Week Seven

Maus was written by Art spiegelman. It Depicts the self insert character spiegelman interviewing his father about his experience as a polish jew and Holocaust Survivor.

The work employs techniques that represents Jews as mice, Germans as cats and the polish as pigs. It was noted personally to me that maus is probably one of the most prolific storytelling graphic novel ever told, not just because of the subject matter it chooses to represent. But by the visual placement of each character, form and shape. For example there are just so many pages with visuals markers that represent the connection of family, time, and unseen things. For example the connection between the character  spiegelman and his father in the form of body movement. Many panels it would show them mimicking the exact pose or head position to match the two characters in the signification of the father son relation and how many they are alike. When it come to time however the symbolism and placement of the current day characters compare to the character of the past share the entire page basically saying that the composition of most pages when referring in the past fit perfectly in placement of the present.Another example is the circle frame focusing on the father signifying his age of importance. Another interesting note in this particular page is that the father rideing the bike almost takes up the entire page as parts of his head, arms, hip and foot give the notation of him riding his bike on the page itself.

I know it took 13 years to painstakingly create each page the likeness that siegelman was trying to reach for. That deeper meaning of supporting visual storytelling within comic panels is a great height of craftsmanship to graphic novels to show layers of emotion, suffering and life within shape and form.