Art Spiegelman’s Original Stories, Now Shown in a New Light
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
Breakdowns: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@&!”
By Art Spiegelman
Pantheon Books, 72 pages, $27.50.
When the artist Art Spiegelman published “Breakdowns” in 1978, it came out in a limited edition of about 3,000 copies.
As Spiegelman recalls, “There was no demand for a deluxe large-format album that collected the scattered handful of short autobiographical and structurally ‘experimental’ comics I’d made between 1972 and 1977 — except by me.”
Now, 30 years later, things have changed. For one thing, Spiegelman won a Pulitzer Prize in 1992.
Here, the Forward shows a page from 1975, which will be included in a deluxe visual memoir, “Breakdowns: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@&*!,” to be published next month by Pantheon.
Spiegelman is the creator of the graphic Holocaust memoirs “Maus” and “Maus II.” Book II was originally serialized in the Forward. He is also the author of “In the Shadow of No Towers,” serialized in the Forward in 2002-2003.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
