'The Art of Speigelman'

Notes on a TV programme called 'The Art of Speigelman'.

Art Speigelman created the comics Maus 1 and Maus 2.

Comic Strip making is like a therapy - being able to get your thoughts out, your experiences

• Representative of what he wants it to be
• Came from Sweden to USA 
• MAD comic became his "parent"
• "The Media is lying to you, The whole adult word is lying to you"
• Aware of their difference to the Americans - his mother had a tattoo on her arm which his friends would ask her about. She would say it was a number she was trying to forget. It was in fact her prisoner number.
• 1968, she killed herself and didn't leave a note
• From this came "Prisoner of the Hell" comic strip - it was more about his anger at his mother then the sadness that he should have felt

• MAUS (started 1977-78)
• Introduced one chapter at a time in RAW.
• It's about a story of a father and son trying to understand each other
• He believes it is more about that then the Holocaust
• "The horrors of the 20th Century became our sanctuary - were we could sit together peaceably". 
• His father never wanted to talk about it and so Speigelman never really knew about it
• He read a lot about the Holocaust - as a comic book writer, he felt he needed to know everything in order to be able to interpret and successfully depict it
• 2nd Generation - he was a childhood survivor 
• Speilberg  - The American Tale. 
• One of his successes is not making Maus into a a movie and not passing judgement on other works that tackle the same subject and not making a MAUS 3.

   

I found this programme really interesting because it shows art based on the Holocaust but as a contemporary issue. Speigelman was 2nd Generation. He grew up with parents who had survived Auschwitz. So, through this comic book 'Maus', we are told the story from a different perspective. How it didn't just effect the people who were persecuted at the time, but how it effects the generations after.