Maus (comics) - Reception and Legacy

Reception and Legacy

Spiegelman's work as cartoonist and editor had long been known and respected in the comics community, but the media attention after the first volume's publication in 1986 was unexpected. Hundreds of overwhelmingly positive reviews appeared, and Maus became the center of new attention focused on comics. It was considered one of the "Big Three" book-form comics from around 1986–1987, along with Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns, that are said to have brought the term "graphic novel" and the idea of comics for adults into mainstream consciousness. It was credited with changing the public's perception of what comics could be at a time when, in the English-speaking world, they were considered to be for children, and strongly associated with superheroes. Initially, criticism of Maus showed a resistance to including comics in literary discourse, as when The New York Times "praised" the book by saying, "Art Spiegelman doesn't draw comic books". After its Pulitzer Prize win, it gradually won greater acceptance and interest among academics. An exhibition on the making of Maus was staged at the Museum of Modern Art in 1992.

The genre of Maus proved difficult to classify. It has been called biography, fiction, autobiography, history, and memoir. Spiegelman petitioned The New York Times to move it from "fiction" to "non-fiction" on their bestseller list, saying, "I shudder to think how David Duke...would respond to seeing a carefully researched work based closely on my father's memories of life in Hitler's Europe and in the death camps classified as fiction". One editor responded, "Let's go out to Spiegelman's house and if a giant mouse answers the door, we'll move it to the nonfiction side of the list!" The Times eventually acquiesced. The Pulitzer committee sidestepped the issue by giving the completed Maus a Special Award in Letters in 1992.

Maus ranked highly on comics and literature lists. The Comics Journal called it the fourth greatest comics work of the 20th Century, and Wizard placed it first on their list of 100 Greatest Graphic Novels. Entertainment Weekly listed Maus at seventh place on their list of The New Classics: Books – The 100 best reads from 1983 to 2008, and Time put Maus at seventh place on their list of best non-fiction books from between 1923 and 2005, and fourth on their list of top graphic novels. Praise for the book also came from contemporaries such as Jules Feiffer, and literary writers such as Umberto Eco. Spiegelman turned down numerous offers to have Maus adapted for film or television.

Early instalments of Maus that appeared in Raw inspired the young Chris Ware to "try to do comics that had a 'serious' tone to them". Maus is cited as a primary influence on graphic novels such as Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis and Alison Bechdel's Fun Home.