Books!

Breakdowns: Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@&*!
Breakdowns: Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@&*!
Art Spiegelman

Jokes
Jokes
Breakdowns: Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@&*!  is a reissue of a 1978 collection of assorted Art Spiegelman strips from the 70s when Art was still trying to figure out how to make a living drawing comics.  There is plenty of adolescent self-examination and some truly dark and uncomfortable stuff about his mothers suicide here.  Amidst this he managed to craft his vision for Maus from his father's stories of Auschwitz: his parents portrayed as mice, the Nazis by cats, Poles as pigs, Americans as dogs...

(Please click to embiggen comics.)
 

Insult
Insult

Narrative
Narrative

Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History
Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began (Maus)

When Breakdowns was reissued recently I decided that I should read both parts of Maus again. Maus: A Survivor's Tale was published in two parts: My Father Bleeds History (1986) and And Here My Troubles Began (1991).   Maus won an Eisner Award and a special Pulitzer Prize in 1992.

Maus, p123
Maus, p123

Maus II, p 58Maus II, p 91Maus II, p. 114

You may also want to take a look at Slate's nice slideshow of Speigelman's work.




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CrowSeer
[c’est top]
Yay! Comix! Traumatising, freak-out comix! Maus is always my go to reference point when I get into a dispute with some idiot who claims that comic books have no literary merit or are "just for kids". Granted it's apparently used in schools to help kids learn about The Holocaust, but still... dude won a Pulitzer for it, which is more than my lame-ass college lecturer ever managed. Oh, and it proves beyond any doubt that cats are evil, which I've always known in my heart...
Neophyte Naturalist
[this is good]

Having read millions of lines of text this semester, having information relayed in another manner (via illustrations) has saved my sanity!

Maus is my favorite graphic novel thus far. The Watchmen, 300, Persopolis I and II, and the Black Brothers have all been good, but Maus is by far the best. I'm currently reading The Contract with God Trilogy and am ashamed to say that I'm having a difficult time finishing it : (

Sixbucksamonkey
Oh, girl! Birds and words... your PhD... Stay strong, sister.

I haven't read Black Brothers. Must check it out. Literally. =D
Sixbucksamonkey
You know... now that you mention it: Cats do seem to have their own agenda. I never really suspected an Aryan connection before. Thank you for opening my eyes to what I thought was just a metaphor. Cats really ARE Nazis, aren't they? Damn.
Crom74
[this is good]
We got a copy of Breakdowns; however, it is a behind the counter type item. I actually almost agree due to the patronage of me library. We have it, you just have to ask for it.
CrowSeer
You should check out the "Dream of a Thousand Cats" issue of Neil Gaiman's Sandman series for a terrifying vision of exactly what they're planning. Shudder.

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Sixbucksamonkey

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Sixbucksamonkey
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The donkey's reputation for stubbornness is actually a highly-developed sense of self-preservation.

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