A Contract With God, written by Will Eisner, is a fictionalized account of real-life events. After it was published, the evolution of comic to graphic novel was well underway. Maus, by Art Spiegelman, became the heir apparent of this new form of comic.
Maus and Contract With God deal with weighty subjects: death, disenchantment, ethics, and ultimately the holocaust.
How can the novel, defined as "a narrative dealing with real events and people"( Webster) coexist on the same page as a comic, which is defined as " a medium designed to express ideas through images."(Webster)
Maus and A Contract With God twist these easy, pat definitions, and allow us to see the medium of comics and the novel as one. Both stories are based upon heartbreakingly true events. Both subjects are serious and severe. By making these stories into graphic novels, readers can emotionally digest them. How difficult would it be to read about the death of a child? Horribly so. Reading about the Holocaust and the atrocities the Jewish people suffered, even more so. By making these stories comics, the writers diffuse them and make them palatable. No less serious, but easier to process.
Also, by turning a serious subject on its head and making it a comic, the writer is able to show the reader feelings and emotions that are difficult to verbalize. McCloud calls artists who use methods like this "pioneers and revolutionaries-- artists who want to shake things up, change the way people think."( McCloud pg 179) Comics can be as true as any traditional novel because comics can also be novels. Our idea about what words are evolve and change within this medium. Chapter Two of Understanding Comics discusses the vocabulary that pictures "speak". Comics convey feelings through imagery. I would argue that imagery can produce more visceral emotions than text in many cases. According to McCloud " when we abstract an image through cartooning, we are not so much eliminating details as much as we are focusing on specific details." ( McCloud pg 30).
What details? In Maus, the humanity of the mice. In Contract with God, the universal feeling of loss when a parent loses a child. Is it ironic that both graphic novels deal with the Jewish experience? Absolutely. Would readers feel the same emotion or willingness to read about a different culture? Maybe not if the novel were just a novel. It would be too weighty. And serious. And difficult. After all, we would never kill people or detain people based upon religious beliefs or race. We would never condone camps and theft and ghettos just because a person is different. Never would we, righteous American's that we are, stand ideally by while people who are poor, and in need of asylum ask us to uphold the welcome inscribed on the statue of liberty---
And, it probably wouldn't be a page-turner, like both of these novels are. As readers, we have to effectively gird our loins before we tackle difficult subjects. Both of these novels deal with serious issues. Would a novel reach the same audience as a graphic novel? Maybe, but a graphic novel has the capacity to reach different types of readers. Readers of novels choose the subjects they read about, I would argue that readers of comics choose art, stimuli, and the medium first-- then the subject they read/view.
Have you ever read a novel hailed as the great American novel and felt out of touch? Have you wondered how or why it was viewed as canonical?
I've yet to hear of a visual work of art described as such. We value the Picasso's, Vermeer's and Warhol's because they offer a glimpse into a time or began a new school of expression.
We should value Maus and Contract with God because they offer an opportunity for readers to be " particularly aware of the events of a story because "all that's needed is the desire to be heard, the will to learn, and the ability to see." (McCloud pg 213)
Are you bold enough to observe the Jewish experience, with all of its differences, and see commonality, pain, humanity, and parallels? It's easier through the eyes of mice.
Spiegleman, A The Complete Maus Pantheon Books, 1973-1991
McCloud, S Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art Harper, 1993
"Novel". Webster.com Merriam Webster 2009
"Comic". Webster.com Merriam Webster 2009
Maus and Contract With God deal with weighty subjects: death, disenchantment, ethics, and ultimately the holocaust.
How can the novel, defined as "a narrative dealing with real events and people"( Webster) coexist on the same page as a comic, which is defined as " a medium designed to express ideas through images."(Webster)
Maus and A Contract With God twist these easy, pat definitions, and allow us to see the medium of comics and the novel as one. Both stories are based upon heartbreakingly true events. Both subjects are serious and severe. By making these stories into graphic novels, readers can emotionally digest them. How difficult would it be to read about the death of a child? Horribly so. Reading about the Holocaust and the atrocities the Jewish people suffered, even more so. By making these stories comics, the writers diffuse them and make them palatable. No less serious, but easier to process.
Also, by turning a serious subject on its head and making it a comic, the writer is able to show the reader feelings and emotions that are difficult to verbalize. McCloud calls artists who use methods like this "pioneers and revolutionaries-- artists who want to shake things up, change the way people think."( McCloud pg 179) Comics can be as true as any traditional novel because comics can also be novels. Our idea about what words are evolve and change within this medium. Chapter Two of Understanding Comics discusses the vocabulary that pictures "speak". Comics convey feelings through imagery. I would argue that imagery can produce more visceral emotions than text in many cases. According to McCloud " when we abstract an image through cartooning, we are not so much eliminating details as much as we are focusing on specific details." ( McCloud pg 30).
What details? In Maus, the humanity of the mice. In Contract with God, the universal feeling of loss when a parent loses a child. Is it ironic that both graphic novels deal with the Jewish experience? Absolutely. Would readers feel the same emotion or willingness to read about a different culture? Maybe not if the novel were just a novel. It would be too weighty. And serious. And difficult. After all, we would never kill people or detain people based upon religious beliefs or race. We would never condone camps and theft and ghettos just because a person is different. Never would we, righteous American's that we are, stand ideally by while people who are poor, and in need of asylum ask us to uphold the welcome inscribed on the statue of liberty---
And, it probably wouldn't be a page-turner, like both of these novels are. As readers, we have to effectively gird our loins before we tackle difficult subjects. Both of these novels deal with serious issues. Would a novel reach the same audience as a graphic novel? Maybe, but a graphic novel has the capacity to reach different types of readers. Readers of novels choose the subjects they read about, I would argue that readers of comics choose art, stimuli, and the medium first-- then the subject they read/view.
Have you ever read a novel hailed as the great American novel and felt out of touch? Have you wondered how or why it was viewed as canonical?
I've yet to hear of a visual work of art described as such. We value the Picasso's, Vermeer's and Warhol's because they offer a glimpse into a time or began a new school of expression.
We should value Maus and Contract with God because they offer an opportunity for readers to be " particularly aware of the events of a story because "all that's needed is the desire to be heard, the will to learn, and the ability to see." (McCloud pg 213)
Are you bold enough to observe the Jewish experience, with all of its differences, and see commonality, pain, humanity, and parallels? It's easier through the eyes of mice.
Spiegleman, A The Complete Maus Pantheon Books, 1973-1991
McCloud, S Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art Harper, 1993
"Novel". Webster.com Merriam Webster 2009
"Comic". Webster.com Merriam Webster 2009
Comments
Post a Comment