Understanding Comics: Maus

In Scott McCloud's "Understand Comics: The Invisible Art," the author discusses the very basics of comic books and how they function in today's world with modern readers. While reading Art Spiegelman's "Maus," I observed many of these concepts in action. One of these concepts discussed by McCloud was the idea of the style of the comic being directly related to how the story is told by the narrator and characters and how it is received by the audience. 

In this panel, found on page 30, McCloud talks about the abstracting of the human image, "eliminating details" so that the reader is forced to focus on those specific details the artist wishes the reader to focus on. 

In the case of "Maus," the characters aren't even human. So, not only is the artist taking away specific facial features, he is taking away all recognizable human features. (To an extent; the mice in "Maus" are anthropomorphized with hands, walking on two feet and talking.) Since the face is where most body language is read by humans, this is interesting. However, the choice to use mice, as well as cats and pigs, is a deliberate one that forces the reader to - just as McCloud states - focus on specific details other than the humanness of the characters. By stripping away the human features, these characters become even more relatable, in a way. They don't look like a certain person, so it could potentially be anyone. Also, mice are often depicted comically as meek, so it adds more to the pathos side of the story. 

In these panels, McCloud discusses why his comic character isn't drawn realistically. He states, "You would have been far too aware of the messenger to fully receive the message!" In the same way, "Maus" is focused on the message of the story, not the messenger. With such strong characters, it is important to the author that the reader understands more than the plight of Vladek and realizes his struggles were shared by an entire race of people. By making these characters mice, Spiegelman has successfully stripped them of their individual identities and made them a symbol of Holocaust survivors and their kin alike. 

However, that does mean that "Maus" is entirely stripped of its humanity. 

These panels show how the son wishes to tell his father's story how it really happened because "it makes everything more real - more human." Indeed, having Vladek's story be personalized does humanize the story and including the love interests shows how Vladek's life did not start and stop with the Holocaust, just as every other Jewish person's life affected by the massacre did not start and stop with the Holocaust.