COMICS

 Juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence

 Intent: to convey info and produce aesthetic response in the reader

GRAPHIC NARRATIVE
 Account of an event/sequence of events that’s told graphically

Will Eisner and Scott McCloud

 Major theorists of graphic narrative
o Ex. bayeux tapestry (1070)
o Garden of earthly delights (1490-1510)
1st American comic book
 Famous funnies (1933)
1st action comic
 Superman (1938)

 Art Spiegelman came to the scene in 1970s

COMIC STRIP
Short and often ongoing sequence of juxtaposed pictorial and other images, often
periodical
GRAPHIC NOVEL:
 Genre in the comics; longer than comic strip, les inclined to be periodical
o Formal elements:
 Panels-squares or rectangles that contain a single scene; each unit of the
sequence; panels act as a general indicator that time and space is being
divided
 Gutters-space between panels
 Dialog Balloons-contain communication between/among characters
 Thought Balloons-contain a character’s thoughts
 Captions-contain information about a scene or character
 Sound Effects-visual sound clues i.e.. Wonk! Pow!
 BLEEDING PANEL: partially framed or unframed panels; can have the
effect of showing more that one moment in time
 CAPTION: used to convey information that cannot be communicated by
the art or by speech (a title or a brief explanation)
o closure: Scott McCloud’s term for the phenomenon of observing the parts but
perceiving the whole—a crucial element in the reading of comics, which jump
from panel to panel, requiring us to fill in what’s missing from the panel or that
happened in the gutter; the part of the reading process that McCloud suggests
makes the reader particularly agential in comics: we make meaning (or think we
do)

GRAPHIC NOVELS AND MANGA:

 Present complex material in readable text
 Serve as a bridge to more difficult reading
 Challenge readers of more traditional literature
 Embrace nature of multimedia world

Maus I: My Father Bleeds History

 Published: 1980, 1986, 1991
o Nonfiction
o Graphic Novel
o Memoir
o (Auto)Biography
o Historical
o Oral history
o Allegory
o Cartoon
 Hitler: "The Jews are undoubtedly a race, but they are not human.”
o Made Jews cut their beards off
o Forced them to sing as they beat them
o Weren’t able to buy what they wanted to
o Forced into ghettos to be isolated
 Deadly intent
 356 ghettos
 Srodula (where Vladek was)
o Between 1933 and 1945, the German government led by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi
party carried out the systematic prosecution and murder of European Jews.
o This genocide is now known as the Holocaust.
o The Holocaust is the mass murder of Jews under the German Nazi regime during
the period 1941-45
 How did it happen
 The power of words
 collaborator/bystander
 Anti Semitism
 Isolation

 Maus I
o The Jews - mice
 Hitler called them ‘’vermin’’ ; Saved their food, Hid; small, insignificant
 Jewish police; collaborators (Vladek pretended to be Polish collaborator)
o The Germans - cats
 Cats kill and hunt down mice
o The Americans - dogs
 Chase cats, loyal/rescuers
o The Poles - pigs
 Hitler called them pigs; lazy, indifferent, followers, brutal, strong
 Maus II
o The Roma (Gypsies) - gypsy moths
o The British - fish
o The child of a Jew and a German - cat with stripes
 CHARACTERS:
o Artie, Vladek, Mala, Yulek, Lucia Greenberg, unnamed cousin, Anja Zylberberg,
school director, Anja’s parents
 Style of pictures:
o Cartoonish, black and white; sets the mood (more somber, gruesome), old,
reflects the tone of the story
o Drawings aren’t realistic, but you refer to them as humans after a couple of pages
 Animal allegory; hidden meaning
1960s – holocaust: the Nazi genocide of Jews.
• Between 1933 and 1945, the German government led by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party
carried out the systematic prosecution and murder of European Jews.
• This genocide is now known as the Holocaust.
• The Holocaust is the mass murder of Jews under the German Nazi regime during the
period 1941-45.
HOW DID IT HAPPEN?
1. Power of words
2. Bystander vs Collaborator
3. Anti-semitism
4. Stages of isolation
a. Stripping of Rights
i. 1935: Nuremberg Laws stated that all JEWS were :
ii. stripped of German citizenship
iii. fired from jobs & businesses boycotted
iv. banned from German schools and universities
v. Forced to carry ID cards
vi. Passports stamped with a “J”
vii. forced to wear the arm band of the Yellow “Star of David”
viii. Jewish synagogues destroyed
ix. forced to pay reparations and a special income tax
x. Marriages between Jews and Aryans forbidden
b. Segregation
i. GHETTOS
ii. Jews were forced to live in designated areas called “ghettos” to isolate
them from the rest of society
iii. Nazis established 356 ghettos in Poland, the Soviet Union,
Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Hungary during WWII
iv. Ghettos were filthy, with poor sanitation and extreme overcrowding
v. Disease was rampant and food was in such short supply that many slowly
starved to death
vi. Warsaw, the largest ghetto, held 500,000 people and was 3.5 square miles
in size
c. Concentration
i. Essential to Nazi’s systematic oppression and eventual mass murder of
enemies of Nazi Germany (Jews, Communists, Gypsies, homosexuals,
political dissidents, and other opponents)
ii. Reformatory facilities, “punishment camps,” transit camps, work/labor
camps, etc.
iii. Prisoners faced undernourishment and starvation
iv. Prisoners transported in cattle freight cars
d. Extermination
i. DEATH FACTORIES: Nazi extermination camps fulfilled the singular
function of mass murder
 ii. EINSATZGRUPPEN (mobile killing units) had began killing operations
aimed at entire Jewish communities in the 1930s
iii. EUTHANASIA PROGRAM: Nazi policy to eliminate “life unworthy of
life” (mentally or physically challenged) to promote Aryan “racial
integrity”
iv. Gas Chambers & Crematoriums
v. Prisoners were sent to gas chambers disguised as showers
vi. Zyklon B gas used to gas people in 3 – 15 minutes
vii. Up to 8000 people were gassed per day at Auschwitz-Birkenau, the
largest death camp with 4 operating gas chambers
viii. Prisoners moved dead bodies to massive crematoriums
Nearing the End of the War

 By 1945, the Nazis’ began to destroy crematoriums and camps as Allied troops closed in

 Death Marches (Todesmarsche): Between 1944-1945, Nazis ordered marches over long
distances. Approximately 250 000 – 375 000 prisoners perished in Death Marches

 On January 27, 1945, the Soviet army entered Auschwitz (largest camp) and liberated
more than 7,000 remaining prisoners, who were mostly ill and dying.

 May 8, 1945
Aftermath

 Yom ha-Shoah: Holocaust Remembrance Day established in 1951

 Nuremberg Trials: 1945-1949 were trials for war crimes of Nazi officials (24 Nazi leaders
tried)

 Displaced Persons