Index. Introduction: up from the underground: Art Spiegelman and the elevation of comics / Lee Konstantinou -- Modernist disruptions: Art Spiegelman as experimenter, editor and critic / Shawn Gilmore -- A ragpicker's art: Spiegelman's jazz cosmopolitanism / Ariela Freedman -- The modern void: Art Spiegelman's aesthetics of silence / Georgiana Banita -- Exploding stereotypes: Spiegelman and transgression / Philip Smith -- RAW radicals: Art Spiegelman's comic politics / Sarah Hamblin -- Art Spiegelman and 9/11 / Kent Worcester -- Provisional equanimity: citation and solace in Art Spiegelman's "In the Shadow of No Towers" / Patrick Lawrence -- Of mice and masks: photography as masking in Art Spiegelman's "Maus" / Liza Futerman -- Art imitating life: traumatic affect in Art Spiegelman's "Maus" and Holocaust cinema / Harriet Earle -- Who published "Maus"? / Colin Beineke -- Ellis Island art: Art Spiegelman's place in the history of immigration comics / Cara Koehler -- Art Spiegelman's Faustian bargain: TOON books and the invention of comics for kids / Lee Konstantinou -- Appendix: Art Spiegelman's primary works -- About the contributors -- Index.
Summary:
"Contributions by Georgiana Banita, Colin Beinecke, Harriet Earle, Ariela Freedman, Liza Futerman, Shawn Gilmore, Sarah Hamblin, Cara Koehler, Lee Konstantinou, Patrick S. Lawrence, Philip Smith, and Kent Worcester A carefully curated, wide-ranging edited volume tracing Art Spiegelman's exceptional trajectory from underground rebellion to mainstream success, Artful Breakdowns: The Comics of Art Spiegelman reveals his key role in the rise of comics as an art form and of the cartoonist as artist. The collection grapples with Spiegelman's astonishing versatility, from his irreverent underground strips, influential avant-garde magazine RAW, the expressionist style of the comics classic Maus, the illustrations to the Jazz Age poem "The Wild Party," and his response to the September 11 terrorist attacks to his iconic cover art for the New Yorker, his children's books, and various cross-media collaborations. The twelve chapters cut across Spiegelman's career to document continuities and ruptures that the intense focus on Maus has obscured, yielding an array of original readings. Spiegelman's predilection for collage, improvisation, and the potent protest of silence shows his allegiance to modernist art. His cultural critique and anticapitalist, antimilitary positions shed light on his vocal public persona, while his deft intertextual strategies of mixing media archives, from comics to photography and film, amplify the poignance of his works. Developing new approaches to Spiegelman's comics-such as the publication history of Maus, the history of immigration and xenophobia, and the cartoonist's elevation of children's comics-the collection leaves no doubt that despite the accolades his accessible comics have garnered, we have yet to grasp the full range of Spiegelman's achievements in the realm of comics and beyond"-- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.