Maus: A Survivor’s Tale

    (Pantheon, 1986, 1991)
©1973, 1980-1986 by Art Spigelman

Art Spiegelman’s Maus stands at the height of the comics art form. It’s the sort of work that makes people who don’t read comics swear that a work this moving can’t really be “just a comic book.” Perhaps it’s not so surprising then that the two-volume work was the first comic to win the Pulitzer Prize in Literature.

Maus is the tale of Art’s father and how he survived the Holocaust during World War II. It’s also a story of Art as a grown man, struggling to come to terms with his aging father. Spiegelman uses the device of portraying his characters as cartoon animals: the Nazis as cats, the Jews as mice. This provides an apt parallel to a saga in which millions of innocents were systematically dehumanized and sent to be slaughtered at places like Buchenwald and Auschwitz. Ironically, it probably also gives the reader a stronger emotional bond to the characters involved than if they were portrayed as humans.
Jump to issue:
  • 1
    #1
    Aug 1986
    Cover: $8.95
    W: Art Spiegelman  ·  A: Art Spiegelman
    1 copy for $24.00
  • 1/HC
    #1 Hardcover
    Hardcover Edition with cover by Art Spiegelman
    Sep 1986
    Cover: $18.00
    W: Art Spiegelman  ·  A: Art Spiegelman
    Chapters 1-6 first appeared, in somewhat different form, in Raw, 1980-1985; Housed with #2 in slipcase; “Prisoner On the Hell Planet” originally appeared in Short Order Comix #1, 1973; B&W
    1 copy for $200.00
  • 2
    #2
    Sep 1992
    Cover: $14.00
    W: Art Spiegelman  ·  A: Art Spiegelman
    1 copy for $12.50