1 4 4 1 I Ic e$ t • 04 F
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Maus And Men
Continued from preceding page
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Invite you to an OPEN HOUSE
for
The New Health and Wellness Program
Sunday, September 17, 1989
10 a,m. to 2 p.m.
At the
Jewish Community Center
6600 West Maple Road, West Bloomfield, MI
(Corner of Maple & Drake)
Phone: 661-1000, Ext. 360 or 240
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MANUFACTURERS OF
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42
I
I PROFILE I
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1989
his method of writing is
anything but spectacular. He
works until about 2 p.m.
when "real life starts knock-
ing at the door." He often
spends time with his
daughter, Nadja, then returns
in the evening to Maus.
Spiegelman also says he
works regularly rather than
waiting for ideas to strike like
comic-book lightening bolts.
"If I sat around and waited
for inspiration I would be
waiting for a long time," he
says.
Planning and a great deal
of thought go into each little
box of Maus. In addition to
the tapes of his father,
Spiegelman uses his own
research about the Nazi era to
write the text. Then he begins
designing the art, often fin-
ding that his first vision of a
scene will not work. "It may
be that I'll need four (comic)
boxes to describe the train go-
ing to Auschwitz, when I
thought all I would need is
one."
Each page requires about a
week of work, Spiegelman
says. When completed, it is
passed on to his wife and
editor, Francoise Mouly.
But this new edition of
Maus is it, Spiegelman says.
No more. "The last thing in
the world I would want- is to
be old and still be sitting
around drawing Art and
Vladek."
Which is not to say he won't
be drawing. Art Spiegelman
is a man born for the comics.
"I wanted to draw comics
ever since I can remember —
just about after the time I
thought I would grow up and
be a cowboy. As soon as I
found out that people drew
comics, I knew that's what I
wanted to do. I never even
made it to wanting to be a
fireman!"
Spiegelman attended a
high school of art and design,
"a sort of blue-collar version
of the school in Tame; " then
went to college "where I
assumed I would immediate-
ly become an artist," he says.
When Spiegelman discovered
he would be required to take
a number of basic courses
before he could do art the way
he wanted, "I became a
philosophy major to try and
figure out why I couldn't be
an art major!'
After college, Spiegelman
began work on a number of
avant-garde comic books in-
cluding
Arcade
and
Breakdowns. He taught at the
School of Visual Arts in New
York. In 1980, he and Mouly
started Raw, each issue of
which is in the Museum of
Modern Art.
Recently,
Spiegelman
traveled to Auschwitz, where
he made a documentary for a
German television station.
He met with men and women
who had known his parents.
While abroad, Spiegelman
faced a barrage of reporters
and curious fans. The most
curious question he heard
was while in Munich, when a
journalist asked: "What's
your favorite sport?"
"And I could tell it was real-
ly important to him, but what
could I say? What do I know
about sports? My idea of ex-
ercise is going next door to
buy more cigarettes!'
And he will be doing just
that as in the coming months
he continues work on the new
Maus.
Chapter after chapter, word
after word blurs mice and
men, comic-book fantasy and
reality. Spiegelman is fully
aware of the confusion.
He recalls pausing while
drawing a scene in which is
father, the mouse, comforts
his wife when a rat nears in
Auschwitz.
"It seemed such an obvious
contradiction: they're both
rodents," he says. "But I left
the rat in because that's what
really happened. It reminds
me of a scene in which
Donald Duck sits down to eat
a Thanksgiving turkey. I
always thought that was so
gruesome!' ❑
NEWS l''''""m"
Image Conscious
PLO Limits
Terrorist Acts
Tel Aviv — Palestinian
organizations have probably
abandoned international ter-
rorism so far this year after
concluding the acts are too
costly for their image, Middle
East researchers suggest.
The fifth annual summary
of international terrorism by
the Jaffee Centre for
Strategic Studies does not in-
clude data on Palestinian ter-
rorist attacks within Israel,
attempted infiltrations or at-
tacks against Israeli forces in
Lebanon, defines an act of in-
ternational terrorism as "any
violent activity conducted by
a non-state organization in
order to attain political objec-
tives that in some way in-
volves more than one state."
Since November 1988,
when PLO Chairman Yassir
Arafat renounced terrorism
in Geneva, there have been no
acts of international ter-
rorism by the PLO or any
other Palestinian organiza-
tion, with the possible excep-
tion of the bombing of the Pan
Am jumbo jet over Scotland in
December 1988. While