My husband loves to read the comics. While I was raised to believe cartoons were simultaneously the lowest form of art and literature, they helped him learn how to read. Before the Internet, he read the comics page before he read anything else in the paper. Now he follows them online. One strip, Mom’s Cancer, has made such an impact on him that I got him the complete graphic novel but I wasn’t going read it. Like everyone else, I’ve lost loved ones to this awful disease and the idea of reading about some poor woman’s struggle didn’t send me. Add that feeling to what I was taught about comics as a kid and I decided this was a book to avoid. Well, I was wrong, not just a little bit wrong, but WRONG with whip cream and cherries. Mom’s Cancer is a story that needs to be shared and a strip was the best way to tell it. In 2004 Brian Fies was just one more baby-boomer in the sandwich generation part of his life (That’s when your kids see you as an adult but your parents still react like you’re a kid.) His parents and his siblings were living mostly…
Today’s column is by Barb Goydas. Whether she’s willing to admit it or not, Barb is a constant reader and one of those people who generates literary “buzz” by telling everyone when she finds a great new book. I introduced her to “Maus”. She returned the favor with “Persepolis” I love how one thing leads to another, although, I don’t like the sense of “no control”. I like to have a map and predict which road I will take. To travel without direction can lead to someplace risky. Still, I often have to remind myself, “with risk comes reward”. Three summers ago, my sister sent the book “Maus” when my son was exploring his interest in World War II. She thought it would be perfect, knowing his affinity for comic books. It arrived at the house, while he was off visiting his grandparents in Florida, I had the house to myself and was looking for something to read. Thinking it would only take me an hour or two, I decided to try it out. I didn’t have high expectations, since it was a “comic book” for goodness sake. Not only did the book move me emotionally, but it made…
I’ll admit it, I’m a snob when it comes to comic books. Early in my reading career it became apparent that an inverse relationship existed between the number of illustrations in the book and the expected IQ of the reader. (i.e., more pictures meant lower IQ). As soon as I figured that out, I headed for chapter books at high speed. Oh, I still enjoyed a great illustration once in a while but I knew better than to focus on them. And I couldn’t grasp why so many males in my generation continued to buy, read and discuss comic books after they reached legal maturity. It was like being trapped in a life-long, joke-less episode of “Big Bang Theory”. People could call the publications graphic novels or comics, I didn’t care. They were still just “funny books” for dorks. So I didn’t see Maus coming. Maus, if you haven’t seen it, is a graphic novel by Art Spiegelman about the Holocaust. And it’s animated, because Mr. Spiegelman is an illustrator. And, to put the icing on the cake, Mr. Spiegelman drew the characters in his work as animals. It sounds crazy but, believe me, it’s a work of genius. The…