Category: Student Posts

Hillary Chute states that “[comics], in fact, is a medium that involves a substantial degree of reader participation to stitch together narrative meaning” (Chute 22).  At the start of the second chapter in the second volume of Maus,  Spiegelman makes a point of explaining his depression despite the success of the first volume.  He later explains that his father has passes and, since then, has not been able to appropriately use his time to continue to write the second volume.  In addition, he has little motivation to commercialize his work.  It is later revealed that he has been visiting a therapist to help walk him through his melancholy.  In relation to Chute’s sentiments, this stitches the narrative of Maus together.   This happens directly after the chapter which Vladek, Art’s father, is interned in Auschwitz.  It ties together the entire tone of both volumes: the fact that Art has guilt.  Though he concedes this to his therapist, it is only understood through this long depiction of   the present day, within the comic, that truly allow us to understand his guilt.  Hence, the audience stitches together the pieces that Art gives that ultimately enables the audience to recognize Spiegelman’s withered relationship with his father and how he reacts to his father’s narratives as well as his withered relationship with his father.

When looking at these quotes, I struggled to interpret how they relate to the text as I felt that this chapter was truly difficult to follow. Starting with the first chapter, I was confused about Spiegelman’s use of masks on seemingly human figures. Up until this point in the comic, Spiegelman exclusively used full figures of animals, sometimes paired with masks to show “secret” identities. This was the first time he acknowledged the fact within the text that the animals were all metaphors AND that he was actually human, although this should be obvious to the reader. Sure up until this point, he pointed out that although he may have had apprehensions in choosing an animal for a certain character, this was a turning point where the reader gets explicit evidence that this is actually a story about real people. The Holocaust impacted Art, his father, and millions of other people. I had to read this section a few times, “slowly and often” like Spiegelman intended, in order to fully understand this illusion that he creates. I enforced strict participation by myself as a reader “to stitch together narrative meaning” like Chute encourages readers to do while consuming comics. Throughout the rest of the chapter, I had to continue fully analyzing each and every page at a much slower pace than I normally do in order to completely comprehend Spiegelman’s intentions in this part of the comic.

Art Spiegelman was quoted as saying, “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 about the ‘secret language’ of comics- the underlying formal elements that create the illusions”

It is clear to see Mr.Spiegelman’s attention to detail in chapter 3 of Maus II. Every panel is important and carries huge significance, not only for the page but for the story. The way he illustrates makes each panel speak to the next. It’s clear to see that he spends immense amounts of time figuring out the ideal layout and design for each panel and how it fits into the greater narrative as well as how it fits in with its neighbors. By varying everything from line weight to speech bubbles he creates more than a pleasing panel, he makes a complete page.

Chapter 2 of Maus explores the idea of how the writer demands a lot from the audience in understanding the meaning of the chapter. It’s our job to connect the sequence of images given to us by Spiegelman and to understand how each and every frame moves the story forward or has something important to say. One of the most important things about making comics is the decision of what moments to include in each frame, and how every action should be covered. Should it be moment to moment, or should it aspect to aspect. This will ultimately change the way the reader understands the text and also how the reader interprets the page so they aren’t just arbitrary decisions.

This can be seen in Chapter 2 by the fact that Spiegelman demands his audience connect to the intensity of the situation, such as when Anja is being chased by a Nazi guard. If we don’t feel the tension and participate in the moment, Spiegelman has failed in telling his story.

This chapter is incredibly important for the development of Art’s character because we have to empathize with him over the death of his father and the pressures of publishing the first book of Maus. Spiegelman forces the audience to participate in feeling Art’s confusion by making Art a little child that goes to the psychologist. In page 44, Spiegelman creates a complete sense of confusion by mixing up the perspective in each frame. We see Art on one side, then the other, then it shifts again, and so on. This disorientation is intent ended to show just how disoriented Art is as well. This is what Spiegelman refers to as the “secret language of comics”. This is of course, not explicit in any way, but in reading it actively you do understand what he was trying to do. Some of the things that Spiegelman was able to achieve would have been impossible in any other form of entertainment, which is what I believe to be the “secret language of comics”.

I took this from a page of one of my favorite books, The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. I started by highlighting what I thought were “key words,” words that could serve as pieces of my poem. Yet, I soon discovered that planning in this exercise was useless, as it wouldn’t be possible to envision the poem I wanted to write and have the corresponding words it required to be on the page. So I circled and un-circled words and crafted the poem piece by piece. Connecting these words into phrases was an enormous process of trial-and-error. I found  better substitution for different words and phrases the more time I spent with it. Interestingly, I didn’t even really know what my poem was about until the very end, and the end result was unexpectedly dark, though that is somewhat fitting in the context of this book.

I took this from a page of one of my favorite books, The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. I started by highlighting what I thought were “key words,” words that could serve as pieces of my poem. Yet, I soon discovered that planning in this exercise was useless, as it wouldn’t be possible to envision the poem I wanted to write and have the corresponding words it required to be on the page. So I circled and un-circled words and crafted the poem piece by piece. Connecting these words into phrases was an enormous process of trial-and-error. I found  better substitution for different words and phrases the more time I spent with it. Interestingly, I didn’t even really know what my poem was about until the very end, and the end result was unexpectedly dark, though that is somewhat fitting in the context of this book.

I fight to stay in front.

I don’t want to be stupid

But what inspiration.

This was my failed attempt at creating a sun on a black page with every occurrence of I and the next word being left untouched. IT did not work out well as I did not have a black pen that could cover the page so it turned out black. The reason for making this was just an association that I had with the word I for some reason. So I tried t highlight this idea. This assignment was very difficult for me as I had no idea what to do and also had almost no access to colored writing tools. It was interesting though trying to imagine the page as something other then what it was.