Maus I and II

Maus I and II are written by Art Speigleman. The most noticable thing about these graphic novels are his choice in what animal represents each race. Jews are represented as mice, "filthy", preyed upon mice. The German's are cats, they are the predators. Polish are pigs, pinkocommi pigs, as my dad refers to communists. French are frogs, the best I come up with here is, frog legs, or pallez vous frog say, as my dad always pronounced (parrlez-vous francais) when I was learning french. And American's are represented as dogs, my guess on this one is they are bigger than cats, and are always loyal...

On this page we can see a German cat in the lower right hand corner of the first panel, many Jewish mice, and on the second to last panel a Polish pig.

In the beginning of Maus II we see Art and his wife Francoise, he is asking her what animal he should draw her as. She asks why not a mouse like himself, and he tells her no because she is French. She argues that she converted to Judism and therefore should be a mouse. Art teases her and says maybe for the story he will draw her first as a frog, and then when she converts, then she will transform into a beautiful mouse.

The representation of people as animals puts these GNs as more iconic, however the representation of places and objects are much more realistic.

I think Art Speigleman did a fantastic job with both of these GNs (as opposed to how much I hated In The Shadow of No Towers. I actually had a hard time remembering that he was the author of the very different gns).