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Art Spiegelman sees the new ban of his book "Maus" as a "red alert"
Last edited Sat Jan 29, 2022, 06:03 AM - Edit history (1)
Kevin M. Kruse RetweetedThese are the same cats who were mewing about Cat In The Hat "cancel culture" last year.
All those in favor of banning this book, say "meow."
Link to tweet
Art Spiegelman sees the new ban of his book “Maus” as a “red alert”
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Comics
Art Spiegelman sees the new ban of his book ‘Maus’ as a ‘red alert’
A Tennessee school board recently voted to ban Art Spiegelman's “Maus,” which in 1992 became the first graphic novel to win the Pulitzer Prize. (Mario Anzuoni/Reuters)
By Michael Cavna
Yesterday at 5:03 p.m. EST
Art Spiegelman didn’t set out to write an educational aid for young-adult readers. A half-century ago, he simply wanted to better know his own origin story, discover more about his parents’ histories — and hear from his father, a Polish Jew and a survivor, how some of their relatives were killed in the Holocaust.
In an interview Thursday, he remembers his mind-set in his 20s: “I never meant to teach anybody anything.” ... Now, though, given the latest roiling debates over which books can be banned from schools and libraries, the author of the seminal graphic memoir “Maus” appreciates his work’s long cultural tail: “I’m grateful the book has a second life as an anti-fascist tool.”
Spiegelman is speaking shortly after learning that a Tennessee school board voted unanimously this month to ban “Maus,” which in 1992 became the first graphic novel to win the Pulitzer Prize. The two-volume comic biography chronicles his family’s Holocaust history through a frame-tale of ‘70s conversations between Spiegelman and his estranged father, all told with anthropomorphic imagery: The Jewish characters are rendered as mice, for instance, and the Nazis are cats.
The 10-member board in McMinn County chose to remove “Maus” from its eighth-grade language arts curriculum, citing its profanity and nudity. Now the New York-based author is sifting through the minutes of the board’s Jan. 10 meeting, trying to make some sense of its decision to target the graphic memoir, which previously has been challenged in California and banned in Russia. His conclusion: The issue is bigger than his comic book.
[Holocaust graphic novel ‘Maus’ banned in Tennessee county schools over nudity and profanity]
In the current sociopolitical climate, he views the Tennessee vote as no anomaly. “It’s part of a continuum, and just a harbinger of things to come,” Spiegelman says, adding that “the control of people’s thoughts is essential to all of this.”
{snip}
By Michael Cavna
Writer/artist/visual storyteller Michael Cavna is creator of the Comic Riffs column and graphic-novel reviewer for The Washington Post's Book World.
Art Spiegelman sees the new ban of his book ‘Maus’ as a ‘red alert’
A Tennessee school board recently voted to ban Art Spiegelman's “Maus,” which in 1992 became the first graphic novel to win the Pulitzer Prize. (Mario Anzuoni/Reuters)
By Michael Cavna
Yesterday at 5:03 p.m. EST
Art Spiegelman didn’t set out to write an educational aid for young-adult readers. A half-century ago, he simply wanted to better know his own origin story, discover more about his parents’ histories — and hear from his father, a Polish Jew and a survivor, how some of their relatives were killed in the Holocaust.
In an interview Thursday, he remembers his mind-set in his 20s: “I never meant to teach anybody anything.” ... Now, though, given the latest roiling debates over which books can be banned from schools and libraries, the author of the seminal graphic memoir “Maus” appreciates his work’s long cultural tail: “I’m grateful the book has a second life as an anti-fascist tool.”
Spiegelman is speaking shortly after learning that a Tennessee school board voted unanimously this month to ban “Maus,” which in 1992 became the first graphic novel to win the Pulitzer Prize. The two-volume comic biography chronicles his family’s Holocaust history through a frame-tale of ‘70s conversations between Spiegelman and his estranged father, all told with anthropomorphic imagery: The Jewish characters are rendered as mice, for instance, and the Nazis are cats.
The 10-member board in McMinn County chose to remove “Maus” from its eighth-grade language arts curriculum, citing its profanity and nudity. Now the New York-based author is sifting through the minutes of the board’s Jan. 10 meeting, trying to make some sense of its decision to target the graphic memoir, which previously has been challenged in California and banned in Russia. His conclusion: The issue is bigger than his comic book.
[Holocaust graphic novel ‘Maus’ banned in Tennessee county schools over nudity and profanity]
In the current sociopolitical climate, he views the Tennessee vote as no anomaly. “It’s part of a continuum, and just a harbinger of things to come,” Spiegelman says, adding that “the control of people’s thoughts is essential to all of this.”
{snip}
By Michael Cavna
Writer/artist/visual storyteller Michael Cavna is creator of the Comic Riffs column and graphic-novel reviewer for The Washington Post's Book World.