author portrait
© Nadja Spiegelman

Art Spiegelman

ART SPIEGELMAN is one of the world’s most admired and beloved comic artists, best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning Holocaust narrative, Maus. Born in Stockholm in 1948, Spiegelman began studying cartooning in high school and drawing professionally at age sixteen. He studied art and philosophy at Harpur College before joining the underground comics movement in the 1960s. Spiegelman taught history and the aesthetics of comics at the School of Visual Arts in New York from 1979 to 1986, and in 1980 he founded RAW, the acclaimed avant-garde comics magazine, with his wife, Françoise Mouly. Honors Spiegelman has received include induction into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame and the Art Director’s Club Hall of Fame. In 2005, he was named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People. He was made an Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2007, and in 2011 he was awarded the Grand Prix at the Angoulême International Comics Festival. In 2015, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and in 2018 he became the first comic artist to receive the Edward MacDowell Medal. His art has been exhibited at museums throughout the world, including the Pompidou Center in Paris, the Ludwig Museum in Cologne, the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Jewish Museum in New York City, and the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art.

Books

Renegade Reading: Banned Graphic Novels and Comics

Banned Books Week this year is coming up on September 18 – September 24! Graphic novels are not immune to challenges and censorship, with graphic illustrated works frequently finding themselves banned from classrooms and libraries for alleged violence, “pornographic” illustrations, and other “adult” themes. Books banned most frequently include those dealing with sexuality and gender,

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The Best of Graphic Memoirs

The graphic form can do so much to enhance the art of storytelling, and when applied to memoir–an inherently personal and intimate form of narrative–it can offer another medium through which to view the author’s emotions and memories. From historical narratives to re-imagined childhoods to sagas of depression and self-discovery, there’s a rich world of

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Maus – A Masterpiece

Called “the first masterpiece in comic book history” by The New Yorker, Art Spiegelman’s Maus is one of the most unforgettable graphic novels of all time. A brutally honest depiction of one of history’s most horrifying tragedies, Maus presents a story within a story, exploring the author’s tortured relationship with his aging father and recounting

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