Incidentally, Spiegleman’s most inflammatory moment in Towers is a cartoon of Bush and Dick Cheney perched upon an eagle in flight (the eagle had already been dubbed an albatross, and shares the same shaped beak as the bird whose name also denotes a millstone or an impediment).
The eagle wonders, “Why do they hate us, Why???”, Bush yells, “Let’s roll!” and Cheney cuts the eagle’s throat. To say the least, the use of a phrase associated with those who fought back on 9/11 is reprehensible; however, the ability of the artist to combine a number of metaphors in one image is undoubtedly one of the strengths of the medium.
Given Spiegelman’s politics, it is unsurprising that he subjects radical Islam to far less venom than the United States.
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Spiegelman, like a lot of young Muslim woman living in the West who are inclined to wear the hijab as if it were a fashion statement, would benefit from reading Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novels about growing up in Iran: Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood and Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return.
The constant threat of censure suffered in a totalitarian state due to supposedly inappropriate dress or imprisonment and even death for holding dissenting views is a long way from the policies of the Bush Administration.
By the way, with the release this year of Will Eisner’s The Contract with God Trilogy: Life on Dropsie Avenue publishers are now showing that they appreciate the popularity of graphic novels.
Exhibiting as much passion and anger as Spiegelman, although possessing a gentler style than In the Shadow of No Towers, the three books that make up Eisner’s classic trilogy form an extraordinary insight into the Depression, the changing nature of communities, poverty, slum life, racism and anti-Semitism.
In an article for The Age in 2002, James Norman argued that, “The conventional comic strip has evolved to become the “graphic novel'', a formidable new genre, breaking out of specialised comic shops into mainstream bookstores and the international literary spotlight.”
Spiegelman’s effort certainly deserves the attention.
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