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Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel Maus has become engrained in the cultural consciousness since its publication in 1980. This is not only due to the content—the harrowing story of a man’s survival during World War 2 and subsequent life—but also the style in which it is presented. Spiegelman puts on a masterclass with his artwork, his utilization of speech and negative space, and his overall representation of one of the darkest periods in modern history through the powerful use of the comic book medium to portray postmodernism. Art effectively uses the techniques discussed in the book Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art written by Scott McCloud such as text and image coupling, unique panel-to-panel transitions, and closure to portray ideas that could not have been portrayed through simple text.
Beginning with the most recognizable use of text and image coupling, the representation of humans as animals. It is easy to see from the beginning that the Jews are represented as mice and the Nazis as cats. This should not be taken as an actual anti-Semitic feeling from Spiegelman, but rather how that period and its rampant persecution of people could be best represented visually. What better way to negatively dichotomize two groups of people than with animals that are culturally understood to be in opposition all through the use of comic imagery? This also relates to the common idea of people reverting to their basest animal behaviors in times of great difficulty or adversity. After all, the flight or fight response is only a highly developed animal mechanism to ensure the preservation of the body, and one’s life. However, Spiegelman does not simply use the cat-and-mouse dichotomization to represent the cultural hardship during World War 2.
Another reason for the use of animals in the story is to prevent it from becoming too one-dimensional. This sounds strange, recounting the holocaust and its atrocities should be enough, but Spiegelman chooses to take storytelling a step further by taking advantage of the visual medium he is working with. This would never have worked as a simple textual novel. Imagine it, “My father, the mouse, bleeds history,” it’s ludicrous. Once it is placed in a style more akin to films, however, the pictures themselves, held apart from any of the dialogue, do double duty in the context of the story. If we were to compare these representations to the “object-picture plane” on page 51 of “Understanding Comics” we would be able to place the characters comfortably on the language side of the chart; with some slight elevation toward the abstract as well. The reason they remain surprisingly well grounded in the lower portion of the triangle is the use of human bodies and dialogue. The characters exist as if wearing the masks of the animals which most represent them in the context of the war. Their speech, actions, and bodily forms for the most part remain unchanged. The realistic dialogue and character-specific phrases and dialects go a long way in helping differentiate the character’s essence, their true being, from their animal representations. Also, because of the comic medium, Spiegelman’s strategic bolding of certain words and unique panel constructions help to add emphasis to specific character-developing moments.
The next thing worth highlighting is the panels themselves. They are overwhelmingly dark and dense, utilizing a type of negative space drawing in its lack of color. Some prints are colorized, but the dark and drab nature of most copies better represents the content of the book. This may be a story of survival, told from father to son well removed from the actual event, but the lurking darkness inherent in each panel underscores the staying trauma of what happened. This darkness comes to a head with the meta-comic “Prisoner on the Hell Planet” (100). Spiegelman borders the drawings in black ink to highlight the trauma and sadness associated with his mother’s suicide. As for action within the panels, there is hidden meaning within. The comic is very cinematic, and movement is abundant on any given page, as well as between them that could not be portrayed through just simple text. When we look at the explanations for panel-to-panel transitions beginning on page 70 of “Understanding Comics” the conclusion arises that Spiegelman appears to have used at least five of the transition types within his story. We see moment-to-moment movement in the movement of leaves across a POW tent on page 55, as well as action-to-action, like when the father knocks his pill from the table on page 32. There is a static moment when his hand is held in the air, lost in the story he is telling, and then the action is in media res in the very next panel. Scene to scene is more obvious, it is used in the transitions within the story’s places, people, and events. Subject to subject is effectively used to highlight the movement of events into motion, as well as certain moments of foreshadowing in the story about the war and the hard times to come. The only type not present, besides the one that is being purposely omitted for a moment, is the non-sequitur. Spiegelman keeps his story tight and focused throughout. The closest thing to a non-sequitur in the graphic novel is the brief foray “Prisoner on the Hell Planet,” for its departure from the already established style. Having other interspersed non-sequiturs would be distracting. Nevertheless, the author has enough going on in his ample use of postmodern techniques.
By that one can highlight his easy movement through time and space, and simultaneously highlight his use of aspect-to aspect movement in the story; it is the most important element of “Maus,” and why it is narratively so effective. Through aspect-to aspect movement, Spiegelman accurately represents one of the hallmarks of postmodernism, the disjointed movement of human memory and experience through time and space. We see this type of technique in many stories to come out of World War 2. For example, “Gravities Rainbow” by Thomas Pynchon, “Catch-22” by Joseph Heller, and finally, possibly the best example of this technique, “Slaughterhouse-Five” by Kurt Vonnegut. In each of these works the narrator is at the mercy of a shifting time structure that doubles as an extension of their perception of the horrible things they’re subject to during the war. The thing that sets Spiegelman’s work above the rest though, is the incorporation of drawings to highlight the movement through time, or his utilization of the comic book medium. Take for instance the first few pages of “Maus.” We move seamlessly from a brief childhood experience to a meeting between father and son almost thirty years in the future, only to be thrown back almost fifty years to the true start of the story. From there it only becomes more unstable. At the beginning of most chapters, we are given an establishing panel to root us in the past. The story then jumps back and forth seamlessly as the chapters progress. In this way Spiegelman is not bound to one specific time and place, he is permitted to give the full scope of experiences through the effective use of the postmodern form.
Finally, Maus by Art Spiegelman could have simply been a retelling of one man’s survival through a low point in our human history through the portrayal of postmodernism. However, Spiegelman elevates the story through the comic form by using techniques talked about in Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. Art’s strong use of text and image coupling, unique panel-to-panel transitions, and closure all aid in his unique method of storytelling to craft a work that will remain rooted in our cultural consciousness for years to come.
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