Graphic Novels
Maus
Art Spiegelman was born in 1948 in Stockholm Sweden. Attending SUNY Binghamton until his mother's death, he left and pursued contributing to the underground comic scene.
Spiegelman serialized Maus from 1980 to 1991. The book won the Pulitzer prize in 1992. Jews and Nazis are drawn as mice and cats respectively, and all information is gathered from oral history of Spiegelman's father, Vladek. The Wall Street Journal called the book "The most affecting and successful narrative ever done about the Holocaust."
Spiegelman puts himself as a character in the books (Artie) who is learning about his history through his father's stories. Spiegelman, both in life and in the book, celebrate heritage by writing down the details and preserving the memory. Art makes the novel compelling by bringing the story to life in a modern way through his graphics, perhaps allowing him to reach a wider, more diverse audience.
In the Shadow of No Towers
Spiegelman returned in 2004 with In the Shadow of No Towers, another large-scale graphic novel telling the story of 9/11 from Spiegelman's point of view as a resident of NYC. The books share similarities, and Spiegelman writes that the smoke emitted from the crashing towers reminded him of how his father described the smoke that came from the gas chambers. Faced with the situation affecting New York and the world at large, Spiegelman could learn from his father's experiences.