History of Comic in the 20th Century - Research Paper Example

Statement of Purpose

The purpose of my research work is to give an analysis of how different visual languages and techniques have been used in different graphic books with much emphasis on Maus by Art Spiegelman. The topic on the history of comic books in the 20th century interests me to a great extent. This is because the visual elements such as drawings on rocks, painting, carvings among others used in the 20th Century have laid a foundation to the more sophisticated kind of comic we have today in different medias such as newspapers and magazines.

Theme

Maus by Art Spiegelman is an incredible graphic writing that presents to us a number of themes. These are for instance Morality, Racism, Family issues, Guilt, Survival, past and the present, Luck, Power among many others. However, the theme of Racism as well as past Vs Present echoes quite strongly in this book. I will there lay much emphasis on the two themes in my research paper in an attempt to understand and compare how comic in the 20th century relations to that in the ancient days. Different figures, symbols and other representations have also been used in the book to depict different real characters in an attempt to hide the reality which in one way or another presents the theme of Racism.

The Nazi’s for instance in Maus strongly worked on exterminating the Jews since they perceived them to be sub-humans hence not their equals. The most enticing thing is the way racism is presented with each sub-group as the research will identify given an animal figurative with an aim of hiding the real identity and manifestation of that particular group. Cultural groups also are adequately divided in Maus by Art Spiegelman by the use of animals.

Main Focus

The main Focus of my research is to understand what comic is, identify the use of comic in the novel by Art Spiegelman, and relate it to our current use of comic and understand the milestone to which comic has come. The research materials will be derived from different written and unwritten sources by a number of authors with much emphasis to Maus by Art Spiegelman.

The History of Comic Books in the 20th Century

Introduction

The use of visual language has been rampant in many graphic books during the modern as well as the recent days. There has been a main reason as to why many authors prefer this mode of presentation. In light to this, the fundamental objective of this thesis is to identify the usage of visual language and different visual narrative techniques in graphic books with focus on Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel Maus. Art Spiegelman’s book has two major faces: “And Here my Troubles began” and “A Survivors Tale; My Father Bleeds History”. The novel serialized between the years 1980 and 1991 when the second volume was finally published. The novel depicts quite a captivating story of Anja and Vladek, Spiegelman, parents who were the survivors of Nazi camp deaths as well as Polish Jews in the Second World War (Spiegelman 14). The story is a personal narration by Art Spiegelman of the events that took place during the holocaust that left many people dead. It is therefore quite difficult to classify this novel as fiction or non-fiction or either an autobiography or a biography. Art Spiegelman engaged in an intensive research of the holocaust to create Maus and incorporated a number of graphics that made this novel win the first graphic novel prize.

The use of pictures in a narrative depicts some important messages that the author intended to communicate to the reader thus requiring the reader to be very sensitive and observant. Art Spiegelman for instance frequently makes use of animal metaphor where the Germans are pictured as cats, Jews as mice, French as frogs among many others (Spiegelman 36). This research paper therefore aims at identifying the relationship between these graphics and the text in the light of understanding the History of Comic Books in the 20th century. The thesis will also illustrate different advantages and limitations of using animal metaphors among other graphics in different novels (Cohn & Neil 63). The Thesis will also put some focus on Art Spiegelman’s use of different visual languages such as photographs, drawing of lines, timeline mergers among other.

Use of Comics as Narrative Medium

Comics Definition

Many scholars in different regions across the world have tried to define comics especially after the comic scholarship was established. However, all their definition although having almost the same meaning tend to differ in one aspect or another. The accurate definition however is from Scott McCloud, the father of comics, in his theoretical book Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. Scott defined Comics as the “juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce and aesthetic response in the viewer” (Pekar & Harvey 58). Scott strongly argued that other graphics such as cartoons were not comics in that the main feature is the sequence in which the pictorials are presented. He also differentiated comic form films by laying much emphasis on the word “juxtaposed” for comics whereas for films images are used in a deliberate sequence aimed at drawing the attention of the reader (Crumb & Robert 18)

Art Spiegelman’s however on the other hand uses simpler terms to define comics as states that they are “a narrative series of cartoons” (Spiegelman 21). He puts much emphasis on the word “narrative” as anyone may strongly dispute the use of word cartoon in his explanation. According to Art Spiegelman images in comics are intended to present a certain story line as well as reinforce what is in the text.

History of Comics

The history of comics can be traced back in the 20th Century during the Egyptian days where they used painting on walls and rocks or the Bayeux Tapestry. McCloud affirmed that images are sufficient forms of comic in that they contribute in telling a particular story. Different critiques have however continually continued to argue that there is a major difference between Bayeux Tapestry and comics (Crumb & Robert 83). In an argument by Kukonnen, tapestry lacked the key characteristic of comic which is captions, speech bubbles and panels. Historical images and pictures such as that of Sir Henry Unton has become an important foundation to what modern comics have become.

However, the rise of modern comics can heavily be attributed to the use of media and mass culture. With the introduction of advanced mediums of production such as newspapers and magazine, the quality of pictorials and images used are quite advanced. This is contra to satirical pictures in the 16th and 17th century that could only be viewed side by side (Kaplan & Arie 18. This is however not the case in the recent days where engraving of text and pictures in evident as a result of technological advancement (Pekar & Harvey 108).

Comics became a must thing in the beginning of the 20th century during the production of newspapers and magazines. Publishers although initially did giveaways for their comic’s books as a means of advertising the products realized that many people had gained interest in the comic’s book. They thus started offering them at a price which saw many other get quite rich (Hirsch & Mariann 314). Therefore, in an indirect relationship, it can be argued that one benefit of using comic in literature is that it made more publications marketable hence more income to the published. As the same time readers could easily get the context of a particular publication which much ease as compared to an entire publication full of text.

Different Visual Language in Maus

Animal Metaphor

Art Spiegelman first used animal metaphor to present a racist story as a platform to distinguish between the blacks and the whites. This story became problematic until Art Spiegelman decides to create a personal story of “the Nazi chasing Jews as they had in (Spiegelman’s) childhood nightmares (Spiegelman 72). In that case, He used cat-mouse metaphor to depict the aspect of oppression where the cat was the oppressor and the mouse was the oppressed.

The use of animals in Art Spiegelman’s novel is a very innovative method of portraying certain aspects in the community that could not be said directly. Art Spiegelman is very aware of the difficulties however that the use of animal metaphor could bring. He is therefore very cautious in his narratives. In his narratives, Art Spiegelman presents the Americans as dogs, Gypsies as moths, Brits as fish, French as frogs, Germans as cats, and Jews as mice. However, all his relations as attributed to the situation of events that makes a certain nationality fit a particular animal.

Drawing Style

The kind of drawing used in Maus is quite simple and straight forward. At different instances, the readers have termed it as very sketchy hence not portraying the final version. In his last three pages of the second version of Maus published in 1972, Art Spiegelman’s drawing are more decorative hence showing his tireless efforts to transform and eliminate too-naturalistic elements to make the drawing appear more real (Spiegelman 48). This clearly shows that Art Spiegelman used the rough images initially in Maus intentionally not that he could not draw accurately. The rough drawing perfectly fit in his topics and outlined the general mood of the book. Different types and kinds of drawing are aimed at communication as well as presenting the novel in a certain aspect (Cohn & Neil 75). It is important as a reader to be very keen and sensitive on the drawing to avoid misinterpretation of the novel.

Conclusion

The writing of the book about the Holocaust was a direct challenge by Art Spiegelman to the traditional use of comic. Art Spiegelman portrayed that comics can be used in different ways such as drawing, pictures, photograph, and animal metaphors among others to write about very sensitive topics. Comics has also been portrayed as a unique platform for autobiography where they bring a more personal and authentic portrait of the author. Comics are aimed at communicating certain messages and not sentimentalizing, simplifying, or demeaning the topic. Comics contribute to the general complexity of the visual language used in a novel hence making it more enticing.