Pulitzer Prize-winner talks 'Comix'

By DAVID CLUCAS
Banner-Graphic Staff Writer
Before Pulitzer Prize winner Art Spiegelman could give his talk "Comix 101" at DePauw University on Wednesday evening, he told the audience he "needed to talk about 9-11-01."

"I feel like I've just escaped Beirut and I'm back in America," Spiegelman said of his home life in New York City. "It's so different here. The air still smells of death near my house... it's still 9-11 for me."

As for many Americans, the terrorist attacks seemed unreal for Spiegelman. He said it was as if the special effects of Hollywood had met up with real life. Living only a few blocks away, he and his wife heard the roar of the second plane fly over and then slam into the south tower of the World Trade Center. They rushed to their daughter's high school, located just under the WTC, and miraculously found her among the thousands of chaotic students and parents. The towers collapsed shortly afterwards.

Days later, the comics artist sat in his office and pondered how to illustrate the tragedy for the front cover of the New Yorker magazine. He first drew a colorful picture of the city except for two black silhouettes for the destroyed towers. It wasn't exactly what Spiegelman wanted, but as he dimmed the colors on his computer, the drawing went black and left just a faint outline of the towers. Spiegelman found his cover. Focusing on the towers, he took a black background and drew the towers with a darker black. The result is what seems to be just a black cover, but upon looking closer, one can see the towers.

The rest of Spiegelman's talk focused on looking closer at comics.

"Comics are giving form to a person's thoughts and feelings," he said. "They are like the brain works. You think in bursts of language and retain a simplified version of what you've seen." Spiegelman explained that comics are not the same as picture books. Comics are an artform in illustrating the passage of time and creating the correct flow of movement, Spiegelman said. He used a slideshow of comics as examples. In a comic as seemingly simple as "Plastic Man," Spiegelman showed how the artist weaves his cartoon character through the panels. Spiegelman also noted that each panel has a packed passage of time through the characters' swings of motion and double-takes.

"Sometimes, the best drawing isn't the best comic drawing," he said. In fact, one of Spiegelman's favorite comics contained nothing but words. The size and shape of writing express the volume and emotion, he said. "This (the text) becomes the characters."

Spiegelman presented a relaxed and conversational two-hour speech. Flipping trough slides on a mostly darkened Kresge Auditor-ium stage, the cartoonist with large glasses and a receding hairline puffed through four cigarettes and frequently amused the crowd with his frankness.

"Most art is linked to commerce," Spiegelman said. "Even Michelangelo had the Pope to answer to."

Spiegelman said that his yearning to be a cartoonist began at age 10. Mad magazine comics influenced him a lot.

"Mad was saying that Œthe media is lying to you and we're part of of the media'." Spiegelman said that Mad was one of the first to parody sacred media icons such as Life magazine and Mickey Mouse. With a comic called "Mickey Rodent," Mad showed the ironic reality of the Walt Disney character.

"He's a rodent, he is savory, not a Œhave a nice day' kind of thing," Spiegelman said as he showed the Mad cartoon resembling Mickey Mouse with beard stubble.

Spiegelman said that the creator of Mad, Harvey Kurtzman, was one of the best in showing the reality of events through comics. Even with issues such as the Korean War. While a majority of cartoonists drew stereotypical strong U.S. military men thwarting the Asian enemy with ease, Kurtzman showed the truth of "scared kids fighting for their lives." Kurtzman even drew some comics from the viewpoint of the enemy.

Spiegelman noted that even with the technology of video and photos, drawing still holds ground in the illustrations of reality.

"In the world after Photo-shop, (a computer program that can alter digital photos) drawing has become a more honest medium," he said.

Spiegelman was to host a question and answer session in Moore Theater, at the DePauw Preforming Arts Center on Thursday afternoon. Spiegelman won the Pulitzer Prize in 1992 for "Maus," a two-volume comic book narrative on the Holocaust.