Maus 2 Chapter 2 (2/22/18 In-class writing)
I found Chapter 2 of Maus 2 difficult to read due to various reasons. Art Spiegelman’s quote: “The comix I like, and try to do, can be read slowly and often…. I try to make every panel count and sometimes work as long as a month on a page…. I’m excited by the ‘secret language’ of comics — the underlying formal elements that create the illusions” makes it clear to me why I experienced difficulties while reading the chapter. Perhaps, one reason is that as he worked as long as a month on a page, he was improving and completing it, making even more detailed and complicated to read. I caught myself on a thought that sometimes I felt that I missed some events and I did not understand what was happening and needed to go back to read the page again. Probably I was reading it faster than he wanted his audience to read because he included too many events and key points, and all of them deserve to be noticed. Another factor was that the events and violence described by Spiegelman are psychologically hard to absorb and think about.