Of Maus and Men

How does one begin to write about the Holocaust? We're talking about an event (a word that invariably falls flat) so incomprehensibly horrifying and universally traumatic that even the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th generations of its participants are still dealing with the repercussions. It must must be addressed, must be recognized, but how? How can we begin to discuss an experience when it is almost to insulting to claim "an understanding"? 

Art Spiegelman probably knows what I'm trying to say much better then I do. It's clear from the beginning of Maus that he is more then a little conflicted about his relationship to the the tragic legacy he inherited. Although I realize there is much more history, intention, and intricacy to the device then I am insinuating, the fact that all the characters were portrayed as different animals struck me right away as a sort of coping mechanism (Of course, right away I want to throw out some kind of layperson's disclaimer. I have no comprehension, nor experience with something of this enormity, so forgive me if I over-simplify it for the purpose of "page-fillery".). 

Some people have called Maus "hard to read" as it is, I can only what it would be like to author a graphic novel had the characters been portrayed as a human. Even the fact of the medium itself, dealing in iconic drawings, seems to lift the story out our world, therefore making it somehow possible (dare I say easier) to contemplate. I got the sense that the images in Spiegelman's head were so powerful, so pervasive, that to see them reflected on the page would have been too much. 

One thing that struck me in particular was Spiegelman's allusion to what I'd call second-generation survivor guilt, illustrated pretty clearly in the picture below...

Although, once again I am wildly unqualified to evaluate here, the panels suggest that the emotional weight of his "heritage" is ever present, yet here he is, receiving both profit and international acclaim for a retelling of a genocide, although it seems highly unlikely they were motivating factors in his work.  Once again, we're facing the dichotomy housed in a single work of art, a personal experience crucial to the mental health of the artist and all the while a source of guilt and further inner conflicts. 

Below, I've added a selection from an earlier work (if you click the image, you can see the enlarged version) by Horst Rosenthal, Mickey au Camp de Gur, who used Mickey to represent himself in his depictions of daily life in a french concentration camp. The idea of a coping mechanism is much more concrete in this case, as Rosenthal created the work during his imprisonment at the camp. The final panel of this particular page, in which Mickey escapes by erasing himself and is re-drawn in America, is simultaneously charming and incredibly tragic, since Rosenthal died in Aushwitz.                             

                                           

                                                         

Truce, Scott McCloud?

Okay-I know I said I didn't like Scott McCloud, but as I am prone to vehement and often ill-advised reactions, I've reconsidered, sort of. I may not like his "literary voice" or his weird tintless sunglasses, but he does know his subject matter (Also-he drew a lot of those little graphs. I bet that took forever.). 

But seriously, whatever my vapid and irrelevant feelings are on the presentation of the material, there is actually no way I could address McCloud's entire body of work with one post in any way that's remotely engaging, so I picked out my favorite (uh-oh, those preferences again) part of the book. Lo and behold, it's relevant to my "pet subject" and to comics! Success!

 

Very early into my consideration of comics as a medium, it struck me how similar comics are to the storyboards used in creating a film, and actually the two media have a lot in common. Apparently, this link was quickly made by comics artists (or by McCloud at least), but seemingly not by filmmakers. The more I consider the relationship between the two, the more I understand how much they have to offer each other. One point in particular gave me a very different perspective on my own work as a student of editing, the list of panel to panel transitions. 

McCloud lists the 6 different types of transitions as:

1. Moment-to-moment 

2. Action-to-action

3. Subject-to-subject

4. Scene-to-scene

5. Aspect-to-aspect

6. Non-sequitur

The greater part of our list is already at work in the editing world. If you watch any movie, you will easily notice cuts made from action-to-action, scene-to-scene, and subject-to-subject.

Now admittedly, some of these do not carry over, because there are editing rules that a comics artist need not consider. A moment-to-moment transition between panels wouldn't work as a cut the way McCloud portrays it (Ironically, I can't show you what I mean, because I can't find his graphic anywhere online. Excuse me, while I eat me words.), because unless you change the angle of the shot/frame, you'd have what's called a jump cut. Number 6, Non-sequitur proves equally unhelpful, but I'm not quite sure how that one fits into legit comics anyways. 

Number 5, however, while undoubtedly used in the universal catalogue of edited film, is rare bird in both American film and comics (although apparently not in japan). With a bit of visualization, you can imagine how this style of editing can lend the same richness and tempered, observant quality to film, that is already enjoyed and employed by some comics.

"Jetz me-An' jetz my dee-dee diary"

Ladies and Gentlemen, a short script.

A: I have writer's block.

B: Why don't you write about having writer's block? 

(cue disparaging glare)

I flatter myself I am not the only person that has been forced to endure this frustrating scenario. I promised myself, in probably 10th grade, that I would never acquiesce to this ridiculous suggestion, yet I fear I am about to do so. 

Unless somebody wants to explain the mystique of Krazy Kat to me? No? Okay, here goes.

The work that art critic Gilbert Seldes called "the most amusing and fantastic and satisfactory work of art produced in America today" revolves around one central plot and three seemingly enigmatic characters: a cat, who loves a mouse, who loves throwing bricks at the cat, and a dog that want to put the mouse in jail for throwing the bricks. It's like a an off-broadway Taming of the Shrew (in reverse). Except it's not, at all. 

All of my efforts to bring forth something more complex from the panels, something to which analysis adheres, have eventually fallen flat (I have a similar experience when I look at the popular work of Piet Mondrian. I sit there and go "And?".). At first I thought Krazy might be some kind of  backwater socrates, but his naivete is so persistent, that becomes impossible. Is he an idiot savant? Is he a saint? Is he a he? Who can tell? The characters are so immutable, the landscape so surreal, and the dialogue so bizzare, even the wildest theory about Herriman's creation could apply in some sense. Consider the essay "A forward to Krazy" by the great poet E.E. Cummings (http://www.krazy.com/cummings.htm). Such an eloquent consideration from a world-renowned, thoughtful mind must excavate some deeper meaning. I guess? Unless, it's just about a cat who loves a mouse who throws bricks at him/her.

A Contract With God, and then some.

What could I say, or draw for that matter, about Eisner's visual style that hasn't already been said and said again? My high school english teacher told me at some point, "Just don't say that Shakespeare was great playwright. We know." I feel that applies here. Which is fine, because for me the visual element isn't the source of true lasting power of the work. Call me crazy. 

There's a profound humanity in all of Eisner's characters that makes his visual style all the more valuable. The entire spectrum of good and evil is encompassed within each one of them. As readers/viewers, our relationship to the characters is constantly shifting from pity to disgust to compassion, or, as often is the case, experiencing all three at once. And these are no charming vices! When, even as a third party observer in a fictional work, you find yourself identifying with rapists, abusive alcoholics, and the hypocritical corrupt, you know you are dealing with something timeless. 

If I sound as coiffed and cliche as a newly minted blonde trying to sell faux diamond bracelets on QVC, it's only because I am delighted to a story to be both humble and brilliantly complex, with so honest and generous a portrayal of human beings. It's so often that artists and writers leave no room for the moral analysis of an audience. We enter into a story and immediately we're taught to admire one character and despise the next (he's the hero, she's the villain, etc.). But we know as educated observers of the world and also as people, alive with five senses, that violence and supposed wrongdoing exist freely in a body/mind that loves as deeply as it fears. Perhaps it's because we don't want to apply this confusing paradigm to ourselves that we constantly churn out these predictable, "black and white", hero's journey yarns. But how refreshing, how captivating it is to find (even in such an unlikely form) a story that truly deals the full spectrum of a human life. 

"Gun it guys! That's Plastic Man!"

As I am very much a day-tripper in the comics universe, it took me a second to actually appreciate Jack Cole's Plastic Man. At first blink,  the story seemed unremarkable, another victim of a tragic coincidence turned science miracle, tirelessly pursuing his moral quest accompanied by his goofy sidekick, Woozy Winks. With his unparalleled stretching abilities, the watchful eye of the FBI and big ol' helping of Deus Ex Machina, Plastic Man tracks down and destroys the bad guys one action packed panel at a time. At least, that's what I thought...

...until I saw this panel. Geez, Plastic Man, is that really necessary?

After viewing this and subsequent, equally violent panels, I was startled into an awareness a potential rift in the perception of justice, between I, the modern reader, and the theoretical audience for whom the work was published. Basically, I'm used to a code of honor, which not only includes defending and protecting those innocents in danger, but also taking the high road when it comes to punishing the wicked. It might be okay to lock the villain up in Arkham, but you wouldn't see Batman pump a guy full of gas, not in 2009 anyways. 

My limited exposure to the genre forces me to wonder if the violence displayed and seemingly condoned throughout the series is a product of Plastic Man's atypical arrival to the superhero pantheon (he used to be a hardened criminal, but was reformed by monks, post acid-bath) or a symptom of a society where pacifism is synonymous with weakness, instead of moral fortitude. Perhaps Plastic Man's proclivity for violence, the reason I have trouble identifying with the character as a legitimate superhero, is what made him a capable and admirable protector in 1955.