Week 2 of English 333 finished off with the first of two sessions devoted to Spiegelman's Maus (perhaps the most often-taught book in courses of this type). After my students drew attendance cards on the theme of self-as-animal, we launched into Maus right away--thanks to our discussion leader, who smartly raised the question of Spiegelman's use of animal "masks" straight off, and tied this into our drawing activity (nice). We spent an hour-plus discussing first this device, then a larger set of issues emerging from the first volume of Maus--from characterization, including the father/son relationship, to formal questions, such as the sudden rupture that is "Prisoner on the Hell Planet" (Spiegelman's pioneering underground comic, published in 1973, interpolated into the pages of Maus to dramatic effect). I asked about our sympathies, as readers, for either Vladek and/or Artie, and questioned the inclusion of the final page in Chapter One, which depicts Artie making a promise to his father that the book has already, in effect, broken (Artie promises discretion and respect for privacy, as his father wants, but Maus delivers rough honesty instead). I also sought to extend the discussion of the animal metaphor beyond its dramatic effectiveness to its possible ethical and ideological implications.
In the second half of class, we continued to discuss Maus. I found the conversation productive and encouraging, the class engaged and serious (and I look forward to further discussion tomorrow, at the start of Week 3!). I also gave my Spiegelman Pecha Kucha lecture (developed last fall in 620AS), by way of background, and showed off some other Spiegelman publications, such as the original "Maus" from Funny Aminals and an issue of the oversized RAW magazine. Finally, we discussed minicomics; I brought a raft of examples, some by past 333 students, and zipped through my usual lecture notes on the topic. I gave out Kevin Huizenga's splendid page "The Varieties of Comics Experience" (from his Center for Cartoon Studies promo booklet, 2006) to discuss comics genres, e.g. strip, one-pager, comic book, graphic novel, and minicomic. As a reminder, my students have to produce a one-sheet minicomic about their experience reading Maus by this Thursday, June 11.