'The Complete Maus'

‘The Complete Maus’ (a winner of the Pulitzer Prize,) is an extraordinary graphic novel written by Art Spiegelman. It depicts the horrors of the holocaust in an imaginative story which also explores the difficulties that can occur in family relationships. The sub-plot of Art’s relationship with his father gives the story a strong grip on the human dimension of this horrific tale. The story starts in Poland and follows the history of a family of wealthy Jews from the early 1930’s until the end of the second world war. The harsh reality of life for Jews under the Nazi’s is illustrated and all the horror of  concentration camps is unveiled for us to see. Such an awful story may not seem to be a good fit for a comic book format, but the depiction of Jews as mice, Germans as cats and Poles as pigs works very well.  It is a story of one man’s tenacity in clinging on to life in the midst of death and it is clear that this experience shaped the rest of his life.

BLAM... KERPOW!

My Secondary School  years were spent attending Bishop Ullathorne School in Coventry. One of the favourite subjects for myself and my mates, were comics and in particular American Marvel Comics. I loved Superman, Spiderman and Batman and spent many boring classes reading them below the level of the desk where the teacher couldn’t see me. There was a healthy trade in ‘swops’ so the supply of comics was good.

When I was even younger I was a regular reader of ‘The Victor,’ which I recall had a lot of stories about heroes of the Second World War. A regular theme was a Lancaster bomber being hit while on active duty and limping back to Britain with a crew of brave men. Towards the end of my school career and for several years after that, I was a regular subscriber to the NME. I even had it delivered to the house. When I look back on these early literary influences, I suspect that .the art work in them were at least as appealing as the story itself. More recently I have rediscovered the fact that I am still a sucker for a bit of BLAM and KERPOW! I made this startling discovery when I read an article about a graphic novel based on the recent film ‘Inception’ and I thought… ‘I like writing and I like drawing and painting, maybe I should look into this a bit more.’ Naturally, there are bucket loads of stuff on the web about graphic novels, so I got into that, then I went down to the local library. To my astonishment, they were doing a graphic novel theme. So, I came away with a boot load of books on the subject. One such book was a graphic novel, based on a story by Oscar Wilde ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray,’ adapted and drawn by Edington and Culbard. This was the only book written by the famous playwright. It is a classic gothic-horror story about a young man who sells his soul to keep his youth… only the picture gets older… CRIPES BATEMAN THAT’S EVIL.

Looks like comics and graphic novels are back in my life again

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