Comix as Art and Politics: Art Spiegelman and Greg Palast

Art Spiegelman

Host Francesca Rheannon talks with comix master Art Spiegelman. When Spiegelman’s Maus I: A Survivors Tale: My Father Bleeds History was published in 1986, (followed by Maus II: A Survivors Tale: And Here My Troubles Began in 1991), it exploded notions about the limited role of comix as art and literature.

Winning a special Pulitzer Prize in 1992–the only comic book ever to do so–Maus is a memoir in graphic form of Spiegelman’s father’s experiences in Auschwitz and the impact that had on the artist’s own childhood growing up in New York City. His mother was also a survivor of the Nazi concentration camps. In 1968, she committed suicide, soon after Spiegelman himself was released from a mental hospital after suffering a nervous breakdown.

Maus was prefigured in an earlier work, Prisoner on the Hell Planet and in 1978 Spiegelman included that and other works in a collection of his underground comix called Breakdowns: Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@&*!. Innovative and drawn in a variety of styles in large format–the book sank like a stone. But now Spiegelman has “re-birthed it”, as he told me, with a new 20 page introduction and an afterword. We talk to him about BREAKDOWNS and breaking conventions in the comix.

Also, investigative journalist Greg Palast talks about the new comic book he produced with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., STEAL BACK YOUR VOTE!. With illustrations by Ted Rall and other artists, the book is about the threat of massive voter suppression in the upcoming election and how to counter it.

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