Language:
English
Year of publication:
2009
Titel der Quelle:
Shofar; an Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies
Angaben zur Quelle:
28,1 (2009) 55-79
Keywords:
Eisner, Will,
;
Kubert, Joe,
;
Croci, Pascal.
;
Spiegelman, Art,
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945), in literature
;
Graphic novels History and criticism
Abstract:
Compares three little-known graphic novels (comics) relating to the Holocaust with the work by Art Spiegelman, "Maus," concluding that none of them is as successful. They are superficial, avoiding the aesthetic and thematic risks taken by Spiegelman. Will Eisner treated antisemitism in several works, including "The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion" (2005), but his basic graphic novel relating to the Holocaust is his 1983 "A Life Force", which focuses on refugees from Hitler and American attitudes, including resistance to the lure of fascism. Joe Kubert's "Yossel: April 19, 1943" (2003) features a "Golem"-like figure who helps the Jews in their doomed Warsaw ghetto revolt. Kubert also imagines what would have happened if his own family had remained in Poland, but he avoids such issues as Polish antisemitism. The third non-survivor comic book novelist, the Frenchman Pascal Croci, created "Auschwitz" (2003), in which he depicts that archetypal camp, but weakens his presentation by implying a parallel between the Holocaust and the conflict in the former Yugoslavia. Eisner is seen as succeeding the best of the three by his distanced perspective that focuses on the U.S. rather than Europe, while the other two represent pop cultural platitudes that falsify the Holocaust.
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