COME BAC( NSXI
W6EK AN9 C,IVE US THE SAML
LCTURE

AN.AIN?

l'
I

lS lirJll'r 0N VERTiCALS. S0,

NOW TAKE A LOOI( A1 TI{ESE

ll

fl,
lil

i,r

ll
ll

AI II (WARDC HARVEY GLOWED

UIIl II II ASURE, HE WARMLY
(I

h!,I'[D

MY HANP,

other strips I cared for. Still, I used to keep

finding ways to write papers abort Krazy
Kat when I was in iunior high and high
school in the early '60s. If the assignment
was to compare a poem to another work
of literature, I'd write about the poem and
then compare it to Krazy Kat. Y'know the
joke about the British kid, the French kid,
and the Jewish kid in school, where they're
asked to deliver a paper about the elephant? The British kid gives a talk about
the elephant and India and the Empire, the
French kid delivers a paper called "The
Sex Life of the Elephant," and the Jewish
kid's paper is "The
Elephant and the
Jewish Question." Sirnilarly,
whatever the essay
question was, my
answer was Krazy
Kat, srnce Krazy
Kat lends itself to

interpretation, and
I felt I might be
able to sneak that

LOO(6D LOVINGLY

AT

MY

RCI-E

M0DEL, At'lD FOR A LOi'16 Mol'tEl.IT

WE EM8RACED,,.

MY MENfOR WAS \IIHISPER\NG

SOMETHINGTO M, H6 WAs
BARELY AUD\BLE:
ARNE,,, PLEASI,

L'A C,o,,,YoV,RE

"',1^Liif.iJ.

$A

fi

I*/qffi*n',

m
I

dusr
AlaoftER
foR
lyo.dttttJs-t
U,pRD

rb LosE,,,

I discovered Little Nemo thanks to Woody

Gelman at iopps. He was an inveterate collector of old paper when nobody

else seemed interested in such things. He
rescued most of McCay's originals from
destruction and had runs of all the old Sunday pages. McCay's work was sublimely
aware of the structural implications of his
beautifully built pages, and studying thenr
was very importailt
to my developr-nent.
IfHou6Hrr, LosE HvtlEioil ri'lll&
loff
Chester Gould's Dirl
I Losf |{il HiD sooH AFTER,
M,, |,/|sl sfEcK 06 Fll(t{ r}r fH6 u.9O.
Tracy is another of
oV6R-l
CI,SS
riiu* turg CA9IL fooK
{$' ,A tt9 o' <e' FE !
{Hts R6Au{
my core influences.
'S
'We
were talking be
fore about comics rrs
diagrams, as picturc
writing, and Goulcl
was the consummate diagramrrrcr,

past my teacher's
radar in a way I
couldn't have if I

had written about

"Big Daddy"

tTREEDorl

than I could when trying to identify with,

say, Peter Parker's problems. And Uncle
Scrooge's pince-nez seem to come from
the same optician as the ones that Vladek
wears in Maus.

l'i}[el irrrn ll) lhi sl)fl0rr'/

Roth's Rat Fink

cartoons or even Mad.I only came to love
the strip fully as I ripened into adulthood.
And after the traumas of September 11when old comics were the only culture I
could bear-Krazy Kat sustained me.
The comics I saw as a really young kid
imprinted themselves on me deeply-like
Little Lulu, the first comic charircter I
copicd assiduously, nncl Dtxrrrld l)rrck.
Clarl Ilerl<s' l)orrrtltl l)trcl< lretl :t lol tltorc
dcpth lor lttc lll;ltl ( ll;rrk Kt'rrt. Wltrtlt'vt'r
tlrt' lrrrrny ;lt)itltill sttt l;l( t' w,ls, I ,,,ttltl
tlirrrl, w,ry lrrtllrt't lrrlttrrtl llt,tl rrtrl.r,r'

rr

stunning artist wh()

was often disrnissctl
by comics fans ,rs it
lame
draftsrn:rrr- I lis
dl S0 fuwt','l:, itoil
drawing was rcelly
made for comics, reducing thirrgs clowrr
to not just diagrams, but diagrams withirr
the diagrams, so the panels arc fillctl witlr
labels and arrows pointing :rt thirrgs, lil<t'
the "two-way wrist raclio." I lis :rrt lr,rtl tlrc
vehemence and deliri<ltrs violt'rlcc ol ( itrrr1ir'
Grosz or C)tto Dix. alrtl fcw ol thc illrrsllrl
tivc valucs of, slry, l'rittcc Vtli,tttt, ttr lil,tslt
Cr ttk n. I)icl<'l'r'lrcy's two tlitttt'ttstr tl t.tl tl y
:rnd its slrortg gr;tplric ttst' ol l,l,tt l< .trtrl
wltilt' rrr;t,,lt' tttt' rcspotttl vt'l y tlt,'1,1y, I w.t',
(iorrlrl's;rl)l)rr).1( lr ,r..t lillt,l ,,1
llullt',1 rrrt,r

ttll

irtlttt'

.ll l( )orttrli',,

rt

t.tli rrtl',

llltrr'pr lnl l;tptt'rttotlt"ltt

wlt.,l I,

.rllr',1

tT',

AMAZINO To

dlEl,..

rrrr, o.lg 0F OrA FnrT AI.ID ,rf

i 0r.zrrc frRl?AftfltTr, lrr9 0116 oF
irrt toudPrN, GAr}Gn,, oF rlrrb1

ul

,O MATN OTHERWI'E DU'

CATO?Fb?LE NEVER EVAI

,lEeRO oF wrilroR fvlccAY,

9ntf McC A{ coNt rNCrN&tI

I^A?fEDOt,t TRE MI*99
r$N6R 9RAM-rchr
DgchPE, gEFoRt AlrY
iroGREaL\rf- oRrfED A

\i. ill
'iP-

IVTEUIED cLoeK

oll

Lnfit

ttrqq N tLuMURlAtlD
G[r{fEEL mRtlEEnECE AtloilG
trlt ^RAtJcorrt-oFr]El{ CRUDE- EARW
l{ \ilffAFER 9retqy,5 V|UD EUogAIurrl oF C.tlltD{ooD FRt'lTArl,.

$1,

w^r

ATRE I

oral{

xo}f, 5, tA8,

$A'(eI Ht., I'EEN NEOrICGD OE-

AFTER

HI,9EAfiI, T,fiIERE A Ft,LT.

}I

I,

ONER UA,TE RALCE, DRFI

M F
O

CAUrE

tlg

nBlfD tllftc'tqil'

AR(r.

N.rP?o?ttS Atf HATilA|ER D[fxT.IAilTfO rEN'EA TRICE AFttR l{,

Mo!,lErtf of ?ontsRKY l^tter.

lJtc CAY tUAS AN

Ferr!

E(ftnr Dmrrl$qil-

gARxER
,TRFNGER, EuNNlEr.,lt{ou6t{ tEr,
oul.SE_ rf -R!q ABorr N I 6l{rinARs,
lxDt c60 gY Ef,trr.l6 lrrrlfSi

,TA6s l{',! ?Ro9ucE 25 DSshtN(,

l$ l, clrrurEt!) tlE $ng Dot un.

Aiq tooK N(r{qrlrE rmol }o65

rr(gRE IEDII l6Arrxr' DRN511161

l^ov,, rl<cAv E)(?t RD ArD RD[-

flIE RAREETI FIEND,WA'

AtrD

( o r.

CINNY FEEL
PER

1HE IAUDEUU..

ftR

IAoTEMEhrr.

iPEctrnE AN9 n6EANrRk...

.i

- '- )dri
s\"

i'-ir,

lr

d\ri
lli
i;:

i,

ir tri,:i
,
I \'] ,ti

*::lt,ii1i
NrD [s vtoER tooo
com6r...t oK RTTtll,

,4

ttrnK kr Ho$JfltRoNroF

FR'I

II
1

1clt0

nilEL,

ACCOmdroDAlE fltE
otrr^11616 8ED A, ]r ChilTER, t${o
irrD ovER flt clfY... AHD LoOl(
rtow THHr Mool. oojirc., tN

,rl(r

NEIW'?A('tr-ffuot{ l90l
AND IMhGINE IT A' If
APPEARE9,A'

it

LhR6EAtll\1, vilrtott
lrlllr?f,zR. ?A6E.

irt'fi

cou$rERtuttrf to {tlE
,tN\rou,

tr m \ C

u't

Ef

fwo ?A}rf$ lN(o oNE 0s rne giD

tflrrttBitE, orrER A ftruRalt

An, too|( H( lto\l ilEmo R.orf,f

lollN
'{@r.
fllEr LA,T HAnRI'lrl vERqcet 8tD(Ib
ISNqA, N"uhvt rr Ht, 0@80otv1.

N\^IEMT fl$
NTUf,fiTCD
ClRfooNr, A[TREL','1rFrxNr)Lrci"
tlE PRoDuc9 40oo ixulucr rr ortt

FIIQfiT,

Mo-NtH, WHU lGEPt,re u?

hl, tlr

\i

WtlEEool

,"vrp r,O

HerN ARtFoRMPASror.l

ATELY AND IOEALI'fICALLY R6FIJ'ED

TD FATENT HI5 TACHNTQUE'.

IHgy W'RE PrRtrtg0 Allg PtrfErttfp

'ADLY,
gY AN uiltcRuPuto0, gurrilErrrY\AN,
Jo'trN gflAv, M0RE INGRe'IED lN
Ailtrv\Ntroll A, Coilr.lRCE 1t{Nt ART.

HI' ,MPLOYER,
EVEN MORE
\{nnSI OI9NT
wlLLlArY\ B.ANgoL?tl
'A9LY,

,BhRE HI, PA,,IONfOR

JEALOU' OFTH EH6R6Y MCCAY 6X'
?,NDD I}T {HI, ARA.HT U,ED HI,
ANIMATTOT{.

iioniva*P tt$ Pow'e{o rqueLcH

NcCS{

AN\MN\oN CARER'

FoR{ltE LArfTWo 9gcADEtoF Htt

L\FE McCAY WA< U,69 BY HSAR'T

I,1O'fLY A' RN ITLUNRSIOR OF AR'
tHr,R gRrroAtlEt gomB Arfic ml.
Lt gDrroR ( AL5. Tr.RNtchLLt{ lMfRCrt
_

,tuE]g$t Rtuh{rvEl,/ SoVl.J-;ert,

ftlEtE, D(AwlrtG, ,grv\

To

uL{ril\rEtv

gE A $lFr(E oF r.J\rcAVB GrF{r.

1
I

t, GEt{SourLY
II I U,rRAl6D WfiH RhAE.IREA,URE,
ill' t

B (o GRAPli(

*!riu ryeRY PHArE oF McCht 'J Cl . r I R, f{ANY p8.ttflEp lrl lulcy coLott.
,rttvr{)utlv A LnBoR oF LoVg 0NTtl.
f^rrI oS flE BIo('RI\FHER' JOHI{
r rrrtr MA(EB, BlMrELf hil FNIMAToR,
rxrl tlooK ItgXHFurfiYELY RE1r

hncHep. AttYTlttNG

FI

THPrt

c!ilLp

(,LLANE9 ASOTIT MICAY9 LTFE

,emt ro HAvg

DEgil INCLuD9.

unNRgr,ngt urHAl THa

,aAD rAr(Et. D( ,OtU6 oF n{t,

trlY

nE aftrt^ArrD9y Moff oFTr

fqr{ltL\( fHrro, Mtct{I HRUE
glE$ DEvotD

{o Evai monE

of McCAYS fr$P
lftI-Il or uHlt'tl or6ttr 10
oglrr.P( llr ?$ilrtoREY8R.
EXAmPLE'

NEr/ff(tr{r.6t,

TRl, l,

onE BooF
T}IA1 AI${ONE
Iil{ERJEf,(E9 IN
OUR CULII'RhL
HERTTA(f cAil"t

hfoRD {o

f{\lrr.,

?lgER51g1qamR Ri, Frrt'r Flurr.

p8eavrroTHERt wA,

rAYrt+l gooK ABoUT L{trlftE m<cAY

.fo
Nl9
lorAY rrNrrED wlE RL-

ttrl

vltw tr ttl co!$c t{Rt? f oRM | 6u1 I

Gsr cRurt{t gX rrlt 5?ErR BAtrDoN

,l

Pa?PERplt nlzA,
1 eoxfOU tf,[oRE

7
because

of) the abstraction of the language

and visuals$r**lle pe*r6r{m

fi{

U,fil{

lll,ir{y* ffifi1idd

[isufir $fi y&$r

the im{i*crsen

wmr${. Ys{r $}"!(e

rm*n{i$r1e{$ tfie{: t$xmfle'$ ${r{y &{1e rm$inxeffit

l11 ,M*?#$ u,vh*rer y*u rq*{ly fe..&t y${'* v{frffr
*rarving imspir;ltiei* {rwm ffi*ner"

Eisner's Spirit had been an influence on me

from the time I was fourteen or 6fteen. I

really liked its voraciousness, rhe pulling

everything from movie posters to postage
stamps to any old thing that might represent a panel, to thinking about windows as
panels; all of those things were useful ro me.
But very often it would move, even in the
older work, let alone in his graphic novels,
toward a kind of heavy-handedness. He
was a more overt influence on some of
ny pr e- B r ea k downs tnder ground comics work, but in the first chapter of Maus,
on page 17, there's a caption, something
about Vladek taking a trip to Sosnowiec, that is designed to look like a train
ticket-it's a \fill Eisner trope. I remember
debating whether to leave it in or not since
it really called attention to itself in ways
that don't operate with the same level of
humility that the other kinds of invention
that move through the work do. It was a
rnoment of, "See, I'm clever! I can do this!
I can do that!" Ultimately, it just activated
the page better, so I let it happen.

CREMEDSPIIAGi| rrxl gra

NEVEI. NESR Sf,?PE lF YA, CAil

HAICII. E{il BCIfE& USE ELACR.

lr.rx r,{*rly Yi6lr*r str*r}.** lidre}x} ll$

't,,,
, i,

'.

I l;rroltl ()r.ty's Little ()rlthan Annie influ('n(('(l Mrlr/s lr:rirly clircr:tly. t.ikc Ciould,
(

ir;ry lr;rtl lirrrrrtl e t.;lrtoorr-lrrrscrl-rlrthcr

t Ir.r r r i ll rrst r:r I iorr lr,rst'tl-voc:r brrl,rry lor
rrr,, rtlrly r r.prcst.rrt irr1l rnt.k rtlr:rrrr:r_ Arrrrlz
rrr1,,ly. lrrs

\t()rr(.s, (()ltry ;ts llrr.y wr.rt. ;rrrrl,rs

reprehensible as I found rheir underlying

politics, could make rne cry, something I

; r

r,l

lur.ln,l:q:**

fu

i* m,*r'* p:u,*ryq

:r,It|l,. [:i,{r ${)t-i jiHij $:{u]iiifi $j{r,!t'lfl1,

i.lr{jli nl

,ir{il Ir;r

yelfil $;:ttqt

i)r-,

wrr],ri{lli

AIIrlrl;! fltt' horrors ol lt.:rvirrg.t l).rlx'r

rr;rrl. Wcll, thc ViPer storics wt'rt.e clrrstt.r

ncver felt fronr superhero comics. Little

()rpban Annie <tffcretl rne a ln()re direct
v;rlitl;rtiorr rh:rt tornics coultl ;rctrr:rlly carry

ol forrrr:rlivc,urrl rrrisllritlt.tl

prt.tcs tlr.rt
,lil l,i i,lr
,L.
lr,

t'tnoliorr;tl r(.s()n;lr)((. tllspilr. (or pr.olr:rllly

l,

,1, lrrr
rl tilr

rii,.1,]1il
:irrd rl'i

t\rll

:.,r 'i.J fr.l

j;'rili,&.r,?

,*i;,iilili
r.il i i:r,

l;:*ifixil'itit:;t^ ,*
After: I'd done several
Mper stories,
Justin
Green provided the exanrple

of

goir;

into the real forbidden

zone of one,s own
girilts,

doubts, and nightmares

directly, as

expressed

in what became Binky

Brown
Hoty Virsin Mary. Tharconcepr

!,"::
:r,
ur approachrng

things bv looking directly

ar
what had happcned in
o,l., o*n life made
it possible for me ro ger
in touch with a
different kind of carionrsr
rhan I was able

to be before.
$rn't tfuey*

,it

yif$*r qi.lor*utsr
momed Wfltie?

Yes. I did one story

with some immigrant
kid, $Tillie Wetback, a
deracinated

did right around the

,r,...-!"g.';il;;::

;:[jiT;'"Hx.',

apprenticeship as an
undergrorrra
roonisr. It's as if I got

.*,
rhe n,".o ,ir, ,r,a

\JKay, now we're gonna

do transgressive
corrics!,, and I tried to
do stuff f-,";;;;;
-make S. CIay X7ilsont
twisred

for

pages

Zap look downright

wholesome.

At the.same time, I was

also trying to
ilssimilate the "cinematic"
things t"hat
Will Eisner and
j"r.l,
Cole
Jack

1940s. Those Viper

srr
," rrr. rrr r

r....ffi

had

,"r:lT

"c,r.trr,

3,:::,1,
lvlonsreur!"-speaking

in a differenr
oralect rn every parrel.
He gets off a bus

and eventually finds

himself d".upit"t"d
and fucked in the neck
by th. Vipe., si.rc.
yrr rhe mosr depraved rhing thar I
coutd come up with.
I,m not even sure

llrl

W
,f,.

ff;:ff

v;, and all I can say in ff

my d.f.rr.
i.r1r
/\r tcasr I didn'r go inro

im_

who said rhings like,

rrrsffirorn
s6va&,.an&&&
xtrtue@&a
Fthe&Ille
1tu,*rr*.$rh.
,]@h&qb*
y6rrbrblftsfrr
xun*r&da;,

'

onrrt.clccl the character,s name to my

I rhought of Villie as rne. It was
,ll ,,.nrcl)ow connected to the Oedipal
, rrr, rlrlt., but not knowing how to grapple
rr rrlr ir. What is one going to do with
the
I rrlrr.r's;

., ,r,,r1ic

of one's own brain?

I look back ar.rd say the Viper srrips

)cdipal, maybe par:t of that is: .,So,
11i61 you get born when you welen,t

\\1lrr.n

",

rr.

lrr,1,1

.,rrp;rrsed to?" In a
way, taking on my
l,.rrctrts' HOlOCaust Story was a way Of
t'( llinl4 to the primal moment of my birth,
I11 ( iruse there was no way
that they were
1,, rrh supposed to be alive and
coupling

.rltt'r World lVar II. It is a specific journey

tlr;rt hzrs norhing to do with history and ev.r yrhing to do with history: one or both of
tlrt sc people is supposed to be dead, which
nr('ims that I'm not supposed to be here.

It irrvolved the very primal quest to find

y()llr parents before they are your pareflts.
Itlrrybe the Viper was a way to fantasize

my parents' death in a world permcatcrl hy

evil, and trying to express that in a forrrr

that echoed 1940s American comic lrooks

made before I was born.
$glcol[<rng

ffi*rnlmrcl ${ri$${,i*i,.} sf,yqrefi tlff](rs"

Krigstein was a painter who bccrrnrt.

involved in comics mainly to carrr rr liv
ing. He was slumming in cornics nl lir.st
and then started taking it scriotrsly,
discovering it as an untappccl lrrctlirurr.
He worked for the same corrric lrool<
publishing house tl-rat I(urrznrrur
worked for, EC (lorrrics. Ilnlilit. I lrrlvt.y,

i*

adverrising.,,

he was art illustrltor. l lc rrt.vr.r. wr otr.

his own material but wils rt,:rlly ilrvt.stt.rl

I was clrawing the

most
and violent
.rrr.cities I could, or,.r."tttttt

t,rrrr.*ing

rhem ar

in what cor-rlcl l-rappclr fr.onr lrox lo lrori"

ancl how thc pagcs wor l<t.<|. I lt.'s ;rrr
ex;rrnplc of ln :rrlisl wlro,rtl;r1rtt.,l lrrs
vocabulery to rt^llt'r't tlrt. slor.y lrr. w,rs
plcscnting: a ( lhitrt,st. st r.oll rullr.t tctl
Iool< l'rlr- ;r llrry l!.;rtllrrr.y ir(l.rl)l.llrr)rr
llr;rl lool< ;tl,ttt. irr ;tn( t(.nl ( .lrlr.r, .t vcr t,

;';:T#Ji[j:il',

",
,rwn li[t. and background.
The 6rsr
vrl)(.r'st()ry I did was
about a litrle kicl
rr;rrrrt'tl li<ldie.putz
who, with the Viper,
n,)y

r.r;rr.s lris ,r,tlrt,r

lnd then arra.r, Io'
l.rrlrr.r: ( )rklly, ir didn,r
registe,.()n me as
ll.lvrlUl ilil1( l) ro tLr
wirh mc, ex(.epf for me
tr yrrU,, l() strttch tow;rrtl
tt_,"

l'ixprt'ssionist sll ol rn.r li,; lor .r lror r,rr

lrr.srlr,rrr.tl "l)or tor ( .rlrll,rrr lrrrll
stt'rlr." Il I)(.(,ilil(.,r r lrrr. l,,t rrrr.tlr.rl orrr.

sloly

nr.Uaac, ,n,r".

lrJl'I I I I ,,llrly, Ir,r(,r,l/ liIr0Vl

\i1tt1I,,plt.,lt

t9B

$f Aflrcrtcara coyrrl{

bm*ku, ymu'v* wrlt*rtt ulhsut

,,,ul.l rrrr. ,lrllrrr.rrt ,,rr l,tr r.,, to rr.lrri.,,r rl

p,rt1r,

lt),111,

Vltll I t,,ilr,r ,,lllr,r(r,,.

rlll lr.r r.rrl (.nr()l tor.tl,,t.1tr.,.

l|,
l(ll'lll(,lll l

,lrrri

rlr

rrlrr

t,rit AlilrVl

Vttrr.r,,l,t,r,t1,,4,.

l'rr1r

l,r,r,. llrr'l',,lrlr.r

ilr ti,,,,l t,tttt, t,,,Il

. | , I t,r,

7
Krigstein was quite intellectual and analytic
about the process, but was rarely given
scripts up to his ambitions. \fhen he found
one in 1955 called "Master Race," he
had something that was virtually singular in postwar popular culture: a comic
,rbout the death camps. It was planned as
,r six-page story with the kind of mysterioso O. Henry-like twist ending that EC
;pecialized in. Krigstein saw its potential
rnd pleaded for more pages. I came to think
,hat all the EC horror comics were a secular
\rnerican Jewish response to Auschwitz but
his was the only time it became overt.

\When one's

H:fSS*ffi-*x"

t"ffi

klrr*

a, r{O@ffi{r.er

h, &M.slk

.le{s

l)M fl4*1 * .( ftr-(mtr

When I discovered "Master Race" at the

rge of about seventeen, almost ten years
rfter it was published, I couldn't find

to painters'vocabular-

rs, like Duchamp's, rather than the more

tanclardized cartoon glyphs. One of the

in my life was that, the one time

was showing him a college pa,cr I wrcte analyzing "Master Race" that
bcing expanded for publication in an
',,ts
,( I f:urzinc-Krigsrein and I argued.
rrclnesses

yL' 111c1-l

/lt,ri. ll,i6ltr ru lr,trrilii

Ic st;rr tt't[ ()ltt v( ry tlisintt'rt'stcrl, seyirrg

1r,l,r,l lo lrc orrt ,,1 tlrt. lit.ltl. Ilt.wrrs

c w,ts

/.lll,,r

in Tbe Gutenberg Elegies posits as the great

pleasure of literary fiction-which has to
do with entering into another's brain and
seeing the world through that set of eyesI think it is more likely to happen when
thereb only one brain one has to enter into.
An artist's limitations-whether those be on
the narrative side of comics, or the graphic
representation side-are actually an asset:
you enter into a person's brain and world,
and every brain has its deformations and its
limitations. That's part of what it is to see
through somebody else's eyes.
Krigstein's role as he saw it was as a new
kind of illustrator, one who could fully
inhabit a narrative. But illustrating can

rnything else in my medium that acknowlrdged what my parents had gone through.
lven had it been a far dopier thing, it
vould have held my attention for that rea,on alone. But because of the intelligence
vith which Krigstein developed a new
:omics grammar, this story transcended
he comic book as I knew it. (It was a difcrent comics grammar than Kurtzman's,
)ne that actually put them at odds with
'ach other when they tried to collaborate.)
le distended and foreshortened time from
)age to paBe and did it quite consciously;
rc used references

trying to get what Sven Birkerts

actually a teacher of illustration at my old

high school, the High School of Art and

comics. He thought of himself as a painrer

now, but as I read my paper to him, he
became more engaged because sornebody
was finally acknowledging what he had
done. And we were doing great until I
said something about writing and drawing
being extensions of each other and that, as
a result, the Platonic ideal form of comics
to me was something that was written and
drawn by one person. Krigstein clearly
did not subscribe to that notion. He used
the analogy of opera, the collaboration
between librettist and the composer, set
designer and musicians. It's a decent
enough argument, but the comics I'm most
compelled to try to understand fully are
the ones that are made by an individual.
It seems to me that, unlike film, unlike
theatcr, unlike opera, a comic can be made
lry orrc pcrsorr ilr]d as r rcsulr rrlybc thrrt's

,l
,\t

r
l

lr,..ir

,,r'

rr

conric c:ur hc.

ri.rgi

Loilflrefrlrrl

sgsERlao $yarroi{ r,r-ArFoAtd&,ahLl

Rttl

Fpfi$ trttl$ tr*$m*FtctilNl #F rNtr it/t^Lta$$ www Goatrn

lltl( wt$ ooll[,8^t r &f s( THE T os tru{/ cH03r r0 f{ !ot-. lri.to ff,Rr
c,(ufi$r $4 tr$M,tofrr*y _.
r

Design in Manhattan...I'd steered clear

of him, having heard of his anripathy for

Iltt' I)l:ttotrit firnn ol whrrt

l

Run oo*u

different than comics-making,

and that's where he and I were el gctrttittt'
odds. He didn't think about it as pictttrt'
writing at all, but rather as picture nrakirrli
in the service of storytelling. He didn't, for
example, think about panels in terms of
left to right movement, the way one re:rtls.
And as a result, late in "Master Racc,"
there's one sequence in the story whcrc'
the person who's slipping off the subway
platform is hit by the subway. One wiry I
could read it was: the train is about to hit
the man, or the train has somehow passt',|
him, but he's not squished. I would hevc
to flop the image to understand it clcarly
as the picture of someone being hit. Arrtl
to me this was a grammatical, syntactie:rl
"error" in what I understood as picrtrrc
be very

.ri{q *tft6 trft$o&tlfr

ANb

Jtil-ab N$ &$frfl8a *arau$

AilD el..,sidlt

,tlyc

Sueff&

^*il
Lt tc^ss
onAss$",.

FROH T}Il$ g{rnvlvoR Or A huMAru liEt L fjsl

EAftf,H..,TIIIS $IJftVIVOR Of A 6f;TiMAN CON{;EH.
rnAnoil 6Ar{p... 8 [t.$t t( 06N fiilv rfta fl

ol

rur

cttp-ii,i

roa tat*atuoFo

u/llllrtll llrrl

l'.rr1.,1, rrr'. rrlr,,l,

u/,t:,,,,rr,
,1,,,,,rr I lool, ,tl
I)()tttl
pittult s Irorrr lr-lt to rrrilrt
crtch pictrrrt is il t()titlrty- I
lrclievc eech ltttgt is rl t()t.ltty.

OH. ROY, YOUR DEAD

/IIGH ART /S
B_U|r oN DAD LOWART!...
THE RAL POTIrlCAL, SrXiAt
AND FoRlwAt rrumoy iw
PoPul A R cuLruRE pa s srswisy.
MAYBE THATT

ttytie

I,VE SEARC}TET, HIGH

-soo-WHY yOUhE

AND Lotry CHIEI'--ALL

CHAMP|ON,DBY

t $EEHene tsrHgtR

I'rn some kind of grrrplric

clesigner, but not an illustrator
able to represent the subtle
gesture of a body the way

wuAn&Ky"roPtr!

Krigstein could-he actually

fl,")
r-l

/^'\

.t:,
THoSE bAKEEAfFfl.S]'

WE.RE ASAFE Bea

Pl\AIsE99Y EVERYONE

IdE
-IbPEIN6
trVEN

AR6 REWCEP

MERE

Foor-

( toN

oE CLlS,lezoNotYlt(,

Ewl*

Nof AE9{ttEncr.'

\o

*Ab[oP SqEyJ

ET

slurnping to communicate the

original sketch in each copy.

V$il fecl{ *h$ut

y.)r., . rfltr{{ ht:1,,"[ ."rt!t{Jtrq(r
in g"lliur"i*r *r nr*teumtsl

ltqli r*u flh${"{t w{nijrt vfiu ci!${ord v{}ur

*wm il**r/kmlv u{lmr,l, n [ffs$:]$$-t$e tD
tfu* $.{ighl$-mi*r sh{.$w o,}t t$.1u &,($ff4*\_

It was all part of my

The Museum of Mocle rn Art's l()()0

"High and Low: M<>clcrrr Art rrrtl I',prrl.rr
Culture" show triecl to gr.rpplt'witlr rlr,.
then-starting-to-be fashion:r hlt. issr rt. o I
how the popular arts intcrrrelctl wirlr tlr,.
more rarefied ones. LJrrfortrrrrrrtt.ly, t lrt.
show squandered rhc olrportrurity, rrrr.r r.ly
ratifyir-rg the nruscurtr's lorrli lrt ltl t.rst(.\ ,rr(l
hierarchical preclisposit iorrs. I t tI ispl,r yr.r
paintings by Lichtcrrstcirr ;rrrtl llrt rr, rrr .r
small display case, hacl lht. lowly , r,rrr,
par-rels that he swipcrl frorrr to t orrr;r, rrr. lr,.
oversized p;rintings, withorrt t.vr,rr r r,.tIrIrrr;,,
the comic lrook artisls l)y n;un(. wlrr, lr
sin'rply confirrrrctl wlr,rt's irrrplir ir rrr rlr,.
l,ichtenstcirr plintitrgs: tlr:rr tlrt ,,r ry,rrr.rl
artifilcts wcrc lrt'rrt'lrtlr torrIt rrr;rt l'lrlrc
wcrt'p:tirtlirrgs hy Miro on tlrt.w,rll rr.\t trr
l(rtzy l(tls lrt't:rusr', rrs lrrr .rs I ,,rrrl,l lrl,rrr,
ottl, lltcy lrollr lr;trl (r(.s((.nl nr,,,,nr,rrr,l
surtt',tl I'trtrlst;rpt's I lrl<r.,1 lrotlr rv,rl,,, l,ut

BrlouoHb

f,.stRENS, F FAgurous,c.srntv
DOGS,
INCIUOED IN-THE
TRESENT
'/. CLASSIFIC}T ION,

..,LAYS A BIG E6G. AUr

NOT VERY,vO./A tskt|a!

ffi

FRENzlEp, tNNuiuiniplr.

,(DRAWNWIIH AVERy FtNE

CAMEL HArR DRUSH.!. ETc.

themselves as Art or die. I

was, of course, very flattered
when rhe presrigious Calerie

ir( HAVING JUST Bnoxenrxr

WAIER PIfCHER. N. THAT
FROM A LONG WAY OFF LOOI(

IlKE FtrES."

THE HIGHANgLOWSHOWIS
ORGANTZED AROUND

ifHrs PoPULAR, t9o1 suBwAt/AD

WAS YE44SAHEAD OF IIS TIMEI
Nor O,VtygtD tT lilSPtRE PABro

"Faustian Deal" with the

culture: if comics are to
survive for another century,
once they're no longer a part
of the most-mass part of mass
culture, they've got to redefine

BORGES IMAGINED A CHINESE

ENCYCLOPEDIA THAT DIVIDED
ANTMALs tN10',h.
TO THE EM?EROR,A EM9AI.MED,
c.TAME. 0. SucKtNG Pr65_

Ml%

tAR PRINCIPTES!

St. Etienne wanted to show

my work in the beginning of
the '90s. They were a 57th
Street gallery that showed

5IMI

BRANICASR

PIDaSSo,s FAMouS PoRTRAIT IN

1906, BUT IT THERE:B.Y IIV%UAVCD SINCEARTISA suBsf
oF IULTURE, How cAN
AN ENTIRE GENERATION OF

CAR,ICATURISTSI'

iili!y'1 . iiirriew ill

George Grosz, Otto Dix,

rnd Kdrhe l(ollwitz! 'Iheir

YOU C,OMPARE APPIE

erp FRUTTS?!

@ l9?o |4.t
lhl

l..liqh1i

0w 5lrr!r, ii

0rtj!(l jili

rl/ffur{/jri.

i}r|.

t'

'l

t,li)ti

*Trtli,

I didn't originally intcntl to holrl orr lo llr.rt

gesture efficiently.
${$r',r dsr

il\
?k

stuff. But at sonle point I stertt'tl s,rvrrr1,,

them rather than tossing thcnl ()ul irt tlr(.
end of a day's work, specificelly wirlr llr,.
idea that, when I eventurlly scll prrlrlislrt.tl
Maus throagh RAW, I coulcl grrrt orrt. lirrlr.

word "slump" built into the

drawing, the essential sign of

t,,

No(E:5 lrl frlE H6Rot4

HtrfoRy oF FAtNfrN6*
HrrfoRy
FAtNfrN6" "
"Hl6H r.{ "Lot l" !s A ou6r-

E6..dMMr{6JG
UM9rt(co Eco- Not-(o
9Ay UIE DotlT 5rg;596
FRo/v)

drew "real" figures with

tangible weight, slumped
over the way people actually
n.right slump. For me the
drawing I'ras to have the

rr,,. ( \r,,t 1o,,, ll tlrrrr,,. I u.r..

(l
lurl rrl( r( \l( irr rlrs1rl,r1,rrr1,, rrrr Ilrrr11,... ,\rr,I
I w,ts llrtnntos,'rl tlr.tt tlrr'1' rn,.rrrlr.rl I,,,,r ll
ltrtgt's ol Mrur.s, wlrilt. llrt v wr.lt l,.rlll,.,l
tlret I woLrlclrr't wilnl t(). I ((.r't,rnlv r,rrrl,lrr'l
Lrreak up rhc lrrtworli Ilr;rt rrr,rl<t.: uI Ilrr,
final drawings l:<tr Mtrts- lt's rrll ,rr,. rv,,r l.
even though it tlkcs l)lilc(' ()v( r' ;tlroul tlrlr.r'
hundred pieces of papcr. llrrl it tlrtl s,.r.rrr
possible for me to cut loosc rrry slit.tt lrr'.,
and studies whcn thc grrllt,r y lrrrt l)r(.s\lr(.
on having somcthing r() sr'll.
tlr,,rrrilr:1,,,r11,

only contemporary artist at

the tirne w:ls Sue Coe, wlr<r
introclrrcccl rnc to tlrcnr. I
hlclrr't tlrought throrrgh rrry
rclrtt iorrslup wit h :r 11;rllt'ry,

tlrt v ',,t1 v(

otlrt

it

r'.

tf

ult( orttlor l.;lrlr,,

1(.\l l() (..t( ll

l'r.urlily, tlrt. I Ierr.irrr:rrr.

:rs

lrcrtutifirl

;rs

is orr its ou,rr, tkrcsrr't:rtlht.rc to rr

wall the
silrit(. w:ly that sonrethirrg nlade to be put
on th:rt wall does. 1'hc way I understood it
at the rime was, "l guess the painrings win
the wall and the comics win the catalogue."
The comics looked better because they
were made for: reproduction. For the most
part the show seemed to condescend to the

low-art artifacts.

ln 7997 I got a call from a curator in the

drawing department at the MoMA want_
ing to buy some origina.ls of mine, noting
they only owned one lithograph. Much
to her surprise-and even to mine-I
found myself saying, .,The last thing I,ll
ever do is sell you guys any of my original
art." "What? -ifhy?', And I said, ,,Wel[,

you know, when you did a show of Maus

drawings at the MoMA in I991,I spent
some time in your vaults zrnd I got to see
the stuff that never cones our. and if you
actually bought my artwork it mighr come
ollt every ten years if you do a hurnan
torment show or something, but nrostly
it would iust molder in your: vaults. The
museum doesn't know anything about
comics." She said, "But we,re in_
terested in knowing more.,' And
I responded by inviting some
crrrarors trom the MoMA to rny
sttrdio [or e lecturc on comrcs,
:r crash-course

distilled from the

lectures I'd given as an instmcror at thc School of Visual Arts.
I errclecl up inviting people from
thc Met, the \Whitney, the Guggt'rrheinr, the Brooklyn Museum,
thc Srrrithsonian, the Library of
clowntown
11rr Ilt rit's-th irty or more cur:r( )orrgrcss, aucl sonre

lols;rll

:rgrcccl

to conrc t() nty

sttrtlio lor il suntn)il t.onfe

Artt.rzirrlt

re

rrcc!

Il.rsrt.rlly Iw.rrrrr.tl to plt.rrtl lor rt.tlrcss hrr

thc MoMNs I tiglr/l.ow show by asking

tirr a Low/Low show, the point being that

lir I.rrr W.rllit r rv.rr l,r,rrrlilrl

So Iliol lo
its:t (() (lt.tl()t.

-ffi

It:tvt ,t t,ty, ( v('n ri{)l rn, lrr,l, ,l

iI one looks at rhe work on its own terms

:ts ottt'

rather than next to paintings on a woll,

one could begin to understand that cornics
weren't trying to be painting and failing at
it; it's drawing, wirh a different purpose.
The s:rme way rhat the MoMA could
show architecturaI drawings, let,s san but

"rrr.rslcr.,"

lrertr thc rcsporrsihilily lor wlr.rt

eventrrally bccrrnrt' rr lrrrr ly
extensivc rnini rt trosptt I rvt'
of fiftecn cornics:lrlrsts, l),r\l
and prcscnt. I'rl w:urlt'tl rrr.rrrv
more artists re 1)t-('s('nl('(1, wirlr
fewer works by t';tch ,rrtist,
but tl-rat sl'row clirl ht'lp rrr,,v,'
the conversation wcll p;rst tlrr'
polemics of thc MoMA's I lr1llr/

Low low point.

-:

The talk went rather well, but not much

seemed to come from it right away. It all
fizzled into having been one more odd day
in the life.... except for Annie philbin, the
director of the Drawing Center around
the corner trom rny studio. Several years
later she called and said, ,.Good

news!
We're 6nally going ro pur on yolrr show!
I'm now tl-re director of the Hamrr-rer
Museum, and I think we can do it here.,,
A few more years passed and eventually

ol lltt'

cxlribitctl hrrt tlitlrr't lr.rr,, r,,

one would have to understand what an

architectural drawing is and why it exists.
Similarly, comics usually follow different
rules of drawing than drawings by picasscr
(who my perverse friend, the painter Alex

Melamid, insists is a great cartoonist but

rotten painter).

rrr

r-tiltl itllil:]1, ill 'r',r,r;ll

r)N

ill;-ll,".l"u ltti !n;iirtili,,i[r )] ) ."

:r.Xrr.i

a show began to come together at the

Hammer Museum and at the Museum of

Contemporary Art in L.A. called "Masters

of American Comics." I was delighced
by everything except when Annie called
it my show. I didn't want to be a curaror
per se, to decide who should live and who
should die in that context, especially after
having had so much anger directed at me
in my experiences as a magazine editor in
the past. But I did agree to be sort of an
6minence grise. John Carlin, who I canre t<r
know when he was a grad student curilting
ir beautiful small show of comics ancl

paintings at thc Downtowrr Whitncy (t'ight

ycirrs lref<tre lrncl far rnorc s<lplristiclrlctl
thirn tlrc Iligh/l ,ow show), w:rs tlt'sigrr:rtt'rl
cur-ilt()r :uttl I bcc;rrrrt' wh;rt's tlrt' lriglr
( l;lss w{)r'(l lor li ilritzcl / A t olrsull.rrrl!

irllll

ri

r:i i tr

Llrr

ll, l,r'

1:

iu

r'

r'

I was interestecl in thc l:rt r rlr.rr

us low artists wcrc tll(' lit"t 1,r'r s
of thc flamc-tht' only .rr trsts
still interested in tlr;rwirrli tlr,'
human figure when all of nrorlcrrrisrn w,ls
moving away fronr that. I ccrt;rirrly lorrrr,l
the modernists who wcrc still irrvolvctl rrr
the figure at tl-re earlier parts ol llrt tt'rrrrrr
more directly useful to nlc th:ln llrt'orrcs

who had rnovcd into loscf Allrt'r's lrli, ,,,r,

cern with retinal irrf<lrnrrrtion r';rtlrt'r Ilr;rrr
drawing per sc. Tl'ret rrslrrct ol nr,,,l, r rrrvn
tlrrt tlistillcd dr:rwirrg rlowrr p.rst rr\ r ( l)r ('
sentati()nal poirrf, htrt wirs slill r('l)r('\('ntrrl',
had thc t'nost irnl'll'rct on rrrt'. lir rrrt, rt's tlrr'
placc whcrc it's t':tsit'st lol tlu loorrrsls .urrl
lrrtistcs t() ()v('rlirl). Arr<l tt'r.t;rirrly tlrc rv.ry.,
irr whiclr tttotk'rrr :rrlisls, lrotlr vlr lr.rl ,rrr,l
vistr,tl,,rllrlwt'rl oItt'lo sct lltt roust ru( Ir()n

lttttl st':tttts ol lltt rl worh lr',1 nr('rlrw.rrl

tlrrrrl,,s tlrrrt wt'rt' lr rntlrrl. Altlr,,rrlilr l\l,trt..

trtllttl

post

trrorlcrlrrrl. I'rrr rroI ,,urr

ttt,trl, t nt..ttt .,lo1r', .trtrI

rtlrr,

;ro',1 r11orlcr rrr',rrr

t',

begins. There's a continuum that has

people referring back to stylistic quirks,
coilage. and seIf-conscious r:epresentarion

that runs all through modernism.

ffiiq$ am

aw*r*ne ss uf r$mdmy,"ri*rm imf*rrn ho,,v

ths h${}k?

yqlr.! str{"$(t!"$'frqi

Narr:atively,
one of the real

temptations in

Mazs, because of

as clear as possible without pushing that

clarity over the edge into simplification
presented enough of a challenge.The
alternative would actually be: "Well, it's a
story like any other, but the way I'm telling
it is going to give you that frisson of the
new." And I suppose one could argue that
just by doing something
serious in comics I was
already doing that. Yet
for me, it was natural
to work in comics with

the way the story

was delivered t<'r
me by Vladek, was

personr I suhject matrer-

but it was much easier

to maneuver a story
of a guy sitting at a
window looking at a
ball being bounced than
to be in total service
to a chrorrological

to try to deal with

his nwn dissociated
time-the fact that
he could easily slide

between 1955 and

1945 and 1935. Being true to his story

in some ways would
have moved me into
a kind of Joycean
time field. But I now
believe I made the
right choice in trying to cobble rogether
an insistence on chronology, including

insisting on chronology within the book so

one eould see rha( the rrrist was insisting
on chronology even if the teller of the tale,
Vladek, wasn't.
Had I gone that route, of moving really
in a fragmented way through time-the
way that maybe Slaughterhouse-Fiue
does-it could have been thrilling to
work on but it would have been getting
in the way of sornething else. And if
rhc story was worth telling, it was also
worth not crcaring "artificial" obstirclcs
Lo urrrlcrstlrrrtling ther story.'l'ht, story's
l( llr;tlly so lr;rrrl lo rrrrtlt rstlrrrtl t.v,.rr wlrt,lr
l.rr rli,,l. l,r't.tusc il'r r,r l.rr .rw.rr lr,,rl
rn( ',, {1,il1|

r'r1r|rir'lrt,., J\l.rl. llt1i tltt. rlol!

narrative. BLlt of
collrse, nothing

ultimately is
chronological. As
soon as you're asked
to tell any story you
will break it-either in your
mind, thinking of something else that
happened later or earlier-or something
will interrupt the telling and you're in
the present of what's being told rather
than in the past that's being recounted. So
inevitably I had all of these breaks presenr,
and certainly was aware of how n'ruch
further I could have gone in that direction.
l|r t * rurp ri{,,:r i1n l lix} *.3, Vl*rj*$r'r, tm $t} ti t(!i}}'
i ii{.+.t ot r:N!r*r'**l*gi*,*{ ltutr*tiv*, h*',r,.I i eil
1rtt,r;

r$**{ lr{th t$'le ,tiil;rr*pnnrln*t

There's one page where I'n-r quarreling

with Vlaclel< ahotrt how long I're actually

spcnt in Atrschwrtz, rtncl whrt hc was
tloirrli thcrc rtt vrtr iorrs l.r'r'iotls. I l<t'Pl ir

l ,t 1,,r tr;rlr ol I iltrt' ,rrr,l ,rs

llrirrl,,r.ul lrorrr lrirrr. l'rl l,l.r,t,

litCl rtl , Ir;U

l',1 lirr,l

them on the chart to understand what

had happened. One specific time-bar
had me trying to find out where he
was from t944 to 1,945.k led to a
conversation with Vladek in which I
ask him how much time he spent in a
shoe shop in Auschwitz, as opposed to
iust being sent out to so-called black
work of just lifting and hauling-the

thing that would have ordinarily been

a death sentence. And there are sorle
discrepancies that have me finally
jogging his memory, and he recalls that
he got back to the tin shop after they
had closed it down, to help dismantle
the crematoria in Auschwitz before
the retreat from the Russians. That
information was significant but so
was Vladek snapping at me that there
were no watches in Auschwitz, that
my attempt to rationalize his story
by putting it orr what's iiterally the
grid oi time wrr rror rhe way it was
experienced by him at all.

I
I

{\r
l^rt(

)rr{

tr''tv\61"^1
J

sl

NL.(

g
Arrd rhis we1 of nrapping tlut Iime.
which is what comics do, is the kind

of thing that gave me pleasure while

u,orkirrg on Maws.I did that page (page
228) in such a way that a version of
my time-chart is shown as a vertical
har superirnpc,sed and trrversing
several panels, but Frangoise enters and
interruprs our cunversation wavrng,
"Yoo hoo, I was looking for yor-r" with
a speech balloon superimposed on top
of that bar at exactly the Decernber/
fanuary/February moment that was in
contention. How nruch tirrrc clicl you
spcncl l-rere or the re ? Well, now I tlidrr't
Ir.tvt t0 rr,til iI lrt,.rrrtt' Ilr:rl ir)l( r'r'lrl)lr()ll
lct it rcrrrrtirr lts trrrt's,rlvt'tl:rs it lrttrr;rlly
hrrtl to llt'.'l'ltrtl's rt 1,,ootl t'r;ttttplt'ol
lt,l irrlor rrr:rliorr: ,rlllr,,rrlilr

h{(,

lnLt

lr'.1,'ll',ttttlr'rr tr'.,r1 l,rfr

lill,ll I rr'rLlr lr rlll

,rvr

I I lllr'

'lL

/,'rllltro I l,rl l'rlll)

r r1/r,ir rr,,l, l, ,,

l\

I,

\, ,l

,.,1{

tr,.

i'.

\l I

l'

-'lt

od

H'H,ffii'',
(Au, ruoC(

?.2,?)

*t
i

ilt'l

1,,!t

lr(, rt*r*rtriq...t&rl

illi ffi\fu"tx(frfi

tlt'r'ply l,ryt
llll

{
s

fOq-4frt0,

ol9AtlteU

ttft{ttfi /

t'It

r.l

lr

Vladek and I are shown ir.r the present while

bickering about the past in those first six
panels, we're then genuinely yanked back
into the present by Frangoise-all literally
layered around a timeline.
H*rw you did ymu d*cide t$ rnreke A{orrs
a nnruative framed hy its own pr$(qss,
and frow is 6omics fornn a par{ of that?

Visibly juxtaposing pasts and presents

allowed there to be a continual kind of
flashing back and forth that wouldn't feel
like a total flashback to an ersatz reconstruction of the past. Telling a story as if I
was the invisible hand that allowed Vladek
to make a comic about Auschwitz would
have been so fraudulent. It's the fraudulence that informs a lot of the Holocaust
comics that have come since. One doesn't
want to give a counterfeit experience; better to give the problematics of reconstruct-

ing that experience. It was never really

a question for me, that I would have to
include the telling as well as what's told.
Even in that three-page "Maus" the narrative is bracketed by a father telling a son
a bedtime story. Everything drawn in the
so-called past in the story that Vladek is
telling is very clearly an attempt by the son
to show what the father is telling. And that
offered a margin within which to operate
authentically. The fact that you're told that
I'm trying to show you what I understand
of what Vladek is telling me is built into
the fabric of the narrative itself, and allows
that narrative to get told.

{*uld yeu ta,k ab$ut thm page in

,&d#s/ sft{r the $}rslog[Ner ifi vulrich the
narrativc firrt dips lnto thr pas*?
The prologue itself is a form of dipping
into the past, though not visually represented, but I figured
those first two pages
would function, thematicalln as a fractal

of the whole book. It

seemed that positing
this sort of normal
childhood moment
with a chilling shadow
Ho$ Mh,v{

6(rltil*Yiu
*roP,

Nrrlrt ulDtr$Hop,\

cast over it was an ap-

ca,r0r.l@,

propriate lead-in.

Trtl

hi9 l$oe r.roAk l

I ur*6 <

A0orif

fp{6

yreX116.

In the very beginning

of the first chapter,
after the introduction
of Vladek and Art
coming together, on
page 1,4, we go into my
old room and Vladek
pedals away on his Exercycle as we begin to
talk about the project.
Arr import:rrrt p:rge-it
I

II

l)r,rl1, lr,il I 0l

t rrrrttic lrrrtlqrr;r1it,

l,t,lr',rr

rlissolvt'-lrottt Iltt
hirr

spirr to

es e y()unll nl;ur

ilr Ilr(

p.lst. It' itllowctl tllr' l() lt\('

atr ttttt-tsttltl etrglt' to r.rll

:lttcrltr()il

) c('rl it ilr

thirrgs; Art is slroivrr

scrttl

irr ltis

chiltlltor,,l lo,rrr.

frl nrc,l

h,'l w,', rr
thc harrtllt'lrrrr s,
with Vlerlcli's
tatt()()crl ttrrrttlrt

visihlt'orr Iris l, lt

arm.'l'hc wlrt'r'l
et th('[x)tt()rt] ()l
the pagc is tlre lilst
use of thc circlt' :ts :t
meaningful sl'rrtpc. ( )rr
the next page , tl)(' 1-r0slt'r' ol
Rudolph Valentino rrs tlrc Slrt ili
appears in a spotlight that echocs Iltt' r'r't lt
in which Vladek appears as x y()unlt nrirr.
I remember when I firsr bcg,trr worl<irr1i
on the bo()l(, I showt'tl lltrs

W/
begins to churn up the past.
Vladek on the Exercycle dominates
the page by traveling from the second
tier down to the fourtir: there's a kind of
fractured but nevertheless
visihle ver'ion of him sittirrg
on the Exercycle that travels
down the wholc page. It's
a little Cubist, but basically
you can see his head on one
tier, his arrns on rhe other;
and his legs pedaling on the
bottom.

page to a Spirnish ptrhlislrcr

of fantasy conrics wlro
asked to scc wltrtl I w:rs
workiug on. I slrowctl lrirl
tl're fir-st pagcs,tntl t,rll<,'tl

it likc I tli,l
just now ltrttl :tlllr,rrrlilr I ,lr,l
sry thrlt I tlitlrr't ('rl)( ( I ,ilr\'

I'rinr throrrgh

rc:tclcr fo llicli rrp ,n tlr',

stufl corrsciortsly, tl w.r,, lrou

That allowed me to bring

us irto the story in a
way that has a cinematic
analogue, althougl.r this is
hardly a cinernatic representatiorl of a ci.nematic idea.

I tlrorrglrt rrlrorrl

cyt'.1 lt, rv,t.

1r.r11 ',

rrr',',

1,rtl,lt'.lrtryi.r

tll:lllrtzill( wrllt l,r1i l,rt',t,,1

It nright

vcn

in a movie, but wl'rat lrappcrrs

is: Vlade[< gets on the lixcrcyclc to 1'x'tlrrl,
be corny

we [ool<

rrr

Antl ht loolir',1 .tt nrr'i

rt thc whccls trrnring, entl

,rs ht'

begins to spin lris y;rrn th('r("s,r liirrtl ol'

whirlirrg-l tlorr'l hrow llrt' t's:rt t r irr

brrrhrtri:ut b;tlrt s ,rtt ('v( r'\'

s()()n rls lrt' polilt ly ,,,rrl,l.
Wer{:

l)illl{

thcre titncr wltcn y(}u l(ll ll}ll

pt:rhaps c<lrnit,, w,l1n'l llt(' l!('11

tncclirttn fot yout [,tlltt'r'r',loryl

ll,!tr ,','ll

')t|t)

,rrr,l ll, ,l

,r',

((Everybody

in the canF qat ciqarettes?))

( (ReaI I y?) )

weelj:,

Arrd I too!.i them together

then i + I wRs very

hrtnqry

eirtrhanqed

them

ciqarette6:)

) Everyhody

tlread,

{or

once weel:1y it

got three

that

everybody
neded

( (Ever-y

weel:ly,

That das the whole {ood.

he+ore.

.tt's

don'L

want tc tire

il

lot-

On(e

in

not insullinq

have

i1

Salrs.lge

of

the

lilie

story

( (,le can slop,

meAtl

[l

((How
and

thinlt

that

thiE

I didn,t-

yoLr. It,s

i6

tlecaL(Be

time yout tolcl

fr

me, 60 I

me sq.1in_))

t\aor,ili4

foog .aAL!(\N/i .r(r,rt lr?p.

v,i,r^ru,y${Rrn
\Nf,,o((n-'(

kl

tAro'

',i

'

Lnotn.*t"rl\w,tLtg;
/at* uffi
"-{ter

ii i Lrr

(u, or), Ct-

*yt 6'[".,

Lrp

:rgainst things in Mazzs

general infornra-

ir,,cL63---

2,

',r..\,

"

"4"?oL2

D Vt.l Q*,'t 4
f*

fiD

L\!t{.

qr"{.,,i,'- Q. uro/k **r,n*^nl+.

r-ru

i]

/ I IU\, !ra5 &,, ,t4{4

\ bwa fiLsj tdMt

I I V ,l^*, (r1.n ," f"ror"lf

,*111-1,

Nrf L"arliat .

tdfs4 0fr" ,^
_r,*l .r

vu-t

l*4

..\ L t,."L{.1
"^4
a TrJ,^ls Lr.l,.r

rJ* \o,.t
,a ,( t1-,tr. -yl
@ (rn St^.to *.k
n

"ili.d

\^o^t*L*s

Vl,J,."J tJl*.\
^,k"rt hn.rl.

,flXteq--

4"-v

it's appropriare, ancl just typeset p:rges of

plose whcn that sccmecl apprcpriate. Ilut

tiorr. lrntl rlrosc wcrc thc nrorrrcrrts when

thr-rt woulcl

I rvorrlrl tltspeir rrrrtl tlrirrl<: Wcll, rrreybi'l

:;lrorrltl irrsl tlo sorrrt'tlrilrli llr;rl's rr torrrhirr;r
lrorr ol pr,r.,,',trtrl (()lnl(s1 ttri.,,rrnirr n,ltclt

hct I h:rrl Plrccrl orr nryscJlr, so I l<r.Pt tryrrrg to lirrtl solutiorrs. lrrrlic J0() ollt,ls oltt.
ol llrc rrrorl s( v( r'(.(,rrt s ol Ilris .lilt rrrrir.r,

Itlvc bccn

\ tl ,u4t4;1-a'TLt. {'".air,{ rfi*-+c7r.

I /V'r,n*^,rJ*^r" t-t

0r*rL

\,r,.,.L,

I cirme

a_*t

t^Jd&l< D/f{.

t i nvol vetl i rnparti

"1y)l*

Bvtl
:l*y, *,,)r)'
.UIk- l.^,t-lrrl

na"^ - q'n-L. tL,.u l^rtr.{ . Ea,\{v\. -lr...,p, srt.J,.

i{rutt e*/l
i{ t t'.^ t,1Qh oJr
th

t't.r( ,-t*a
--,-tr 2

1 t '.*

l]

lrli/ell,

B +;
hu* .\---I

t,,"rfr.r,/),

W
D

6k* - ge,*

[J "r,* -"i ^tJ'1

I ) ,^t'^rrlfuV*r;on

o. ",ls-.

orf 7*[

rlly

;r rcirl co1'r-orrt on thc

L-

l5a{,4

'

fir

fi

u",r;^+ffia/V{s-r
,..r*'y''r(1-4

I t l'," .7{"9{r;',44'
L,'tl/,/

)//

l<ir-rd

of nonfiction plose, it rvoultl

long tinre to figure it or-rt. At sorrrt' poirrt

t1'le interviews Vladek explaint'cl wlr;rr
it rneant to stand on line to gct lirotl. I lrrs
line allowed for: something visual tr, lirt.r
move through tl're page . '[wo 1rirrrt

l,.,

silhouettes of Vladek ancl Art urrtlt.r rr srrrr

umbrella in tl-re Catskills, brackt't Iht rr;rirr
visual on the page. (l suppose I coLrltl lr,rr,r.
done the whole thing as just trrll<irrg lrt,,rtls
at that table, but taik about co1. orrrs!) ln
that 6rst balloon Vladek begirrs ro rrrll. r.
the question, saying, "ln tl'rc nronrirrg lor
breakfast we got only a bittcr tlrirrl< rrrir,lt.
from roots." He gets to givc rhrt slitt,oI
generalized information. Irr thc r-ighr lr,rrr,l
flashback panel therc's tl'rc- bcgirrrrirrg , rl
a foocl lir-re to stand on, rr linc thrrt nrovt.r
diagonally down through the sttorrtl trr.r
ancl continues to thc flrst parrcl in llrt rlrrrrl
row. Vladek talks about tlrt,oPrirrr;rl l,l.r,r.
to stancl on thirt lint, arrcl thr. lrirtrrrt,ol .r
line gave me sp:lce to rlrepc crll)ti()n\ tlr.rr
tolcl about the othcr kincls ol lor,tl rlr,rr rlr,.r
got on .rn ongoing lrlrsis. It w;ls ,r vr,,rr,rl
placeholclcr to l<t'cp ()r)( s ('\r( s (,(( ulrr(
while thc inforrttrttiorr \vils s( r\,( (l rrl)
'[-l-rere's

I<inrl

oI foolrrott

;rt

r.r.,

(l

llrr

bottotn ol this p:rrt' ;rs u,, ll, rr. lrcrr I u.r

ltblt' to ctt(t'r tlr,' l,rrt Irils,,l tlrt. rrrl.rrrr.r
tiorr I rttt'tlt'rl lri pl;rtt r,rrncrllrr.r, "lrr

lht'tvtttittg, w(
or jlrnr." Allr'r
I rvrts Irvinu to lintl orrt [r'onr rrl l;rllrt,r:
lrrtrl lrorn nry r( s('ilrclr, n,lrlrl Irt oPlr. r,ol
1o t';rt in l\rrs. lrtr,itz, Nol .rl ': iO,t.rrr. orr
ftrlt' r'. lt).1.1. lrrrt rvlr,rt tlrr,r, \\'( r.1,,r\( n l{)
t'.tt tl.rilr'. lt's tltc l,rrr,l,rl rrloun.rtron tlr.rl
( r,ulrl nt(),,1 r'.t,,rlt l,r
l,t(,,( nt(,1 ,r', .r rrr, rrrr,

Ir,

an easy palagraph to write. llrrt lrt.rt,, I lr.r,l

to have sor-ne visual componcnt to lroltl ,r
place for the inforn'ration, ancl it tr,,,li ,r

W fo" ),-q L""aJ

{t:** .4W /
5*jufu^L*h,-.t\

Wt"$

r.r.^ytr.r{y.

1u1

tt

aI

any

lH-+L'"qt*"J'
lJ A',rt-..

f-tt,v Ok)-

tt,h*$
ji ffi

t) Vt/.k A^*^*t

t1,'t'u::':,.*. ^f*11
/ ,"\ k.,*.,l rqavcL Ji.tr-

.<4{r.) "r\ -t bJ

0u,U,
[a,l^ct".,*\
"
"

'lk2.{,/f^i '--

if that is an appropriate wortl tr) rrst,rllrorrt

Auschwitz food. A list! ln a novcl or rl

wW4

st

i,f,oo 7r,ra\\t- 1*g

a$4(agft\Y,
'\o/ts: z *
o fi.+kl;t&,r

in

,.1

FRrr*rry unJ
&.t,k.-r^

\ fart- k,unr
g\r/

t 1,,,'a -p S,1x'lttl{

nryfu,q

\.

r , \ ^,\ {r.,-l ,{.:y

Wpr*@,W*

have

II

D fti1. ^u/1 1o 1o
i" lr,lrf,- *rLil.Jpt

,/

^4.

9u"J(t"ro,rrl

"rti"{ h[f
u,t.1ato
!!-!.'

\r,-r

I ,^i.qf Ii ,/u\"-

?;rJ,lt[ ,tr.n' Hrp

e

1"

II

I I r',,2i;"'
t ,,^,^i)^^-

g*r.+,.,nt

{ik1']'q.p

il tt\94ta+
\py.tultt5*.,

l,t..u1116

Es f,,.*d. ietatk-/".

And we qot

mornin{il

ftr*enorr A corqarrrrririT.

they

two fingers.

things

{rom the lasl

td teII

hElr

horse

I)

n* "nt,at6i{ ftiflrrp
If srJAp.vrtw.

oncE when we (ame {rom

when I rnterrLrpt_

you out,

fJ

they be kiltinq

frofl

\16!

'

LJ f,^r9r*or ril c&Hr fifl-rltr^l'

of

jLrst

once in the

the morninq,

qot some very important

nood.

while

'

[]'onrmrr+r*e."

caop qot

Bec.rL(se theEe people

sllch a piece

at

niqtrt?)

lil":e how tro(ld

dj.d yolt qet to eat in a diiy,

worli.

and

tlread,

tlie

They tool": us every day to hard work.

orice

very

in

them cigarettes?))

onEe or tHice

m.enw timeg

in

E[r,tutrar,gA

was on a SLrnday, qverybody

once

Llnder5tand

any

r-\4

As we got oLlr portion

it

meat, lrJhat l,;ind o{ meat? Horse meat.

either

have

( (Everybody

qot Eigarettes.

I ran't

worl:,

Three ciqarpttes

, the ci garettes,

di dn .t

came, I tttlnl,:

and gi.ving

{or

and

brearl.

riqarettes,

somet-hirig

yes.

1i1

It:tr ittt,, stootl

olr llrt' lirrt.

llrt.rr,': rrprr

l1rt,,,l

,r

1,rr,,11(.r,,

.,r11r),,.r)i.11,,t

,t rr.rll, ,..rlrrrli

)l .r r1r,,rlr',1 ,lrr,

,,

t@N, StARdftrgu( tA fttt,

c4rf tTA( [t A tr({ rt$r*

r rrEti{.D F"RnrE U)t"irr'$? t4AN

.,,AN} {.rflA16r.9 90 'i?0

lr9 iouet*.

mqYec'

rurvE rtrtEAE,- 66G5,

b,A( l

rt&,

}te ft I ltq

",

()ll I)illlt 2. ).5. lt's st't tt llt' ll l<'tPtr

wlto cltltst's llcr. l'hcrc's 't t ltttse '
Artie rtttts, clircIs irtto e blrrreck'
,rncl is hiclden tlrcrc tharrks ttr

.rrrollrrr prisoncr. ()tte ttritttt

tlroves to the next-it's a goocl
r'\illtlf le of ct'tni.t [ttttttiotting in their cornfort zone' A
chase scene trnd hiding is n'rtich
rnore straightforward to dePict
than sotne of whirt carne in the
previot-ts couple of pages, like the
t:hart tlrlt shows what the trtrde
varlue of cigirrettes was ils bartcr

HE \fi[, ,o Grtln
UAi$D rl ALL OTLI

:,

i \i fide tr,ti!,itl!,t& !\lu +nr

l, urni.. lPPr"u nall{ lr
rrlv h Dturl( r{hiE FKrl.\ Ro(ri>...

hilD

trL6D

[PIE' 6REhP L}I

"*,r*

pn^rf 6rtcf

TiNDt$t tr

{r{E 6rnD

N\r#fo

GA'le our A-l'

fti(

Etsr

<t NEIf wY'l.rr

,ffiefiffi

rncl cxclrange.

,^*t[ril

r*t(rr

rii
'ii!il'ir,irt

nl*;'n

ra.r( foo FAL

fo
9N1H.( 6}vE h ,a'f-ts,rl{ oFfu8rr\?i jt.jJ
'I.l
or
u,.r urt no r,ooD:9v

To

{1{g ErrD oF

i ule, t( t,A5 -{H

{f(

;,iri:

th&51"

tNll*li} I lln*

.:rt ltlt'tr

u)1m f A(1D
'{r{Ltn
il vlhJ
Arro

iD

6ooD

.-96!Forrqil{1|ru I '1
tirur) scilo ro{tNt{rfr'

F#Htrilffi

R\6H ANA\.T}!I

AII,N, r rfirt t
a

HNf

l"t;

A"ll'.r,!1ii i[ \i'l.ii,ll !\;:r'$ {']rtl

i
rr!ri ! i l il1l t{ 1'{itl }}tlil th{ 6llli{i'l tlr}

i i,,iiriiii; ri'l

H.gt*

I l-rt

rnt

ltlr

ir. i,,i,-

l! i., il['i {ir t],;f i{;

,:;i' (iil"r il.r1ll a-\lrili iih{

.. ii

ri'i I i i I i-il;!.i

Lr

I t: l i'l{l

Lr

li l)

t!
;;

to?ft8.W(.@(

r,i'uxii-;cx(

f ,9trE,
A

ca\t?

tLlv'\"

"ri&iJouifii'irlulciu'o

}h4
wsEr

.,.Arr9

oN!r(rUr' M'lct{t{6f

GAV6

ut

tri

fl f t'tlt

,1,,r,

lr

l;'

--

Right after tlre Page with the

timelrre that we werc talking

r'rrl
,,1

,hr.

i, ('{

ll \\.1', lll"l ( ll"l11',ll lo tlll tttolt'

lt , r lrr',lrt11 1' t' l""l 1''r1"'

itl

ii

i.iirii j,{r,i: t&{i'i ,:i){iiil tthll:'

ilG-u ecs do\^lltlEY6Av {o!'.(r

lusi- rl*t$ tooDlo IE tlDf 5ll

1,,,t\( \oll.

li.rl:

'

rir mE'^t<'trcs'

rlrt'ir sotrp :rt the bottom of the page, with

r snrilll irrsct crrptiot-l orl the right side of
the
tlrrrl ltorizolltrrl, ebotrt the slltle sizc as
encl
ancl
bcgirr
that
lroxcs
tt'xl
srtrtll
lrv,r
rlr, s,,ttp lirrt- lt's plecctl right btlow thc
,l,.t,l l,,,tli,'s pitt'tl ttrt t'rtclt othcr';rltlosf
tltt tt''
,r,, tl rl u,,ts ,l \( l).ll illL Irtrtt l lllrtcttl
"ll Y()ll t1t 111111r lltt \
,r., ,rrr .rllr't lltotrt',lrl

}..}i

r,)irr.t l'11,'rllfll!ii: 1l' frri':l;l r':f'l't

ct{tE g oA

ri

iiI.{1"i1,,

at
I caue to thinl< oi that "menr-r" of ioocl
vcrtical
es
Ar-rschwitz, that list of things,
()ll
iniortttation' Horizt'ntll nf{}t'lltJti()tl'
rhe other hand' is exectly rt'hat movies

tr':ln\rllil e,r.ily: tlrc l-ltllL lrlrt [lJr il cxt'

hc tl.rrows it :rcross i1 roolli' it srnashes
well.'l'hrrt's rlctivc, lrtlcl ci'tn bc
sh,rrvrt ,,tsily itt etttltics 1lellt'ls Vleclc-k
tlrt,,w't 1,.tt,,1.l l,rltl f o Atri:t' r'vlltt's
thr-,rLrgh ir

,,rr rlr, ,,tlr,

r ,r'1"'l rl''rrl"'l rrttr'lr'llti''

about earlier, we begin to rnove back

tor'varcl a section o{ prgcs that are very
architectural and diegramtnatic, that show
you thc crenlatori.l, because Vlaclek actu.r* tl'rem; he was orle of the workers

"lly

pulling them rrpart' So rvl'rat leads into

showing the death canrp killirrg irl)l)irr'r

is tlrt
tl1s, on the last panel on the prllit"
"
caption: "For this I wes rtt cycwitttt st
It appears tlnder a snl:lll pelrcl slrowirrl"

lt l'ollorvs ()r
irttcrrtt[,ts-tw() p;lll( l\ ttl l'tttt]tt tttrt

:t crenlatoLium chimnt-y'

ril ltlta

7
RUrrtAr.tg cAn e NSAIHE 6R
rY\iN6 mh6 aenW tb RrrN FR9M AUIcH:
WyU.IttS( iiDED {rrrFN-'to P\rtI I

uHAl {tl.
,

h?r*f $g tqAslttNE&r, cr $tE oV6lY

rtlg@mnof

prw

whvt

fo 14!6 hN{r^Hn, h
fldil ord$i,H,ftr{l6YDrP

llt'e:tusr' ltrutt'ls tlo jttxtilposc llltsl lltttl

[]r'cscrit, tltrtt lowcr right-harrtl pitrrcl sits
irrrrnedirtcly below Art ancl Vlacle k tall<ing
rrt a table where Art's cig:rreffe smoke is

coming orit of the chirnney-l was very

impressed with you when you noticed
that! I didn't mean to hammer that home,
but on the other hand I do believe that
rhe self-destr:uctiveness of mv smoking is
not totally unrelated to the seconclhand

*,**"^66r.loT

gw0irLY r$hl RgnLLY t

memories of secondhand smoke, so I

entered it into the visuals there for what
it's wortl'r. I expected it to be read as

rmoke corning ,,ur ol thc crematorjtttn

chimney, br-rt it wasn't, sigh, lost on me
tlrar ir lrrd rutotlter implicrrion.

aC

GE
close-ups on Vladek's face. Had I sl-rown
three panels of progressive close-ups
across a tier-as I did, say, on page 11.1 ,
where Tosha says, "No! I won't go to their

.;

-Z
4

tt.iil,$ i:[ veryr attq:m{ive ii{} wfiolf Vil,*etcil:

s[] *hrr?\,{itil*}.is {.qri i}t!il{
urliort h.r ["w*:lr,rJ fl"*rm ftttrl*rs,

FRlltUl duAll

gas chambers!

{i4.,,ileliI'd xri}r;

book work.
Here, on page 229, it's almost se[ up as 2r
rhytlrm: there's the progressive two-panel
close-up. But instead of the third panel of
the close-up on that last row, what you
heve is whar he's witncssrng ls nn inter

ruption of what
would have
been a more glib
zoom into his
glasses. At that
point you're
entereci into the
chimney that
lets you know

Vo iARD igour?tc o
il!/r/trri{
t trtt ldlrArr
o.rt (tl{TALl+l6

what's being
slrown and disnrrllrtleLl ()n thc
pltgcs ;t ftt'r.
1i.r"i

,i

!,1,',

ll 1

l.

suys,

"'l

lt;rrrl,l

(iorl willt l'ttsts /)/// (ltrl(lr(

ltrc srrltc'." I trit'tl showirrg t rrtr llt u'lr,tl

Vlrdck wus tlcscr-ibirrg llrrrt lrt lt,ttlttl rlt

clriltl l,v llx

rr

tr,

which is swirrgirrg e snrell

against a wrll ro jtrsr, litcr:rlly, lrrrslr llr.rt
kid's brains oLrt. An(l I felt lil<r'trttl slt.\,t,
ing it would lrc to trot rtcl<rtowlt'tl1it' rvlr.rl
actually was clottc ,ttttl tlt,tt,"' tottlittt lvi lrttl
to show, on the othcr h:ttrtl, r,vrts l() ttt()\'(
in the direction of sortrcthittg tlr:twrr l,v,
say, Graharn lrrgels in rrn oltl L( I lt,,t t ,,r
comic book. Grirntl (iuigllol wrts ttol rn'lr.rl
I was after, so insreacl I clrtrw tlrt' ,rr'lirtrr ttl
lr'11',

swinging, rather than the rcstrlt.

There's a panel in which r ttcrrr silltottt llt'
o{ the Nazi is swinging sonrc lirtl by tlrt l, 1l"
but you iust see the leg, thc swirrgirrli
as representcd by a sw,,,r1ri1|1i.111i1v11
the spattering, bttt lltt'rt'is tr,r
focus on what that spatter ecltr;tllv is. Arr,l
then, where one miglrt scc tltc golt irr tlrr'
next panel on the wall, yoLr scL rr hit ,l
the spatter, but it's covert,cl by,t lr,tll,,,,rr

line-and

And my childrer.r won't

go to their gas chambers"-it wor-rld've

been a classic Har:vey Kurtzman trope.
He used those progressive close-up beats
for dramatic effect in lots of his EC cornic

rl,ry wlrilc thr'\, rvt rc irr lritlirrli,rrr,l Vl,r,l,'l

I tried to stick f:rirly closely to what was

actuall.v scen and told by Vladek. For:
example, on page 110, Vladek says something like, "They were taking people to
Auschwitz, over a thousand people, some
kids were screaming, and they couldn't
stop, the Germans swung them by their
legs against a wall," and this is why it was
important to Vladek to send his son away.
Now, he explains that he didn't see it with
his own eyes; sorneone told hirn the next

of Vladek and Art irr rhc prt'st'rtt, wlrt rt

Vladek very specific:rlly says, " llris I tlrtlrr't
see with my own cycs, bLrt sotttt'llotll lltr'
next day told n-re..."Ancl thrrt hrrllo,,rr
actually covers up thc gorc th:tl ottt rr,'otrlrl
otherwise be loolcirrg at. I wrts llyirr)' l( ) rl( )l
be coy, and

not bc

g,ory.

Cttttpfitl,;qr,
&{Ittfi GS Cuittgft.

I'ro raf

fro

lggf,uAek
S112 qrt,ist
begen de'
s*ibing his
September

llth norning
aad onU

got up to
itbout

9:15..,

Coasidering that it
takes h;m
at least a
month to
complete
eaeh fige,
he',should've

stafted this
uweei,b"
serrgs ra
$eptember
t999 to get
it dltotd by

A{ter the attack,

. Nadja', rcho"I
beeame a rercue
ccnter. The kidr
$Qre ten.l to
0nother;ehoo[,

'

',l/udgmeit
-:
Day,,,) |
I .,;,, .i

{h s
x

t,t': i l-.

4:.{-a

ii$.f t l}ut g trttiti

i.uly lur.:l fui;u{r. ih,*t

tire

1r*u*:,*r,{'

!,

tl*,111*

Sorv\e

I
1

collel.rrE

o,*

?rQ.?

cla iot'.

krd

rrra ,

lN

fnl,'hlHF(
wAy TllE 66f,rrrArlr IREFIED

oNa,

;#

l*c a

l'(drtn tPa.

aroav

[.lr*tn *nitq:rt*$,

Dealing with suffer:ing-or any

91661 1eo*

fronr 6ro'1 tae6.

*V-

*ili\

uouler Manhattan

,' o't r, '':tc.h', brqu.r

L
that nrake, ,Lovp

rere tt,r,lle{

gin'

thing else-there's :r dialogue

going on ir-r ruy head that consists of at least two voices: one
voice trying to get something
slid, antl rnothct itrtcrrttplirtg
t() I tlk Jl)(,u1. ltrrw it': gcttrlrg
:Jirl. I r'JIr'l ttrItt tltlt oll tvrrt
whcn I'nr worl<ing. lir have
strlrl.rcssctl it woulrl havc cLtf
rrrt oll frottt ltto trrLrclt of how I
:tl)l)t( lr( n(l tlrt w,,rl,l-

5cme parcntr wero- upJet

that their kid< ..o,rra nitl

{UE

Llff

91rrL HAg ruR\tYEP ft Ltf{Le

,f

Yr:tl ll,tvt- ',otrtt rr.lr I 'r,'rl'

ctrtttt", r)!t yotrr '1"'rl't' -1"
lltt lrrr<tk 1lr.rl'.'ry tliirr 1= lfl
"l lct'l lrLc I rr" r . !rlr: '! +
".
11,1lrl lo llr( rrr.rl. rl,rl
|

1,1.

111,

..,,r,1

l'(, rrr'., rr l,,rl,

rtrl""l
l',,',,'

t,'tl',r'l'r'''t'
rrl'r, l, ', I'r""1"
i
l',,r 'l
l,\\'.
l,rrrrl
,,rr, 1,,,' l 'r 'il
llri
',rr
111, 1,,,,1,1,,r,1
l'
lllr rl |rrr ''l
'.r\
rl r,,l ll',.'.1 ,,' i "'
ll

r|ri,r

"tl"'1,"''1

lr, |

il
"

'l

'l

veek
llf ,Sf
n de>ing his
iember
rnorning

(,'! i=r---rr.

\9

i')

onlY

up

to

,1 !:15,,,

;ider-

'het ;t
s him
as/ a

th to
plete

pF,ge.

hould've

'ted lhis
r*lY "
eS ta

r,

tenbcr

I to get

After the attack,

/ totd bv

'gment
,, ,)

bgcame A Yercve

center, The kidr

uJere Jent to

Nadja', rcho"l

0nother gchool,

fome parcnty wero. up,Gt

Jonac

collel- ?re.? cla to,r,.

tt.rille{
..,u/e
"rer"
p*
tla , arlav
kid

t
t, '';tch, breut

LorrEr Manhattan

Atbetlos,
PCBI . rA,

that their kid< ..o,erq'iifl

o,r

A,

droxq61, 3r,o

that rnal(et Lova

Q36sl lao- ':1.a6
l,dr(n ,Pa.

I
q fron 676q { 7eri,

-7-

t:

?fr,

I
lN THr' \^JAY lttg GRMArtr lRfrrgD

oN,
Ilt.rlirril n,ith sufl'cring ()r rlny-

lst tht'rc's :r tlirrl<>gLre

on irr rrry hcetl rlrrrt c()ll
r,rsls ol rrl It:tst trvo t,oiccs: ottc:
I

lrrrr:. t

t,,,

rirrr,,

\ (,rr

lr \ ntl,,

l') l1r'l sotlrllrtntl

,.rr,l. .rrr,Lrn(,1ll( r ilrl( r'r'ltlll lilrl

r,, r rll. .rl',Irt l]')\v tt'\

',,,r,1

l',(

lttilll

I,.rr'l lurr lltrrl ollcvcn

l'rrr r,r,r,r'liirrri- lir lrrrvr'

rr lr, rr

,,rr1,1,r,,,.,,1

it rlorrl,l lr.rvt trrt

oll lr(,lr l()r) tlu,lt ol lt,rrv

.rI'1,t, lr, rr,I IIr u',,r l,l.
rrrc

v'lHm 91rLL HA9 rrr&\rYEp

{llE

Llf{

h LTITLE

Viltl
u

hu^lur

rrtr.[*]s

{J,{

f'!:tii t$(.j

io tc []o(,'l{

Xd{,r(.{[ c-trt:rtl{r1

5,rl ror

thtl t:rrimiq: lfI'tt 5.1/ nN1isl^11. lri<r',

' l {ilrl illl{{: I t]q::vflt c,rt ilt tl ,r
t'rqi\t

trrlr

ilrq: xlral,;::l'ia{

"

I lilic tlr,'w()r'(l "rrr,rl( rr.rl.'

l)('r'rlils( ll lrotlr lrr tltt',', ttr 1,.t, l.
trt lltL' 1i;tttttt ttl rlt',lt tr I, lt,,trt
wlri.lr rrs l.,tslrrrr I tttt,lrt .ttt
Ir'\'\'s \llt.ltl1',, lrtll ,tlro l,, , ,ttt',,
ott lltt ottc lr,tttrl. rl .rll,,u',
lttt lrt 0ltlr', lrlt' lrtt lrrrri r'',,, ll
,..r\', '( )lr, rl . ilr.rlr ILtl.
rt': rrol lrloorl ,ttt,l ,ttt, tr
rll, rtt,tlctr.rl '\rr,l,,rr tlr,
,,tlr, r lr,rn,l rt ,,rl',,, ttt,tlr tt.tl

'

r', i{ootrY sNr{l zrrLdL

,r, vALa{ d ru A ,?l?ilro1 .
I

rr llrr's( rs( llrrrt it lt,rs l.lrtilil\,, lvt.iglrt,

.tntl lt'rltrlt lrntl ltlts to lrt ntlrtlc irrto
\(

)r

ncl lt inu.

allow,s thc. photogreph to

c;1r-r.y

thc kincl

of "euthentrcirl'" snapshots crrrry, :rncl

irr.rtlcrrt.rllv .tll,,wr ort, lrr scc.t rrrllyrlr
of thc protagonists, Nrlorl ilncl nre, ir-l il
sunrncr lttttveen trageclies.

"qr Mud.

,'

r 6ue>r {i; M{GHPtr-onoItt.?,

,,MiNtue
M H'M.'-E dat t .A d dKS h( Aofi wsle A'h t&AErU...?@

HIH{o

1 ,ri >Yuor'{,
j*u'ri. 'q,ia
HAuTNL i.tudu
A tNAEd4.
{ / }Rr{eer \'l,rH
fle si\at{r}9. a{*d ilu,yf-^\ iiln?'+'\
L
@ ItL unt{M
u{\d 4
stlAa 0.1 vdlDAr.

\a'5 rl@W.l

&\ie-t{ Difr
o}r

Yotr l<rrorv, sprcacling out w.hrtever

srrapshots I hecl, I thorrgl-rt rh;rt tl'ris inr:rge
both hacl the innoccnce of chrldhoocl rvith

14 tloofa(, x^Urile 6guN6

Urfl i trlAPteot.
ffiE( ssg tuqEU
6! PsLd,f( rt*DiA<

irJVlLlY

,dIE
'.auL9

HRIE Uu P4

fivc fo<;t,tall nrothcr as a largc figurc

lvith mr: krrcelitrg ltext to hcr, but shor.vcrl

n'ry

'l he first photo

thrlr appcrrrs in rhe book is
in "Pr-isoncr orl rhe Ilcll l)lrrnrr," thc stnp
tlrat I lracl clonc rn 1L)72. lt's it photo of
Arrja and Art-l'nt il tc)t ycrtr old l<rcl. r\nci
it scems frierrclly ancl benign, rlnrl scerrs to
have somc. sulrrert to it, ancl offcrccl thc
r r'risrrnilit rrtlt :urtl .rtrl lrorir v rh;rt i,lcrrt r iit.tl
the str:ip ils a truc story. Ar I tinrc lvher.t
atrtobi<tgraphicllI conrics \ ,.ercn't c1urte as

conmon, it seerned irnportant to fincl a

way t() show "this rerlly I'repperrc-c1," as a
phrrrsc'. Ancl

th:rt visual phrasirrg corrlrl lre

lrcr hancl on nr1' heatl r,vith a certrrin

kintl of body lrrlguege rhrrr seid: "Srlrv
srrrell, rty bov. [)orr't grora,, rrpr." lf I try to
unclerstirncl whrrr happcrrecl, prrrr of hcr
surcirlc hati to clo rvith lrccling rnrnroorecl
ils I wils brcaking lrw.:ry ironr the nucle:rr
flnrily. Kccpilre e hand on rr hcarl is botlr
rt n'tltcrull gcsturcl ltut also rr pLrshing

rlr^\lr \\lt,rt r,,ril,.lr,,.l1'\ lt\inH t(r il(.1.ltl\.

lt evokr.s mt childht>otl in rrn ccononric:rl
w:ry rhtt h:ts sonte lhing ir.r colnnron witlr
thc t."vo-pagc prologLre

to

l)lanet. Having ir

in jr-rrtaposition
with tlrat

$X
t,.,

expressiolrisr

tlrarving stvle

d,ftr h

Ue

li

t."

rN

uibixli

aeEbl,^lr 0^rE Mt !6r.

i x;r:,te J e "t]$+E@"a\

@TWry]

s,ffiffiffifrffi
.rftr

M";;i; r",.,{ \
'. ".'-J;;;
Ll"itl
i nr6 6sJtrr6sr-s! ,r:;
.

i
't rl i {,dd il !al6E {rdf+l rFr'@d^rH I
' I trirAd. td M'( ttCr,$r' IHffi' /

od 1*E o(s4,
ttidD, &qlfl
oUlS 6 gqL

Nr(\ vlAoff
Arr0 \lo9 ou@
6loFff 'r Vtr4ovf '

;sffi$iffffiu"
t{ |ffi.
H6t
F*9 De.S6 s olru] ruR@
HAle ii 6U6L

uet
'LrFg{AuL

uV9 ftt HqE

rl

rf,lf;

>*,.' :

irl

'I-u

.frdn

h*e o@ME a 9G{oR'

HL'e

Li6

i{}*E g6@fl6 A 9@(Ofl. l+,9

st

nJi

tAfgrtr, hr h,, aF..

drawirrg nrice for pcop[e, any\\,'iry. lnstead I

had this kincl of vulnereble looking rnouse
shown r'vith the scritchiness of [inc] that
indicates :r clr:rrving of or from a photo.

,s

'I'hc- next actual photo

()ne thar starts volurne

in thc book is the

two, thc photo
graph of Richieu as a yor.urg boy that hur-rg
in my parcnts' bedr:oonr.

son who was lost.

[t's rrseful fo see thlt

photo, to h,rve thc

Lttle sirnple gl,vph

of the photo tl-rar

Oh, rt's the plroto-it chose me! It's the

one that's referrecl to in the drive to thc
Catskills; t[.re photo that was hanging u1r
()vcr the Lrccl as a large lrkrw upr frorn e
srrrrI picturc, so it's rr lirtlc ghostly.
Alrtl :rl llrt' lrortt ril lltc st rorrtl lrooli, il
f,rrrns rr liirr,l ol l,,rorrnrlinti,.l tlri: rt.rl

pcr

"1r1,

*'-'ry
&

apperrs elser,vherr
in the book as a

rlrawing... [t ckrcs
a lot of work lry
bcing up front
over thcre.

r.rrii

t ',,.'

-[lrt'pltotos trrrttc orrt .t ltil rrtorr'

ortltttir':rlly tltrur llr.rt. Iltt plrolo.l l(r, lrr, rr
It,rv,'r'r'tl,rs ii l)r'(s(n(( ()\'('r nr\,, Irl,llt,,,,,1,
ils s;li(l rl lltt lr,r,,li, lrrrt I lr,rrlrr't tlrorrlilrt
;tl)()ul rl r)n( \\1.tI or .trtolltrt lol Al,lr'. l',rrt
rvc lr,r,l 1u,,1 lr,r,l.r l.r,l..rrr,l l,r llrcrr I l.rr, rr
No.

tlil

",iii.

s. So rr A\ql[u
ur tg
sif
. : nulL
4.hv,!l
Jr P

tr-H t

l.l

66ft, EF

Rwoqt

gctting usccl tc, r.r'ry c-ocl<eyerl norion of

It's very cliffcrcnt th:rn a photo of r\n jar
cvt>kecl ()n p:lH,e 19, whcre VIatlc-l< has a
plroto oi hcr orr his rrrrrnte lpiece. I corrltl
havt 1.rut s()uic l)rcwirr phoro ol Anja there,
brrt it i,vould hrrvc becn prcnratll r. to h:rve.
iltsistt.tl,rn Ilrc olrjr.rrir,. r,,rr.cl,llir,. tlr,rt
a pl-roro rvotrltl invoke, rvhcn one's stiIl

. .,,:al.:
-*t"
r ':'l

)
,ilAfr{gf.z-

daR R{ eF4q)$1&Al@

{M
v.;s Au Kr)et oto/A
i. o(MrA,

aH{

U{}t*t

r...ori <XeoftERHND Arql@'

!9ULI Oa PaL urfr {L^ff
swt.E

i,'-isf$#S#ffi#.-*
t\tSR1u

Vglrcd-,

trBadc

MLtLts.

ckine by holcling

that photo up in
front ol' thc I Ie ll

6rre<-,wuR$fr .Xrf
,,|

rN

^YED

t$ t@ts{, Hrrrr'rl6

H d!,
0$1&6g
rF n\4,0 ub fllruL
E' &Agrt !; tr^v
4\
'{affii1,rre
{w
dmi a\r{y'(A

1,,,ftr*'
.?* i;
HE Rhp,rN ropz, A 6raLFR\EHD-A {
L\XE9 MqT{EYANP
ETAUTY- gW

rtraircuues IHN
'H THtGERI{hg{ooK

AUA!

trE

F,\C{oRv FRol{ nil.}15 fAmlLY

lff {\lt, n cfuR At.$A{t

HqSrrnu rbid N rrt, DE k,l.

AFllh

that the book was sort

of soins to be for my chilcl, or eventual
clrilclren ro come. And then sornel,row the
slraprc of the story came together, which
rrrclLrclecl realizing that my phantorn
hrorhcr was a presence through not iust
rrry chilclhood, but now somehow sti[l
lrov,'r'nrg evcn in tlrc irrtct.r icrv momcnts
with Vlrrdek. And instead of a pl.roto
ol rny own kicl, I realizecl: well, no, no,
this other;rictr-rre is far more locked into
tht' nrrrrativc., and it allowed for each
rrrc

rlr,
1

nrber of nr,v childhood family to have

rt,,gr'.tphit t'e|t-cs('ntat ion.

a1

'I hc photo
tirat I needed to have most
slrccilically-itr thc book I even talk about
"l rrt't.rl ro lt:rve tlrtrt photo, you,ve gotta
Iirrrl tlrlr photo"-was the one that Vlirdek
lr.rrl rrs :r "sotrvcnir" of lris time in tl,re
( .rul)s. I l<rrcw holl, inrportant this
was to
tlrt t.rrtirr. project, arrd I knew tl-rat placing
rt r,v.rs irrrPor-tltnt. It h:r(l f() c()lne some_
rlIrcrt ;rlrrt'r' otht'r rhings hacl happc-rrccl
rt Ilrt lrool<. Ilv thc tinrc ()n(' neilrs fhat
l)r)lnl in lltt. lt;rr-1.;tlivt', ont' elrelrcly h:ts,r
vlt1, , 1, ,,,- Irirtrrc ol rvho Vl:rtlcli is, cvclt
llrorrllr orrt lt.rsrr"l il r ltr(. ils lo wlt:tl ltt.
I,','1., lrl., .\rr,l vtlr.rt l,..r.rrrrt. \,) ltt(.t(.\tuu,.

Hun? utYlgP" Doltu6o?

t,if

to me wils the photo-the thing tlrat gives

you that "objective correlarive,,-tells you
so insanely little. 'Ihe fact thar it's a posecl
photo, after the fact, where he,s clonning a
costurre version of his uniform...
l{'n *}m*r*t $it*r,ro1$y" urrh,*llmtulh}*.,
rt't s# r;ty*$j{,r' . , .

It's so ofJ. I mean, 1,ou do get real

inforrnation from it. You get to find otrt
that, well, he was a fairly goocl-looking guy.
You can verify rh:rt, this Rudolph V:rlentino
stuff wasn't only self aggrandiz_ernenr; l-re
was perceived as attractive by wornen. Bnt

theret also the jerunrincss of the angle at

which he carries the cap, and his fLrll, full
face, fuiler than it wars when I knew hin.r
ancl probably fr-rller rhern it was befor:e the
war. This fr-rllness was a kincl of flesl.ring out
after the years of starvationl but doesn't
tell you about those yetrrs of stervation.
And tl.re r:elative high-spiriteclncss of the
facial expression ancl the hat just seemecl
so at oclds with the person thar I'd come
to know throrrgh ar1 entire lifetirne as we [l
ls tllr()ueh thc convcrsations about what
lrt lrerl gonc tlrrouglr. So to hc lcft witlr e
plroto llr:r( tt'lls y,ou solrrt.lhitrg, lrrrr orrly irr

L1

,,\ll rr&<

ak

r.aV'.@td ;W
\,r,/t,"^\'t
y
.Rffi
r&r xra odd

-t"41/n

,o t\6 [hD ,Eg

Mo$fiAsD ti6
Lff,T HIM ATID {
urE9 \{[AlELf.

rrr nry inrnrediate firmily in ar_r

crrcapsulated nlanneJ. Coing over

SffihHffiffi,ffi

these photos laid out over rhe

page
aliows for rarher telegraphic, bui
efficient information about brothers,

uncles, whatever. And, very specifi_

cally, these photos allow one to
see

mAR(ur,r\v ClorEri
lvrorS Drxf {o A ai

things about Anja,s fanily-not

Vladek's fan'rily-because those are
the photos that survived. Whaft
left are only early postwar photos
of Vladek's brother who managed
to hide in Russia, and was living in

! ,6}}I1Hfr\ MDdEy
oYt{E RDc&6t.,

I Hro rT rrt(o 0nElb.

Israel.

But tl.re photos of the Zylberberg

family survived because thev were
parr of the possessions pur in sa[e_
keeping with the polish governess.
furniture and stuff
and wouldn,t give that back, but
since the p}rotos l-rad no meaning
for
her, they were passed back to
Anja
and made it to eueens, where I
was
able to see them. In most of them,
I jusr have no idea who rhe people
were, and never will know.
She kept rheir

.
'-

r('latron to the drawn and written

telling
ilroun(l it, informs what you thought
y;u

l<ncw by making you re-examine

it.

What about the pdlges that

eame befsre with
the drawings of meny/ nn6h), famil!, plrstos?

Afrer Viadek
finally has ur.rearthed this box
of photos, it's a
way to at least
begin to under-

But the accumulation of photos becomes

somerhing. On page 275 thereis a pile-up
of photos ar rhe boftom of the page
that
somehow refers back to the pile
39

it

of bodi..

fl_eeds ofT the page.

moqs pictqres
Here it's Vladek
who's commenting
on the pictures that
did survive. Some of
those photos had the
kinds of damage that
include faces cut out

stancl tl-re clestinies

of other pcople

ofa photo. ..

AB0V[: I)rafl,0,lq0 ?i/6. I FII: Sturty, paqe

275

lll(llll: l,iil(,k, lirrah, lrv,,tn(i./il)orn, l94u

lA(:lN(; l'A(;l : l,r(,w,1
l)holr)\ lrrrrrr /\111,1.,,,111111111

222

The pile of anorv_

f
{

Ruchla Karmiol

l,,rael ltzak Zylberberg

(ca. 1883-1943)

iiir.riti fi)* ilidl,rl,'il( ii(}i.ll

ri,

,,$,,:t

.,;"

tirjl.yr5q;l{ ,, li,:tr
:rl

.,".ir

9"

l{

Heschl Karmiol
(?-1941)

(?-1941)

'ri

!,i}q,1r,a

1i!tiiiil.i*t*1{t

w,it}y

illili ti.**,L
,.

!.ir:

h.rli

Malka Karmiol
(?-1943)

Wolf

VLADEK

Steinkeller
(1905-r943)

SPIEGELMAN

(1905-r982)

).

,:;:fut,r,liit_{.ti

itl

likely she,s al>sent becanse

she was
tor..l l,rrL1.1. Brrr Ilrcsc tirirrg,

Mt>r:c
rrst.tl

h.rr,,
rnLrlri;rle ineanings. Vlaclek
i, ,..:, .lgl_,,
lrchincj that cur_up phorograph
rv:rs goine

as

irg rlrr.hol,._b1 rellirrg. Hi. [...

t

if

he

to put his head through ir,

fill_

ht. nrirsirrg fircr.

r"p1,,.:,:,

Alrtr:rddressing rhe clesrinv

of Anja,s
ha,-l to fincl a way
of talking about
\/lrrtlt'l<'s sicle of rhe famiIy
r,vithout e ven
;,1r,r1,,, 1,,1:,,1.1 thltr
[rl.rcc. 5u Vladek,s
t)'.,(l\ lt.l\ lo 11,,f,1 tlr:rl
pl;rtr on ltilSc 2_O.
lt's;rrrolhcr orre of thosc
casc.s whcre thcre
r\ tl)ill sulx.rintpose cl gricl
on u n,qu.. ,tr";'
Ir.rr.t ls Ill-rrrrtlr st.vlr;rI
ll;rlrcls, sirrril;rr.
r,) tlr(
',rr,.,,1 Vi;rtlt.L orr lht.l.rt.l.tyr.lt.

Cynthia

RICHIEU

(b.1950)

(1937-1943)

s.i

lrlrrrlv I

.rt tl1,

l,,,,lr

,l

FRANq0tSE
MOULY

(b.1948)

(b. r9s5)

Allison (b.

',,,s!lst:,

l'11,111111ilr_ of 1f11.1r,,,,[.
V1,,,1,.1,,
lr;rs t() sliur(l irr tirr rrll
of lht, botlics

tlr,rr rlirlrr't u);rli(, it

r

ART
SPIEGELMAN

r rrrri

l,

ilto tlrt. ll,,,,r 1rrcrr,,,t.

trr,tlii.st.tlrtt.trt.r.s Ilr;t1

,,,_,:

lrtrt rrrl rrr.rrriIulrrlivi. is

.r lr it Lr, lrusirrcss.
Itttt uttt.ut r rltli11,,.,, rtrt
lt,t.tt.

DASHITLI

,,,,,r.i,,,,

_, i_)

(',*-r\

(b. 1991)

r*

.v

ing messages. Because of what had happened

Abran'r, 'Wolf decided

The Zaglebie district was homc t() rnost ol tlr.

to my aunt [,orre, lWolf receivcd threatening

the 6r:st to be occupied by the (icrrrrrrrs, I lr,.

German army invaded Polarrd on Septt.rrrl,t.r I ,

to his brother

it

large Szpigeln'ran famil6 and its towrrs u,,.r,.

was
time for his farnily to leave Poland. Accordir-rg
messages and one

night was 6red upon as he

walked hon-re. He clodged his assailant,s bullets and escaped in rhe dark of the night. Wolf
and his wife, Sura l{ywka, gathered their six
children and headed for Schopenitz (Szopien-

1939. \Xrithin days, the Germans ser lirt.ro syrr

agogues in Sosnowiec, Dabrowa (irirr r it.zrr, .r r r, I
Bqdzin. Almost irnmediately, thc Nezi :trrllrol
ties enacted repressive anti-Jewish rcgtrlrrt iorr:.
By the end of 794'l all Jews werc corrrpcllt.l 1,,
move to distinct sections; this was lirllowt.rl l,r
depor:tations to forced labor canrp,s.

ice) across the German border.

I recently

became atuare of the scrtpe ctf

my second cousin Simtm Spiegelman,s
forty
years of genealogical research into
our sha-recl

family. Hk extensiue and ongoing u,ork of

scholarsbip, retrieual and *"*or, ,an h,,'
found ,,n tbe DVD thot accoml,,rnies rltis
book. (No eqttiualent work has been dctne
cyt
the Zylberberg family.) part of his norratiue
ltist,'ry sppr'sys helow alotrg with truo
kt,t,
ch-arts that offer a
fractal snapshot of the fate
of Eastern Europe's
_a.s.

.lews.

YMffi

$fiPIffitrIMA}.{

F,&M$I"V

!N PMLANffi

rtror n)any gerrerarions. rhe l;rrgc Szpigelnran

clan had homes within the Zaglebie -iistrict

Silesia, coverirrg a hrb of adjoin_
ing towns that spanned Dabrowa G6rnicza,
Sosnowiec, Bgdzin, \7olbron, Slawk6w.
anj
Zrwiercie. Thr rcgion is rich ilr ut_rrl tlepos_
its, and so it has been an area contested
bv
Celrnrrns and pole: ovcr lhe Ilrl two
hun.lr"i
y_ears. It is today part of poland
bor:dering

of Upper

(lzechoslovakia in the
south ancl G.r.nr.ru t,.,
the north and west. Our earliest familv
re.ollcctions go back to my great_great grandfather, Majer Szpip;elman, *ho *r,
born"around
Itl20. He spenr his days observing the ,.n_ritz_
votll" ()r goocl deeds, engaging irrprayer and
'l'rrlnruclic
study. His spouse, Zysla, sustained
thc fnlrrily by r-r-rnning a small glocery
store in
Woll'rorr. I heir oltL,sr sorr, Cheim l eib.
horn
ilr lS lli, w;rs rlr,. Irr.()H(.rrif(,r 9f my lrranclt i,

rlr,. lirr,.

ol tlr.str.nt.

( llrrrirrr l,(.il) ilnr;lss(.rl

rt Ior(urrt,lr-orrt vcrv rrrotl

lst

1r1

1,111111111,..

Wlrt,rr lr,. rr..rr Irt.rl .,,1,,1..r.,.,,.,.,

Itir rrt,rllrcr (ilrt( lrl) witlr llrt,itlt.;r 9l plrrlrrt

rrtli ,.urrll( \ rrr lrlr Lrtt lrr n rrrrrr1,, sllrrl,l1.
11.111,1

n-rolds. She sold rhe candles in her

store and
the surplus tct other merchants. It g.r..rt.J
imnrt,diate irrcornc and flreir store g..*
irr, a
shop producing Sabbath and geneial-purpcrse
c:rndles. In his Iate teens, Chaim Lei[r
started
selling the produo in adjoining localities
and
eventrially larger cities such as Katowice.
Sos_
nowiec, and Krak6w. Tl,re factory dicl
weit and
the lamily prospered. Chaim Leib mzrrriecl
_F.ei_

gla Szpringer: in l85g; they had six

sons antl
daughter:s. Chaim Leib,s sons and
sonsin-law were eirh(.r engilged in unr of his

two

husi_

nesses or: in ones he helped fir_rance.

Chairn
Leibt son Wolf was my grandfather.

'i7olf Szpigelman,s flight from poland in 1922

was told to me by my aunt Lorre and
a bit
by rny mother; Rose, Another ver:sion
was told

by my f;rther's 6rsr cor-rsin Vlaclek Spiegelrnan;

narratives are, in all llkelihoocl, frJgrnents
of the sarne story.
th_e

According to my mother, the months follow_

ing the annexation to poland ir.r October
192
were uncertain for the German population
in
the region, but p:rrticularty p..ltom for
the
Jews who had symparhized with the German
cause during the 191,4*1918 war. They
were
now labeled "German coIaborators.,,
Accorcl_
1

ing to Rose, Abram Szpigelman, Wolf,s

broth_
er and Vladek Spiegelmant father, was
singled
out by Polish na tior.ralists and arrested.
Abiam
was iailed ir-r the local pr:ison that faceci
one of
Cha irn.l.erh's lrrr il,lings. At r hc
a 1.pr,inrt.tl rirrre,
whcn rhc prisoncrs *e.e ,,ll,r*ecl to c.xcrcise
in

fhc ccntr:rl corrrlyurcl of thc prison, n.rcutbcrs

szpillt'lrrrrrn cl:rrr woultl sl;rrrtl orr lht.
t.oollop ol ;lr,rtl;oilrirr;l lrtril,lirrll itr( ()1tl)il1i(,(l
lry llrr rr , lrilrlr, rr w:rvnrJ,, l() Al,r,r,rr.rrr,l riy,,lr.rl

ol thc

Abram's sorr Vladek provicies another facet of

the story. As he tells it, the family's assets had
been liquidated during the hard times following
the First \X/or:ld War, and they were desperately
looking for a source of income. A seltzer factory
was still in the family's hands even though the
brewery was idle; it was capable of distilling
and bottling spirits. Abram and lVolf saw an
opportunity in producing vodka. The dernand
was high and sales very pr.ofitable. T'hey did,
however', lack a license or "government seal,,

By mid-1942 rransports fronr rhc Z;r1,,lt.lrrr.

towns were systematically carryirrg lrrlrr.ur
cargo to Auschwitz, only thirty nrilcs ;rw:ry. lor
annihilation. The largest round up irr Zrrlllt,lrit

took place on August 12, 1942, wlrcrr .50,0()t)

.|ews in Sosnowiec, Bgdzin, and I):rlrr.,,rn,.r
G6rnicza were assembled in rhcir lot.rrliricr
for selection and deportation.'l'hrrr tl;ry,,rl
most all of the Jews of Soslrowit.c ) l,OOo
people-showed up at the towrr socrt.r licl,l
that had been designatcd as thc;rssr.rrrlrly.rrt,,r

from the new Polish authorities, who had

t:rken over the local administration in October
7921. The blothers and a cousin, Rafnietz,
decided to manufacture vodka using the idle
fermentation and distillation equipn'rent. The
process would provide carbon droride for
carbonation in the soda water plant. Rafnietz
put up the rnoney for the conversion, \7olf sold
the spirits, ar-rd Abram ran the inside operarion
with Rafnietz's sons. It was a very lucrative
business, but short-lived. Difflculties arose
when they refused to bribe a Polish worker to
gain his siler-rce; [-re subsecluently denounced
tl'rem to the Polish authorities. Abram irnd
[{afnietz's solls were arrested whcn the factory

was raided by the policc'ancl \flolf, upon

lcarning the bad news irr rhe streets, hopped
rr trollcy ancl crossed over to Sclropcnitz, a
(icrrrran town across the rre:rr[>y l]ryrricl rivcr.
Ahlarr ancl I{aflictz's sr)ns wr:r"c dcfcnclctl by
rt prolniltcnr Warsrrw lawycr hircrl by l{rrlrrictz

rrrrrl wcrc rclc:rsctl rrl'lcr. slrt'rrtlirru scvt,r;rl

rttorrllrs in plisorr. Alrr;rrrr r'vcrrlrrrrlly r.t.lrrrrrr.rl
Io Sosrtowit'r ;ttttl lr',,pr.rtr.tl Ilrt st.ltzt r lit( l()ry;
Woll rUrrl All,rrrr rv,.l,, l, r,r'r l,ustnr.ss l),u Itr(,1 :,

ltlrr r,,,;,,, Ir\r',.()11,,. Nl.rr .rrrrl Vl,rrl,.l,,

u,,,ul,l l,r', onr( l),ulnr.r,, .r,, ,lr.rrr,,rr,l rli,rl(.r,, rr
N, rr \,,r l. tlrrr tr r r .rr,, Lrtr
,t1lrtirr. l

for "revalidating"

requir:ecl docrrrrrt.rrts. ( icr

man guards interspersecl with nrrrrnrr,.tl nrt,rn

bers of the Jewish Ordcr Scrvrcc ur-1.()un(lr,(l
the crowd as they enterc.l tlrc socct.r f it.lrl.'l'lrr.
exits were blocked by Cicrnran grrirrtls irr rrr.r
cl'rine gun enplacements. ()vcr lt.rr tlrorrs,rrrrl
people were thus "selectctl" rrrrtl st.nt to llrlrr
deatl'r in Auschwitz sevcrill rlays lill(.r.,
.l

In the spring of 943, thc

re rrr;rinirr1,,

lt.lvs rvr.rr.

ordered to ntovc ilrto lwo rrt.i1,,lrl,,,r.lr,,r,,l,,;

I(anriorl<a, ncllr llgrlzirr, rurtl Srrtlrl,r, rr,.,l
S<tsnowicc. l-hc two silcs lror-tltrlrl r..rr lr otlrr.t

and constitrrtctl u siltglt, 1llrrllo.

I lou,r.r,r,r,

Aktioncn-systt.rrr;ttic rorrrrrl rrlrs ( r)nlrrur.rl,

with ll rn:rjority st.lt'ctt.tl lol r[.Ior t,tlroI t{)
Atrschwitz c:tclr wct.k- ()rr Arrllrrrt l, l,r.l t,
thc firrrrl lir;uitl;rliort ol llrr.lilrltto 1,,.1,.rrr .rrr,l
lrrstctl t'ight tl:rys, tlrr irr1,, wlri. lr .l \,()()() I,r.,,l,lr
wcr-t rlt'por-lt.rl.

()l tlrt

vrrsl Szlri11.lrrr.rlr l.urrlt tlr.rr Ir,lrrrl rr, rl

l'ol,ttttl. vlr y l1 s, il1\rr\'("(lllrl N.rzrlrlitir 1r1tt
()ul rrl tlrr. loo.Ol)0 l,r,.rr.rr lr rrr,,lr r,,,r,l, lr,
ol ,/,ttil, l,rr'. p, t1r.r1,., r,OOO lrrr,l rlrr,,rri,lr rlr,
I

l,,1.,

r,',.r

ES
EG

.F

EET
o@
=.9cn
N@
(/,

Gx

Nl
tif

==
6= >;o\
E-co

G6

aOr

x
@.-\b9

EC
I

=grr)
vo\
=o

s'q'R

Ir)
o

EE
Sg

(.,
Eoo

CT\

=P-E

JO\
=E*

o\

>FF

c.)

ud\

-T
(-) F-

E9
E.A

rD

EET
-o cDo
<'a@
N@

(/,

r\l

-Gx
E.9T
U')

E od
Io E+
NfE
y, o\

av

q.0
ott
LL
rt'O

=--

lr .(t,

=3
6

.-)
(_r'

(lJ O-

--r-loi.\o

<.b

==

oo\-m
ai '- o\

E6
-m

-@
lrJ O\
6r

()
o\

5-

.= O\

b.9e

NI
O
ro$

ar1

P's
pSo

899

-G3
ESE

E$$

E
L

,x*

o\

-o'

c
E

.!? f;-s
rT

.9=

,d.3 p
=99

s5
I

5I3

=rn
i9e

sat
US
(uE
LL

=o
6=

'ir

c^

a
E*\r
^ E9
ox6l

,\v

r\I

S=r-<vo

LLo

rt,
^6

r^$
o xo
'-EF

.t^

ES
>ch

Ei-

ro \o

.trs
EF
rv

-'rf
E.3E

Nri
o v,
.<
il\

o
+

o,

Li

ro+

-sA'=

il,

o^

b ts9

(-J

:+o\ 'sr

sfi\O

rv,

E*x

EET
o=o\

aO 'r

5*\
9Ch

iio

a./, a--

6@

99

o
g

G.
m
-qf
6

1'

co

G
6

.u

=!-

.v
d.

E_ Eor
ES
cE
gE
E -E .a.o
E

@oo

BX
AB
ro
co

a-

N@
(r=

==

E^
dO\

6 - EH
t;q@l

cjos@

> = ru@
-!tr
6-

-8f;

s*EB

.ttC\t

ra

==o\
tEl

e cr\o
<-@
-@

f,flEl

ca

.(r

ocN
aT

.-x6

FilffiI

(9^

(ts oo

rn

u ^\o
6o\
o'i
=
9Js
o\

uJ

<coor
-cta-

=Hs
i=
JON

(\
uo\
6 r:-@

<.b

=3

tttl

-T-

l--t

nn

]FFF

\-o

V
Ircf,t- l{ da6 fr-of(E tr$qr l+il^JilIe

Ancl that page is ils good an example as

any of what comics can do that no other

tl-rat nry

medium can: Vladek is in conversation rvith

kept changing.

Art in the sur:rounding panels, but

Fert wf what

im u* mmvlmEJ is that t|.r*

ermptiea{-clutmsss i$ i'}st socmtr{hlng t$.}at

dlu msfre5$*ri$y verba{$y ilr.$d&r$(&re"

Ywr"l

just let

hirm e$"!d k$[s [*n*f;y

*how !t"

It was borne out of the formal problem,

again: what can I show? I ntean, I couldn't
make up phoros rhar didn't exist, though
I did try thar in

son're

early drafts, and I

didn't want to just talk abour Anja's side of

the family because there happer.r to be pl'ro-

*t

Iow;tt'tl rt ptcscttl. ll
gcls lo lltt pttittl trr
Vllrtlt'li's rl;rlrirl I \'('
wltt rc lrc litt r',rlly
sullllcsts Ilrt l l;rl)1,Y

I don't lemember that, but you've gone

(iirl.'l'lrclt's tlrt'

T['rerer's mne

$ket{h mf yatu f*mking

y$ur$*$f im {$ts mirr$r and

*e$f ing yowl"scl{ * rmuerderer.

l')r,-lirrg: l'roy tttt t lr,

[]oy lost's, l]ov lirrtl:

over my notebooks far more recently than

strlry, yoLt l<ttorv i

I have. Ther:e were rnany possible thir-rgs

I was ain'ring for. By the tirne I was really

hapl'rcrts t() ttl( )v('

getting to the serious busir:ess of ending

Maus, all I l<new was thar I didn't l<now
what I was going to clo. I did have to deal
with the fact that Vladek died sor:rewhere
ir.r the making. I gor some of that told
in the "Time flies..." secrion, but it was
in.rportant to the story to allow weight
to whatever closure death brings, and not
just mal<e it an aside. I rhink I gave rnyself
permission to have kids because I no longer
was one, after my parents were both dead.
I began to try ro fir.rd endings that would
have to do witl'r having, ar thar poinr, baby
Nadja. (Baby Daslr wasn'r yer even a gleam
in our eye at that moment.) There's a natllral kind of-again-life siding with life that

would make it

a reasonable place

to go.

tos. The odrer people died just as surely.

I just kept trying things our, and part

Vslu ['$ad y]le[,]y/ m{}e'}y differm*rt }ss$sit}f( ffir"}dlngls f*r the bmmk ftv*r {,*}e yfid}r$. $c} ! $'m$
w$ffide*"im$ $f y<eu eeruid

tatk *fuor,it

ol tltt slot\r ttto\rtll)',

original rrotions of how to encl the

story, which were a iittle bit vague anyway,

he also

looks terribly isolated and alone with the

photographs. It is immediately understood
visuallg but difficult to describe. I rhink
even though he's presumably still on the
couch next to Art, like he is in the two
small panels ar rhe rop...he's nof rhere,
Art's not there. The big picture of Vladek,
his isolation while holding the photo of his
brother Pinek in Tel Aviv, and the scattering
of photos beloq carr:ies some of rhe same
idea of the bursting page that came right
before. It carries rhe same weight but is
now emptied out.

tr

'

xryrmc mf

*hem, arad hclw y*t* dee ideei t@ e&m$trrl**

*he {ost $}&$e thq w(t}, ysr} u*ltirm*te{y did"
I7e1l, as I rnentioned, one issue that came
up was that I naiVely thought I would get
the whole thing done in two years. The

notion of a present and past could have

staycd relatively stable if I cor-rld have been
thrrt cfficie nt. Ilt.rr cverything charrged,
irrtlrrrling nry lrrrthcr's tlt'rrth rrrd tlrc
inlcr'r'ul)liorr ;rrrtl tlivisiorr Ilrrrl r.rrrrrt' Irorrr
lrrrlrli:lrirrli llrt.lrooli irr lrvo p;u.ts. ll rnt.;rrrt

of the ongoing creative block ol Maus

was trying to figure out how on earth
to bring this thing in for a landing. At
some point during the period that I was
seeing Pavel, I remember reading a lot of
irrterviews in the Palis Reuicw-writers
talking about whether they type on 20
pound bond or 16 pound bond and so
on, but in the course of this also talking
about the craft of wr:iting. And in one of
tl'rese interviews-l have no iclea which
onc anyrl()re lrccalrsc I reacl vr>lrrrne aftcr
vol u nrc ol: thosc th i rrgs-thcrc's solrrclrotly
tlt'scrillinl.i lrow irrrporlrrrrt t.rrtlirrlis :u.t,. I
cttrlt tl rrlr rcrrtlilrli llr;rt r;t.vr.r';tl lirrrt.s ovt r..

lt's jrrst tltrt( "losr";"

you thr()uglt lllt'
rarilrtlrtl (t'itt lis Io
Auschwitz. lltrt lrt'
meets Arr jir, ltt'lt,s,,,
Anja, lrc gt'ts Atr;,r;
on solltc lcvt'1, llr;rl':;
his story, rrs lrt'tclls
ir. So it rIr()v('s lll)
to thilt poitl{ wlrt r,'
thcy firrrrlly, :rltt l
everythiltg. rrrt'irr
thc slttttc ltltysi.;tl
sprrcc :t13rtirr. l lrt v"r t'

knottctl togt'lltt

'J;/f tygd,*va rql{-t{go

in
linirlilll,rndiYascorl0c{0di0Mi}v11onliriilth0secoildilriiliirq)'

;lralt,F,r{){) 2?5(fli$tdhen*eathriaiilf*rAnji},Aullst?l,apirrnre{l

The writer was using the rnetaphor of

weight, saying the last chapter weighs
as much as all the chapter:s that came
before, and basicaliy each paragraph i1
that chapter [-ras to double in weigl-rt untii
one gets to the last paragraph, where each
sentence has to clouble in weigl-rt. And the
iclea of that weight, ol tltilr atrchor thet

r..

'l'hrt in s()nl(' w;l\rs'

,r .,r,. .',,,i',,,',,,,.''
sttlrY, rtlttl il's lit l't
tlrr:rc witlt lllis tttrtott

,rf tlrt,lr,rrr,.yrrr,,,,rr,
its rt vt't y
agrtitt,
of tl-rem embracirlg
(lorl't
to tt ll vort,
"l
rr('('(l
end.
satisfying
lr'r1'1'v'
wt'livt'tl
htrppy,
vcry
we wele botlr
happy ever after."''l hrcc lirtrt's "lr'r1';'1""
]flrich is htrrtlly sorrrcthirrg tlrrrt lrt'l,ls rrl',
after h:rvirlg livccl throrrlllr st't'itt1" rvlr.tl
Vlaclel< is lil<t: rrow (tltrlt's sotttr'ltttrt' .tllIt
"evcr rtftct''" I sttPPost ), rrrrtl sr,t irr1', Arrl'r"'

holclsr.vcrythingclscth,tlc:tttrcbr.'l6rc postw:rrlilt' sltt'ttttlttl it lr'rstll \rrll'

ol tllrrt tlitlrr'l lcl lltt'lrook t trtl trt 't rv tl
irr plrrcc,,tllow.'tl rrre lo lirrrrlly lirrtl wllrrt
slttrslictl (ltt.lt0ol<'s

llLtt wotrltl lrt';rrrytlrirrll otlrt-t llr.ltl l'.rrtr'rl

t.(,(lt,il(.1il(.il1s.

tr irrv,lvtrt';r'r,r'r.rl rlr rrri. I1,, *'lr,,l,

,lt.t1rl,tt',.tr.tlltrtrll,.ll'',irlrlr,lt',t',t"tt

rll

l.t',r

'il]:':]:l'']],.,'"1"'i'1"1"""""'l";;']'':,"'";:l'"1];
Ilt'lll'r'r'r'otllt'tlltr"ttt'

.,ttt

rJtr^\ tr iilr,\\()ll()l u.)llt

l)lnl

ur s.)1lrl)
s^l

rI

rLI

.rr.rr1
),\,\

I Irrrl irrrp ."r,rr1.1u.r

;-t r r.r u.l

11

11.1

11;1 1g1

PJ,\\()rls J ir.)LlA\ U,,\\()rls s.)utJ,,\^

1() ;rptsdrg JIII ro,J s^\olJE rsul

1r llr1.);r, ol r,'ltry puu )lrpr:l^

JO Jtro]sLlruol cr;l Lro prasrocl
)Jooq slorJ^\ f,Ll] J^PL[ o] os
'ltr.rorrrJirr rr .JIpu r,...r azt
q u,l
u Jo uots.rtl Itrr :>1r1 lJLu r(!
1 t

'J9 ol

s^rtll sA\oJlll Jrr()ls-quro]

1] Uo t)-J-r

.i.roh-

lBr[] Io
Htrr;tcl

IJrr JADLJ ()1.

olur plclr:qs

rrJJ(l srrrl,{1:r1crur1In lrrLJr\\ LIFn()JLJI

orro8
l\^tll JA,JA\ iilr.rls t: Bur;1ar oltir
IJ JJ Jrlros
rrr.>
1-r.r1Jrrd uaacl ELn,rt:t1 qo Eurqt lrql sr r,rJrll
rr-a

-t

I I

p I rr rlr
):r{)

:'J'

"

srll J-rJFJ.SrreA

Jr';::':l:li:irl:[]

11113,111 li-ul Jr[] ul

tri-r^ ol
)rilLll l,rrop I tE(Jl Jir()ls^qLUol
t ullrll .,{JIUnltt,:ttr o]
Inla-rilrrt)Jrrr Jt()l\

luoH l:,ta

J.,\.J

'Jlt)JotLrJrlrLtro-)

ol ltr^\ |] (JLLr JOJ .s^U,\ ]r

.ur(l 'l)l()t lu.l lr.rl \\ Llt().tl ,irtr.,.r.1,1i,r1,,,r.,
;,,
.(r' n r'rrr,1 11p.r1rr(,.11ilr I rV ..r11.,,,:.
r!r,t
1

lSecl pa,rprrnq-JJ,lL[t

r?

sr

!,t2.r

iiurrl] .rp..u ,.q,

puy '8ulgr JPtrttl u st lntl

.,',{r.ls u,, sr
;rr:1d sclut llrLl^\ otur

.,'sal:<t.1s a:clru Irrr:,ruJtJ oJ 1ue,n l,trr>p_l

s^.lr'nJtqrlU

.Eur>11ra

uro-rl parrt rlr(Jrl :rurq

uro.ri [)-rBJq I sJ]LrJ.lurs tsul ,{,rt.,r
agt,;o
JU() lorr ,{1rnrl.rr: surn ll r13r19q1lE (paslt

lurll

prrrr r(us prp

-)JPtrlA

rq lurll rxJlrrJs

';-ur11a1 r-r11

rl

puLJ

i^.tLirod t,,rr"-1,;,p

tt,

Jo Jru^\u l()rr [)rru Jo JJo./\\r s,IJpcln ]prJ.^l

Japl)^UotrJl

,{c; apr:ru sr

ot -l^url
JIPttr sJoP ]l 1n(l
',t1t:rxr rrorlsanb olu r

s.l]'Jll-Il i^.lurll

JAlltr"l-tPu JLJI
llEr
l(tl)^aoP II prrV -Js-tlJq({

,r\oPul,{\ .sI11
[r]nlf P Uu

l()tr

S(.lt

JUO

..ltrOJtrro)^

lErJl

)ooq JLll
.lJprrrroJ-t u IIulrrl.lJ:)

ltrll

..i,itit::rr:11

ss-tnrc, I

lsEl luLll (tlELlxJ

lsPJ

i ii,.l,.l.r
lrr;1i i,iii,ia., I .i;:i rri:,:,.;
i..

iaql

')-Jri()ls Jsrrll Jo rl;-tl()rrJ pprl J Eq alrlOtil,,

'\lt)(,(l l\lq .)rlt Ir):lUrultr;.].'(l ,)(lt Ut
Ill:\ l)r,tl
Jrl -ral;u uJA-;l (!.A\ou .lo_l sJl-rols
rliinctue

..

i,l-l!i.r

iii :i
i,

.,ii

;r, ;ia,l i.r.r,:_

rt-,iti

l ii

.li.rr

..t

)illt.

rri r:i,ll.l

: ir I

rfrl.l.r

i,.t,l r ;

t.

tii ir it.i.l
l.j,,i

i_li.1

prru 'i-rrrllcloi.l iLu

-Jo
loJ E IrJ^\olIE nrlL[]r]{
Ln leqloicl uroliruqc{

i..:!{i

ri.t

.dol)^
Hurl-rolsrp

ol

ot c)JpulA

qltA\ s^[rJlqord ,{rlr

i!rr iiirl,t.iNil

ilrri\ ilttlil

lrLll otril lrP(l

IrlHno-rr1 e(l

'
e:rr:1cl

.;-ul,(1
;_rut:

liLrr(111d111rr^

ltrrr:
InoLIIr,u uul Jrlo
i-tr JJPtlil(l tl .ltrJII str 1t Srrr,rr:.t1
ltrru firp1y1{1.1,1;1
iu r,.rt .tl r ;r-rr rllor r Io I,r r:tl r., .r,,,,r,,l,,,.,"1
I
l()tl st:/\\ '.l.tttlLiliirs .rrlt
.\.))l,l)
I il,(l srr
r

l()

,\ilt

JrTt o] JIJS]r -toq-luP

puu mu;c{ rIEl
IIE }uLll

r^pq ol lng .lapElA qlr^\ prtlrrr.rrdxo

1 a1p1
atll 1() l-lt:cl sp,u lcLJl
..I 3ut)^o1., ,^,rr".,H,),,,i
I() l()l r prstlL:11o.-r J-lr,)s()l o1 ,iurrrrrr;-.rt1 s,.rr1
frrr,{1t sl 11.tpl1r1 .rrrr:iil 1r1iir.ru 1r .r1,;,,,,1,
ll'lll .)lrls()lr r,)llt' \1,)ilr'(l \\.)l .rll r,.Jr
tniJ