The American cartoonist Art Spiegelman, famous for being the creator of the graphic novel Mausassured in a meeting this Thursday with journalists in Barcelona, within the framework of the Kosmopolis literary festival, that he does not want his work “to be used as a recruiting tool for the Israeli army.”
Spiegelman is the author of Mausa fundamental comic book work that in 1992 became the first graphic novel to win a Pulitzer Prize. The comic, already recognized as a classic of literature, delves into the memories of Vladek Spiegelman, Art’s father and Holocaust survivor. The author recalled that, after the publication in 1972 of a three-page strip that was the germ of Mausbegan a series of interviews with his father to talk about his life during World War II, something he remembers as his only “serious conversations.”
“In the comic underground There was a turning point, which was when the autobiographical comic began to take shape. You can tell anything as long as you find a personal support point and navigate through those experiences,” says the cartoonist. In this regard, the artist assured that “Maus was built on the pain that he was going through”, so “he could not have found another Maus somewhere else.” Spiegelman, the son of a Polish Jewish survivor of the Holocaust who emigrated to the United States after World War II, assured that he considers himself an “Azionist,” something like an “agnostic of Zionism,” since, as he belongs to the diaspora, he believes “in the synthesis of cultures.”
“Israel’s main problem, after Hamas, is me, because I belong to the diaspora and I do not believe in the promised land, which is a reality that does not challenge me,” Spiegelman stated. One of his latest works is the strip Anymore!a collaboration with Joe Sacco, author of Gaza Footnotesin which they denounce the massacre in Palestine. “I was never a Zionist. My parents went to plant trees in Israel when I was a child and it made me very uncomfortable to see people walking armed down the street. That’s when I understood how that worked between Israelis and Palestinians,” said the cartoonist. “I don’t want Maus be used as a recruiting tool for the Israeli army, that is what led me to work in Anymore!”.
Sarcasm against Trump
His concerns right now are not only in the Middle East, since Donald Trump’s re-election has “disoriented him greatly.” “It’s the worst joke I’ve ever experienced,” he added. “It is very difficult to face the current circumstances, we only have sarcasm and irony, and it is a much less powerful weapon than the real power they have,” lamented the cartoonist, adding: “My parents came to the United States in 1945 fleeing and seeking freedom, and now it seems that the one who will have to flee the United States is me.” In the opinion of the comic creator, there has been no real democracy anywhere and he has hoped that “what is happening in the United States is like a vaccine in Spain,” considering that the world is now more dangerous than at any other time in his life.
Despite having promised himself in 2018 that he would never draw Trump because “he is an evil narcissist who should not be fed,” he has confessed that he appears portrayed in the work he is involved in right now, a “book of sketches “which is becoming a book of complaints.” The American will participate in Kosmopolis 2025 with the talk Vignettes to open difficult conversations tomorrow, Friday, while on Saturday the 25th he will star alongside the cartoonist Max in the conversation The comic became literatureand on Sunday the 26th he will speak with Chris Ware, Françoise Mouly and Charles Burns about The comic revolution.