I liked Maus quite a bit. An aspect that really stuck out to me was the personal and honest quality of the story telling. The comic is told as a retelling to Spiegelman from Vladek, Spiegelman’s father, about his past for Spiegleman’s book. It cuts between the present day, 1978 Rego Park, and the father's account of his experience during World War II in Poland. I think the fact Spiegelman chose to weave these two timelines together made it feel more personal and authentic. It puts the reader in the shoes of Spiegelman as he hears his father talk about his personal story. It reminded me a lot of how my dad or mom talks about their past and how they came to the US from Vietnam during the war. They would stop and go on meandering tangents in the middle of their retelling, like Vladek does about his glass eye, his pills, or to complain about Mala. I think this is relatable to most readers, Vladek feels like a real parent. Like when he throws away Spiegelman’s jacket because it ...
I thought Asterios Polyp was pretty good. I think something that stood out to me was the way Mazzacchelli made each character really distinct through color, shape design, and typography. Like Asterios defining color is blue, his shape design is angular, and his speech bubbles are cornered; Hana’s defining color is pink, her shape design is rounded, and her speech bubbles are rounded. These choses fit their personalities as Asterios is a very tidy, organized, dualistic, self centered, know it all, while Hana is a shy, sensitive, spineless optimist. It made sense the author made these distinctions this way as it made it clear which times Asterios’ and Hana’s reality were separate, together, or even conjoined. He would accentuate these differences as well to show their disconnect from each other like when they fight after visiting Kalvin’s the composer’s house. It is like style overtakes them as they become more separate and their realities become more out of sync. Hana becomes purely def...
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