Art Spiegelman, author of the acclaimed comic Maus which won him the Pulitzer Prize in 1992, is working on a new graphic novel focused on the current situation in Gaza and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The project is being carried out in collaboration with Joe Sacco, who has been addressing the topic since 1993 in works such as Palestine. The producer of the biographical documentary Art Spiegelman: Disaster is My Muse! has confirmed this information to elDiario.es.
The cartoonist spoke about the news for the first time at the presentation of the documentary about his life directed by Molly Bernstein and Philip Dolin, which took place on November 16 at the Doc NYC film festival in New York. During the question and answer session with the public, the media Hyperallergic echoes that Spiegelman was cautious when it came to giving more details about a work for which he believes that “it will not be easy to find a publisher in the United States.”
“I will finish this or die trying. I have never had a bigger fight inside my head,” said the American artist, referring to the comic about Gaza that he is already producing. “My superego says, ‘You have to do it if you want to live with yourself,’ but my inner self questions, ‘Who wants the pain of being canceled by the entire planet?’”
Art Spiegelman is best known for Maus (1991), a work in which he portrays Jews as mice and Germans as cats to tell the story of his father Vladek Spiegelman, a Polish Jewish survivor who was imprisoned in the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp. The comic breaks the myth that “suffering makes you stronger” to raise awareness that “suffering only makes you suffer.”
Throughout his career, Spiegelman has collaborated with media outlets such as The New York Times and The New Yorker, using comics as a tool to reflect on reality and history. Among his other works stands out Without the shadow of the towers (2004), a story focused on the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York.
For his part, Joe Sacco is recognized as one of the pioneers of drawn journalism thanks to graphic novels such as Gorazde: Protected area (2000), which focuses on the Bosnian War during the 1990s. The artist is also an expert on the Israel-Palestine conflict, and since January 2024 has been documenting the events in Gaza through a series of deliveries published free of charge in The Comics Journal and collected in Spain in The Gaza War (Planet, 2024).
In this way, an author who has captured in his work one of the most atrocious genocides of humanity, and another who is an expert on the Israeli-Palestinian problem, join forces to give life to a comic that will explore one of the greatest contemporary horrors. in the Middle East. It remains to be discovered whether they will focus exclusively on the events unleashed after the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, or if they will go back to the Nakba of 1948 to go back to the origins of the war.
Admirers of Spiegelman’s art have already expressed their enthusiasm on social media for the cartoonist’s next step, but fear that “truly intelligent Jewish voices” will be “silenced in favor of warmongering representatives of American foreign policy,” as he writes a user in reddit. Another person points out on the platform that “these voices are so powerful that they stand alone” and highlights that “works like Maus either The area of interest They are fantastic”, and there are those who claim that “I hope it collaborates or includes a Palestinian artist”.
Spiegelman stars in a documentary about his career
Art Spiegelman will make the move to the big screen with Art Spiegelman: Disaster is My Muse!a documentary that will be released worldwide throughout 2025 and will focus on the life and artistic career of the cartoonist, something that has always been closely related. Although it does not imply a strict adaptation of Mausthe comic is key in the narrative of the feature film, situating and contextualizing some themes from it.
For example, the artist talks about Maus in terms of anti-fascism when addressing the first presidential administration of Donald Trump and the consequences of his victory, as highlighted The Hollywood Reporter. Likewise, during the 98 minutes of the documentary, illustrations of his previous works are shown and Spiegelman’s impact on the world of culture is investigated.
Even so, Disaster is My Muse! goes beyond this specific work and focuses on other Spiegelman creations, especially highlighting his covers for The New Yorkerknown for their strong political charge and which have generated controversy on more than one occasion. It is a film that aims to reflect the author’s commitment to a wide variety of topics and, in general, to the disaster that his muse represents, which does not make him cower in the face of any political issue.
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