Week 7 Reading Response

Maus - Art Spiegelman

For my High School Visual Art Thesis in the International Baccalaureate Program , I had picked Spiegelman's MAUS to write an extensive research paper on. It is approximately 4000 words. I thought of sharing it for this reading response as I feel I have exhausted multiple theories and perspectives I hypothesized and reflected upon in this essay. 

CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW FOR THE ESSAY


https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1TdZ_dVrC2FtMFVbLBsMyPMXELmBXDnzr?usp=sharing

Here's the research question and conclusion if you want to just get a gist of what the thesis is.

How does Art Spiegelman effectively use the medium of the graphic novel to emphasize the concept of racism in MAUS?

Visually, the comic is the epitome of simplicity, with depth of content. I discovered how he uses very
specific techniques such as closure and minimalism to create the needed diversion from focus on quality to focus on content. However, alongside the multiple techniques Spiegelman uses, his style of abstraction to depict the holocaust through mice, cats and anthropomorphic animals makes the content on the novel and the concept of racism much clearer to the viewer and makes it less harsh. Using the visual icon of a mouse; vermin, to represent the Jewish population, Spiegelman created a visual impact that no other method could have achieved. He created a sense a neutrality for the viewer, rather than repulsion; as would have been the case if the comic was made with humans instead of mice. People are eased with the image of looking at mass rat genocide, rather than being exposed to hundreds of dead human bodies. I looked at other instances in art where vermin had been used as an icon to show discrimination; such as The Eternal Jew film and Banksy’s Rat that prove to the viewer the disgust the visual image of vermin creates. I certainly noticed the strong impact of this visual metaphor. And despite the fact of MAUS being incomplete without Spiegelman’s brilliant minimalistic, black and white style through the comic, the comic would not have delivered the strong impact of making the viewer really understand the entire notion of racism without the visual metaphor of using Cats and mice. The level of importance of both these factors lie very close together making it difficult to distinguish which plays a bigger role, however I concluded that this comic, would have been seen as a “abhorrent” piece of work rather than a respectful, “Pulitzer prize winning” piece of work that created a big change in the way people perceived the Holocaust.

Week 6 Reading Response

Crumb Cartoonist Track

I just re-did this older tiny comic strip concept I had into a style that resembled crumb- or was "crumb inspired." 

Original comic strip

Crumb style remake attempt

I found this Era to be particularly interesting due to my own personal fascinations with moments in cultures and history where there have been shifts in consciousness- whether it be the bicameral mind and the incorporation of language, the revolution of material goods, entertainment and art or the chaos of the human experience (sex, drugs, war). Artists like Jodorowsky were reminded to me, artists like him and Crumb that dared to explore the raw grit of the honest human experience in hard times, in hard places and around hard people- (pun intended). The contrasted ink work also serves well to the concepts of grit, grime and underbellies- as the harsh lines and emphasized strokes give a sense of distortion.

Week 4 Reading Response

Tintin - Hergé

Tintin always struck me as a constantly enticing and exciting narrative that had the ability to keep me stuck to the pages despite re-reading it multiple times. As a young child, I didn't think twice of why these comics had the capacity to keep me so engrossed without effort. Now looking at some of them again; specifically Tintin in Tibet in this case, I was not surprised to notice its unique rationing of visual information, textual/written content and unconventional pictorial references to things such as newspapers, letters and- not to forget the beautiful landscapes! One interesting connection I felt was from an image from the second page-

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reminded me a lot of those "where's Waldo" or "finding something" in a crowded scene children's book illustrations. It felt as though the artist put so much effort into orchestrating such an elaborate moment with so much movement, cause and effect, and hidden detail that it's almost as if he wants the reader to navigate the panel with the curiosity of a child to find all the tiny details drawn into the scene.

Being a young child growing up in India while I read this book for the first time, I was really amused at the representation of the country/city (New Delhi) in the story. There's a comical narrative overlaid onto a factual and historical image of the location which creates a really intriguing contrast between comedy and different cultures.