Graphic Histories
How the humble comic book makes history more accessible and more personal
I'm not sure when graphic novels started appearing in the reading lists for literature classes or when "Comic Studies" entered course lists (though a quick Google search did let me know it's still a hot button topic on whether they deserve a place in classrooms), but in 2009 when I started my undergraduate studies, I was a part of a cohort of students that included graphic novels as a part of literary canon on par with American classics like, Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson or subversive Beatnik texts like William S. Burrough's Naked Lunch.
In classes we critically analyzed Blankets by Craig Thompson, Black Hole by Charles Burns and on my own in the college bookstore I was drawn to POC or LGBTQ+ (hm, a complete mystery as to why) graphic memoirs, like Fun Home by Alison Bechdel and American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang, in bitesize chunks between classes. But to this day, only one of the graphic novels I encountered during college sits on my shelf: Maus by Art Spiegelmen.
Maus very clearly answers the question on whether comics are a medium that can be used to convey serious topics (even though they always have) and despite their visual nature, have clear literary merit. Maus is the example I use when old fuddy duddies take a jab at the big graphic novel sections in books stores (that used to be #summer2020) filled with teens sitting on the floor reading X-Men compilations or mangas. Like many American students, my high school taught a cross subject "Never Forget" module where the English teachers coordinated assigning Holocaust literature when the history teachers were going over WWII (which at our school weaved together into an overall "Cost of War" thematic understanding a la Dulce et Decorum Est and having teenagers send Dear John-style letters to each other). So of course, I was exposed to the usual lineup: Elie Wiesel, Ann Frank, and Schindler's List.
So by the time I encountered Maus in university, my socio-historical context for understanding the Holocaust was decent for a goy. However, reading Maus was a completely different experience from learning about the Final Solution or even reading other survivor memoirs and there was no denying that a good chunk of it was for the visual nature of the retelling. Maus was Art Spiegelman's way of processing the story of how his father, Vladek Spiegelman, survived the war and the camps with his mother.
No one looking through these panels could accuse Spiegelman of Mickey-Mousefying the Holocaust. Despite the artistic choices in the cartoonish and simplified aspects of the mice, you still feel the impact of the retelling because despite what is on the page, you know every mouse represents a real human. So when they are drawn lying in piles the horror is no less, it's just not as graphic.
Maus is something I periodically go back to. Maybe because it's such a quick read despite how dense it is with information. Places and people and details lost to war and death and time. But what I connected with most are the panels of Art visiting with his father to get his story. I'm first generation American. My parents grew up in the States, but they were born in the Philippines and to parents who made the choice to immigrate. Every hyphenated American has felt the generational differences chafe against their psyche. I felt so much sympathy towards Art, who could not stand to be around his father for more than a couple hours despite the cajoling and genuine desire for Vladek to spend more time with his son. The problem is our parents are especially good at getting under our skin.
I sympathized with the way Art can't get over the resentments he feels towards his father. The way Vladek flows from being affectionate, to guilt-tripping, to outright mean. There's a constant feeling that Art can't live up to what his father wants him to to be was all too familiar for me. The guilt-tripping never fails to work because you are made all too aware of the sacrifices made for your more comfortable life.
This is another thing immigrant children recognize. The refrain, "Just in case..." You should know this just in case. This is where we hide some extra money just in case the communists take it. This is how to get the thirteenth egg from the insides of the shells just in case there's a shortage and you need the food to stretch. Here we keep our documents just in case we need to flee. This is how I built a bunker to hide from Nazis. Let me draw it for you, just in case...
The just in case is the generational trauma we pass to each other. To explain, in part, how we came to be in the place that is not our home country. This line is the one that resonates most with me from Maus. It reminds us all. Never forget that everything can be taken from you. Never forget what fear can do to people. Never forget what the government is capable of. Never forget what they did to us. Never forget how we survived.
It is unfortunately a message that will probably always be relevant.
I bought March the second I woke up to headlines confirming John Lewis' passing. It is near impossible to fathom a man who is such a legend, enough of a recognizable, bonafide hero to be able to cosplay himself at ComicCon. And the truth was, I didn't know very much about him other than he was the youngest person to be invited to speak at the March on Washington and that he was an icon at every protest he attended because his presence bestowed the kind of street cred that legitimized movements of resistance and progressive change. I assumed he was old fashioned and the status quo. I mean, non-violence in this climate? How could he ask that of us? Reading March made me realize it was because he asked no less of himself in even worse circumstances.
Like Maus, March knows how to convey violence and horror in a way that isn't overwhelming, but no less impactful. I've seen the real pictures of Emmet Till. I don't need it reprinted in gory detail to still feel sickened and saddened by it. And in that way March spares me a little, while still holding my attention and demanding awareness. Given the state of our Twitter feeds this summer, it feels like a courtesy to dispense with the depictions of graphic violence even if we must still directly reconcile with police brutality.
March knows when to give a load of information, its panels packed with both in-story and historical details, and when to let you linger on a hard earned victory or a terrifying spectacle...
In this same way, you are sometimes pulled from Lewis' personal narrative journey and introduced to other key figures in the movement. While I'm sure his memoir is just as informative, this is where the graphic novel shines. It shows the scope of the movement by giving faces to the people who made up that historic coalition and humanizing historic giants through Lewis' personal relationships with them. You get so much more this way.
Some of my favorite parts are the recreation of famous speeches. Later, I would search for the transcripts and surviving audio and footage. But there's something about them in this dynamic visual style. You can look again and again and notice more and more details. It's not just the content of the words you digest, but how they are emphasized. The energy and the expressions.
The art by Nate Powell is just so good. Look at these contrasting panels between the racial injustices that happen in the dark behind bars versus the legal victories won in the clear light of day. I could wax poetic all day on the visual construction, but Will Eisner and Scott McCloud do it better in their seminal novels on how comics are critically analyzed and you should definitely check those out instead if you are interested in the subject. And like I said at the start of this, you need to pick up both Maus and March immediately and experience them for yourselves. They will earn their spot in your bookshelf as surely as they earned their place in history.
