I'd heard about this from someone else who'd read Citizen 13360. "It kind of reminds me of Maus." he said. He mostly meant a graphical novel discussing a war. Well, I had to check it out.
It's dark, that's for sure. The Papa Maus lived through the Holocaust. The son Maus is trying to understand why his father is the way he is.
The cartoon medium is really interesting. It made the differences between people groups more evident. THe Jews were Mice. The Germans were cats. The polish were Pigs. Americans were dogs.
THis made things a lot easier for me to differentiate. I couldn't pick a Jew, Pole or German out of a line-up. But the kind of prejudicial enviroment of Nazi germany made these distinctions really important. So I need some help to understand.
When Papa Maus had to disguise himself as a Pole, he wears a pig mask over his mouse face.
But the other thing about it, is that Papa Maus is not given angel's wings. He was cranky and hard to deal with. That is realistic.
It was very gripping.
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Article comments
1 - Bill Sherman
Maus is one of the great books of modern comics: a work that announced (when it was first released) to the general critical world that American comics could indeed be serious art. And it's also a great read.