BIOGRAPHY:

Art Spiegelman (1948- ) was born in Stockholm, Sweden. In 1951 his family emigrated to USA and he was raised in Queens NY. His early comic work was produced for the American underground comixs of the 1960's and 70's, culminating with him co-editing Arcade, The Comics Revue magazine for seven issues between 1975-77 with Bill Griffith in San Francisco. Much of his early work concerned itself with experimenting with the techniques and language of comics rather than a specific plot or narrative, as evident in The Malpractice Suite and Ace Hole, Midget Detective. However, the Arcade experience was such that he vowed never again to edit another magazine.

However, upon returning to New York, he met Francoise Mouly who persuaded him to try again. The result was the avant-garde, self-published and co-edited RAW magazine. Beginning in RAW #2, and appearing in every subsequent issue, was the serialisation of his most famous work, Maus: A Survivor's Tale. Together with Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns, Maus attracted mainstream attention in the late 1980's and won the Pulitzer prize in 1992. However, this new found level of acceptance didn't sit comfortably with Art, and as he later commented, "One thing Maus did was scare the bejesus out of me as far as doing any more comics for a while. I would rather have gotten a lethal case of the flu than taken on another comic project after that."

In the early 1990's, Tina Brown became editor of The New Yorker magazine with a mission to update the magazine's image. One of the first artists she wanted to produce the cover was Art Spiegelman. He began to contribute covers as well as short comic works and by doing so earned himself a reputation for generating controversy. During his long career, he has also worked for the Topps Bubblegum Company between 1966 and 1989, designing the famous 'Garbage Pail Kids' and 'Wacky Packages' bubble gum cards, before finally leaving over a dispute over the return of art work to himself and the artists he had encouraged to also work for them. He has taught history and aesthetics of comics at New York 's School of Visual Arts . He has co-edited with Francois Mouly, the series of RAW One Shot books and was the series designer for the Avon 'Neon Lit' line of graphic novels which included the acclaimed adaptation of Paul Auster's City of Glass by David Mazzucchelli.

He is currently contributing to and co-editing with Francoise Mouly the Little Lit series of children books and lives in Manhattan, NY with his wife, Francoise Mouly and their two children.

Interviews:
The Post Standard (2006)
NPR (2004)
The Onion (2004)
Comic Art #5 (2004)
The Comics Journal Special Edition #4 (2004)
Time.comix (2003)
The Comics Journal #180-1 (1995)
The Comics Journal #145 (1991)
The Comics Journal #74
The Comics Journal #65

Resources:
Recommended by... Art Spiegelmen
Art Spiegelman at Pantheon
Ephemera vs The Apocalypse
Little Lit.com
Francoise Mouly on Little Lit

Reviews: Maus
The Guardian

Reviews: In The Shadow Of No Towers
The Guardian
Time.com
USAToday.com
VillageVoice.com

Reviews: Little Lit
Time.com
Indy Magazine

Maus
Pantheon, 1997
Maus tells two powerful stories. The first is of Valdek Spiegelman, a Jewish survivor of Hitler's Europe, in a harrowing tale filled with countless brushes with death, improbable escapes, and the terror of confinement and betrayal. The second is of his son, a cartoonist, trying to come to terms with his father and his terrifying past, as together they try to lead a normal life in New York - a life of minor arguments and passing visits. It is a survivor's tale and a tale of how the children survive the survivors.

"A remarkable feat of documentary detail and novelistic vividness."
New York Times Book Review

"Maus is a book that cannot be put down, truly, even to sleep. When two of the mice speak of love, you are moved, when they suffer, you weep. Slowly through this little tale comprised of suffering, humor and life's daily trials, you are captivated by the language of an old Eastern European family, and drawn into the gentle and mesmerizing rhythm, and when you finish Maus, you are unhappy to have left that magical world and long for the sequel that will return you to it."
Umberto Eco

In The Shadow Of No Towers
Pantheon Books, 2004
On 11th September 2001, Art Spiegelman raced to the World Trade Center, not knowing if his daughter Nadja was alive or dead. Once she was found safe - in her school at the foot of the burning towers - he returned home to meditate on the trauma. "I hadn't anticipated that the hijackings of September 11 would themselves be hijacked by the Bush cabal that reduced it all to a war recruitment poster..." In his first graphic novel since the groundbreaking Maus, Art Spiegelman presents a deeply moving personal, politically charged account of the events and aftermath of September 11th, 2001. In a large format book, Spiegelman relates his experiences of the national tragedy in drawings and text that convey the unfathomable enormity of the event itself, the obvious and insidious effects it had on his life, and the extraordinary and often hidden changes that have been enacted in the name of post-9/11 national security and that have begun to undermine the very foundation of American democracy.

The Wild Party
with Joseph Moncure March
Pantheon, 1994
A poem for readers with no time for poetry. A hard-boiled jazz-age tragedy told in syncopated rhyming couplets. The book that made William Burroughs want to be a writer. The Wild Party, a lost classic from 1928, is given new life by Art Spiegelman's sinister and witty black and white drawings. In his introduction, Art Spiegelman notes that the original book "owes as much to the language and sizzle of tabloids, to the lyrics and rhythms of hot jazz and to the close-ups and cuts of silent films as it does to any earlier narrative verse other than off-colour limericks."

Covering The New Yorker
edited by Francoise Mouly
Abbeyville Press, 2000
This superb book presents not only the best of The New Yorker's covers from it's 75 year history but also a behind the scenes peek at some of the sketches that lead up to them and a look at the controversy that sometimes followed in their wake. An article by Francois Mouly illuminates the history of the magazine's cover and how they have changed over the decades. In addition, portfolios throughout the book highlight the work of six especially evocative cover artists: Barry Blitt, Bruce McCall, Sempé, Edward Sorel, Art Spiegelman and Saul Steinberg.

Comics & Illustration:
In The Shadow Of No Towers (2004)
Covering The New Yorker (2000)
From Maus To Now : Comix, Essays, Graphics and Scraps (1998)
Open Me… I'm A Dog (1997)
The Complete Maus (1997)
The Complete Maus CD-ROM (1994)
The Wild Party with Joseph March (1994)
Maus 2 : And Here My Troubles Began (1991)
Maus 1 : My Father Bleeds History (1986)
Breakdowns (1977)

Contributor and co-edited with Francoise Mouly:
Little Lit 3 : It Was a Dark And Silly Night (2003)
Little Lit 2 : Strange Stories for Strange Kids (2001)
Little Lit 1 : Folklore & Fairy Tale Funnies (2000)
RAW Vol 2 #1-3 (1989-91)
Read Yourself Raw (1987)
RAW Vol 1 #1-8 (1980-86)

Contributor and co-editor:
Jack Cole & Plastic Man with Chip Kidd (2001)
The Narrative Corpse with R. Sikoryak (1998)
Tijuana Bibles with Bob Adelman & Richard Merkin (1997)
Arcade #1-7 with Bill Griffith (1975-77)
Whole Grains : Book Of Quotations with Bob Schneider (1973)