Discuss: Story Arcs You've Read Multiple Times

Doug: Name 'em, and tell us why! What brought you back, and how about your level of satisfaction on the re-read? And this might be fun -- where did you read these, either the first time or later? For example, you might have been on board for Fantastic Four #s 120-123 (Gabriel and Galactus), but you might have at some point read that story in Marvel Treasury Edition #21.

BAB Classic: Magneto -- Testament. Historically Useful, or Travesty to Memory?

NOTE:  Today we begin a series of comics reviews that ran in the early days of the Bronze Age Babies.  This was our first review (and second post overall), originally published in early July 2009.  There were no comments on the post at that time.

Doug: I have a love for comics, specifically men in spandex (insert whatever joke you want here!!). Super-heroes, you know.

Anyway, I occasionally (although not often) get out of the box and read other genres of comics. Of particular note are comics that deal with another passion of mine, and that is study of the Holocaust. In my spare time, I am an educator with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and I travel the country (and beyond at times) teaching teachers how to deliver this subject matter to secondary-aged students.

I use Art Spiegelman's Maus with my own freshmen-level classes, and I've cited that graphic novel as well as Will Eisner's The Plot (an extensive look at the writing and desemination of The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion) in my senior-level Social Injustice class. I just finished reading Magneto: Testament, and I want to recommend it to you. The edition I read is hardcover, runs $25 retail, and reprints the five issues of the mini-series that was published in 2008. It also includes historical endnotes and a teacher's guide. While I didn't wholeheartedly agree with all of the lesson suggestions, it would still be a welcome resource for many educators.

If for some reason you aren't up on your X-Men lore, or if you haven't seen any of the three X-films, Magneto is the main bad guy in the mythos. He is a tragic hero, bent on making the world safe for those with mutant powers. He is quite militant, and is opposed by Charles Xavier and his X-Men; think Malcolm X's means vs. Dr. Martin Luther King's means and you get the basic story. Make no mistake -- just above I stated that he is a "tragic hero". That's somewhat of a new characterization, as throughout the Silver and Bronze Ages Magneto was one of the premier do-badders in the Marvel Universe. He left a body count, to be certain. But, around 30 years ago, Chris Claremont (and subsequent writers) decided that a way to explain Magneto's militancy in the mutant vs. non-mutant conflict was to set his origins in the Holocaust. Magneto: Testament is the definitive origin/backstory of the character.

This graphic novel could be used in any high school classroom, and is a serious and straightforward look at a German-Jewish family and their lives before and during the Shoah. As a boy in this tale, Magneto exhibits no powers, so this truly is a Holocaust story and not a superhero story in any way. The author and artist (Greg Pak and Carmine Di Giandomenico) were edited by scholars at the Simon Wiesenthal Center; I can say that everything they wrote/drew is accurate to the best of my knowledge -- the Auschwitz I and II scenes are outstanding. I was able to travel to Warsaw and Krakow, Poland last October -- my journey included a tour of Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau. The author/editor of this graphic novel use the book's endnotes to offer specific support for many of the scenes in the story. I felt good that what had been presented was rooted in actual events, a danger that historical fiction often faces (and often loses, in my opinion). 

Magneto: Testament is a much shorter read than Maus, and probably more accessible to youngsters than The Plot. It is graphically violent in spots, but then I would add that no student of the Holocaust would be surprised at any of the situations depicted. I'd rate the book PG-13 I suppose, but there is more than that implied at times. Of course, with as much violence as generally makes its way in between the pages of the standard 20-page comic these days, perhaps no one will be surprised. I'd offer, however, that "real" violence -- that based on historical fact and in real-world events -- carries a bit more weight, even shock value.

So, if you have time to waste someday at a Barnes and Noble or Borders... or if you will actually part with your hard-earned cash, I'd recommend picking up this collection. I wanted to also give you a head's up that this could prove to be an exciting new resource for secondary teachers.

Note: There is a trade paperback collection available, as well as the hardcover edition.

BAB Book Review: MetaMaus

Doug: Two weeks ago I reviewed Mail Order Mysteries; today we're looking at another holiday gift I received late last year -- Art Spiegelman's 25th Anniversary retrospective on all-things-Maus.

As I've remarked before, the Holocaust is one of the passions of my teaching. I've been using Maus in my classroom for over 15 years. That graphic novel has literally been life-changing for me as a professional, and as a human being. Believe it or not, Maus was my entry point to the Holocaust. When I was in high school, we did not have a world history course. I attended a small liberal arts college in central Illinois, and although I feel I got a decent breadth of study in world history and U.S. history (as a history education major), there was virtually no mention of the Holocaust. Truth -- a few years ago, not believing that my professors had ducked the topic, I opened my textbook for "2oth Century Europe"; there were no more than three paragraphs on the genocide, well tucked within the chapter on World War II.

I vividly recall the day my fiance' and I were walking around one of the bookstores at her university; it must have been the fall of 1986. There on the shelf was this odd looking book with two mice framed by a swastika. Picking it up, I was amazed to see that it was a black & white comic! Browsing it briefly, I knew I wanted it so bought it right away. About two days later I sat down and read "My Father Bleeds History" in one marathon. It was absolutely like nothing I'd ever seen. It was so personal, so painful, so suspenseful... I didn't know at the time that I actually knew of Art Spiegelman's work -- who among us didn't know Wacky Packages or the Garbage Pail Kids? But the world of underground comics? Not for me. I knew R. Crumb and I knew I preferred the relative safety of Marvel and DC.

I'd only recently begun my teaching career when the second volume, "And Here My Troubles Began", was released. I gobbled that one up as soon as it was released, and was just amazed at the details of the Spiegelmans' time in Auschwitz. As the years of my teaching career passed, I knew I wanted my world history students to go deeper on this subject. In Illinois (as in many other states) the Holocaust is a mandated subject throughout public schooling. It really wasn't difficult to convince our department chair to let me and a few other interested colleagues begin incorporating Maus into our curriculum.

In 2000 a co-worker and I attended a one-day seminar in Chicago entitled "Teaching the Holocaust". It was delivered by the education department of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. I was floored. I hadn't been doing anything wrong over the years, but I'd been so incomplete! The methodologies, the anecdotes, the resources provided -- I was simply blown away. We were at Spertus College on Michigan Avenue -- a beautiful setting overlooking Grant Park and Buckingham Fountain. While there I noticed that they offered a distance-learning master's degree program. I signed up within weeks, and completed my Master of Science in Jewish Studies (I am Protestant, by the way -- people always ask when they hear about my degree...) with a concentration in Holocaust education in 2005.

But where this has really changed me professionally is in my involvement with the USHMM. In 2001 I applied for and was awarded a Museum Teacher Fellowship, which has forever changed how I teach. A few years later I was "promoted" to the Regional Education Corps. For the past five years I've gone around the country teaching teachers how to teach about the Holocaust. I've been to Chicago several times, to Des Moines, Indianapolis, Green Bay, Park City, and Washington, DC. In 2008 I was chosen to be in the inaugural group of teachers to go on a study tour of Poland, complements of the Polish Embassy. In October of that year we spent eight days in Warsaw and Krakow, with the culmination of the tour being a day spent at Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Words cannot describe... Later, I served on the Educator Advisory Board for the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center (Skokie, IL), and was invited to its grand opening where Elie Wiesel and former President Clinton were among the speakers.

So, about this book. Should you own it, read it, skip it altogether? I'm sure you've already figured out where I'm coming from on it -- I love it. But why should you? Well, first off, if you haven't read Maus I think you should. If you enjoy any aspect of the humanities, from history to psychology, from sociology to biography, then Maus is for you. I am always reluctant to read outside of the superhero books; I'd be kicking myself if I'd never given Maus a try. MetaMaus is indeed a comprehensive retrospective on Spiegelman's masterpiece. Let me let him tell you about the premise of the book, from page 6:

"MetaMaus is built around a series of taped conversations with Hillary Chute. (She is currently Neubauer Family Assistant Professor of English at the university of Chicago and was previously a Junior Fellow in Literature in the Society of Fellows at Harvard University.)

In 2006, after reading her lucid takes on my work and that of others I gave her free access to my rat's nest of files, archives, artwork, notebooks, journals, books, and dirty laundry. She soon became my chief enabler and associate editor in a project I kept resisting. (It was hard to revisit Maus, the book that both "made" me and has haunted me ever since; hard to revisit the ghosts of my family, the death-stench of history, and my own past.) Her relentless enthusiasm, diligence, and intelligence allowed this project to happen." --a.s.
I've probably read Maus a dozen times -- I don't completely read it every year I teach it, but I generally read several pages at a time to refresh my memory for class discussions. That being said, when Spiegelman and Chute discuss certain vignettes and how and why Spiegelman chose his way of presenting the scene, I'm pretty in tune with them. So for me, or for any multiple reader or student of Maus, this book is simply fascinating. For you who might have read it once or just know of it, this is a window into the complete creative process. Maus was originally conceived as a three-page story; it was expanded to a 300-page graphic novel! Spiegelman takes us through his research, his struggles with panel lay-outs, the evolution of metaphor, struggles with how to accurately convey his father's broken English, etc. Along the way we are treated to seemingly endless examples of drafts for pages and even for specific panels.

But it goes beyond the creation of Maus and into the world of corporate big business -- of international translations, pressures for film and animation rights, and museum shows. One of the comments I found very interesting was Spiegelman's declaration that the original publication of Maus as a graphic novel of 6 1/2" x 9" is the only size at which he wants the art to be exhibited. He talks of being very unhappy one time when he entered an exhibit to see single panels from Maus blown up to poster size. He remarks that to do that is to lose all context of the page and what has come before and what is yet to be revealed. Later in the book he tells that working in the small, confined size limited him -- disciplined him -- to tell the story creatively yet not ornately. Spiegelman often calls himself a poor draftsman, an inferior artist, yet as we hear him soliloquize on his burdens of creativity, on the countless drafts and rejections of even specific figures within a given panel, we cannot but marvel at his brilliance in telling this story in the exact manner in which he wanted it told.

The table of contents goes like this:

1. Introduction (8)
2. Why the Holocaust (10)
3. Family Album (83)
4. The Early Maus (105)
5. Why Mice? (110)
6. Why Comics? (164)
7. Family Tree (224)
8. Vladek's Transcript (237)
9. Memories of Anja (278)
10. Chronology (290)
11. Index (295)

The real prize in the book... I shouldn't have said that. The book is a prize in itself. Start again -- One of the most amazing elements of the book is the inclusion of a DVD-ROM that includes the complete Maus in a searchable digital format, complete with page and panel drafts, links to notes on research, and maps and photos where appropriate. There are several books on the Holocaust that were on Anja's bookshelf that are included, as well as the complete audio interviews between Art and Vladek that form the backbone of the book. Several essays and reviews about Maus round out the contents of the disc.

At an MSRP of $35.00 for the hardcover edition, this would be welcome in your comic book library, or on the bookshelf in your family room, den, or study.

The Big Haul?

Doug: Well, what did you get?

Doug: Me? Well, I'm glad you asked! I was the fortunate recipient of the Marvel Team-Up tpb by Chris Claremont and John Byrne. As my bloggin' partner had suggested that we take a look at some of those issues in the new year, it was of great import that I obtain said tome. Do not underestimate the power of Santa Claus. I also received the Mail-Order Mysteries book I'd mentioned last week. Art Spiegelman's Meta-Maus was an exciting "get", as I've used Maus in teaching the Holocaust to our world history students for well over a decade. Not only is the book great-looking and exhaustive in Spiegelman's telling of all-things Maus, but it includes a DVD with a treasure-trove of extras that include the tape recorded interviews Spiegelman made while talking to his father, Vladek. I'm really eager to sit down with this over the next few days. I'm also anxious to see the DVD Batman: Year One which my mother bought for me. Lastly, I got the Hallmark ornaments of Thor and Avengers #4 featuring a relief of Captain America popping right out of the cover. I treated myself today to the Green Lantern ornament at half off. And also falling under the category of "treating oneself", at the behest of our friend david_b I snagged a 16x24 print of the artwork from the 1975 Marvel Comics Convention -- drool over all of that John Buscema goodness below.

Karen: Nice haul, partner! I didn't do badly myself. My husband is way too good to me; he got me three wonderful books: The Hammer Vault, the Star Trek Vault, and the Making of Star Wars. It will take me months to look through them! I also got some sweet Funko monster figures, and a very cool model of the rocketship from the movie When Worlds Collide. My friends got me some great stuff too -boy do they know what I like! I now have a mug with the cover of Giant-Size X-Men #1 on it, a couple of new tiki mugs, an Adventureland t-shirt from Disneyland, and some Disney pins as well. Wow, am I lucky.