Art Spiegelman is a genius

Breakdowns

I had the pleasure to see Art Spiegelman speak at the Bagdad theater this week (for a mere $5). I’ve read only Maus I and Maus II along with some of his work for The New Yorker but have a list of work waiting to be read: Breakdowns: Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@&*!, In the Shadow of No Towers, and the illustrated version of Joseph Moncure March’s The Wild Party.

Spiegelman was articulate, funny and brilliant as he described his creative process and how his brain works when he develops a comic. He also talked about the history of comics and how they have evolved, including the crazy 1954 Senate report called “Comic Books and Juvenile Deliquency” that claimed comics cause increased teen angst and trouble. That’s how we ended up with so many super heros in tights—we had to have good role models to save the day.