The American cartoonist Art Spiegelman, well-known for being the creator of the graphic novel Mausassured in a gathering this Thursday with journalists in Barcelona, inside the framework of the Kosmopolis literary pageant, that he doesn’t need his work “to be used as a recruiting tool for the Israeli army.”
Spiegelman is the writer of Mausa basic comedian e book work that in 1992 grew to become the primary graphic novel to win a Pulitzer Prize. The comedian, already acknowledged as a traditional of literature, delves into the reminiscences of Vladek Spiegelman, Art’s father and Holocaust survivor. The writer recalled that, after the publication in 1972 of a three-page strip that was the germ of Mausstarted a sequence of interviews together with his father to speak about his life throughout World War II, one thing he remembers as his solely “serious conversations.”
“In the comic underground There was a turning point, which was when the autobiographical comic began to take shape. You can tell anything as long as you find a personal support point and navigate through those experiences,” says the cartoonist. In this regard, the artist assured that “Maus was built on the pain that he was going through”, so “he could not have found another Maus somewhere else.” Spiegelman, the son of a Polish Jewish survivor of the Holocaust who emigrated to the United States after World War II, assured that he considers himself an “Azionist,” one thing like an “agnostic of Zionism,” since, as he belongs to the diaspora, he believes “in the synthesis of cultures.”
“Israel’s main problem, after Hamas, is me, because I belong to the diaspora and I do not believe in the promised land, which is a reality that does not challenge me,” Spiegelman said. One of his newest works is the strip Anymore!a collaboration with Joe Sacco, writer of Gaza Footnotesthrough which they denounce the bloodbath in Palestine. “I was never a Zionist. My parents went to plant trees in Israel when I was a child and it made me very uncomfortable to see people walking armed down the street. That’s when I understood how that worked between Israelis and Palestinians,” stated the cartoonist. “I don’t want Maus be used as a recruiting tool for the Israeli army, that is what led me to work in Anymore!”.
Sarcasm in opposition to Trump
His issues proper now aren’t solely within the Middle East, since Donald Trump’s re-election has “disoriented him greatly.” “It’s the worst joke I’ve ever experienced,” he added. “It is very difficult to face the current circumstances, we only have sarcasm and irony, and it is a much less powerful weapon than the real power they have,” lamented the cartoonist, including: “My parents came to the United States in 1945 fleeing and seeking freedom, and now it seems that the one who will have to flee the United States is me.” In the opinion of the comedian creator, there was no actual democracy wherever and he has hoped that “what is happening in the United States is like a vaccine in Spain,” contemplating that the world is now extra harmful than at another time in his life.
Despite having promised himself in 2018 that he would by no means draw Trump as a result of “he is an evil narcissist who should not be fed,” he has confessed that he seems portrayed within the work he’s concerned in proper now, a “e book of sketches “which is becoming a book of complaints.” The American will take part in Kosmopolis 2025 with the discuss Vignettes to open troublesome conversations tomorrow, Friday, whereas on Saturday the twenty fifth he’ll star alongside the cartoonist Max within the dialog The comedian grew to become literatureand on Sunday the twenty sixth he’ll communicate with Chris Ware, Françoise Mouly and Charles Burns about The comedian revolution.
https://elpais.com/cultura/2025-10-23/art-spiegelman-no-quiero-que-maus-se-use-como-herramienta-de-reclutamiento-de-israel.html