Tom Thompson
THE COMPLETE MAUS: A SURVIVOR'S TALE, The Voyager Co., 578 Broadway, Suite 406, New York, NY 10012, (212) 431-5199, $49.95
The Complete Maus contains the two graphic novels (or in the lingo of my youth, comics) of Maus: A Survivor's Tale. This Pulitzer prize-winning work by Art Spiegelman chronicles the experiences of his father, Vladek, during the Holocaust. In this missive, persecuted Polish and German Jews are portrayed as mice, preyed upon by feline Nazis. Although the premise seems odd, the predator-prey situation conveys all too well the horrors that occurred during World War II.
What does The Complete Maus offer over the original work? For starters, you get most of the transcripts and sketches that Spiegelman used to make Maus. You also get a glimpse of the painstaking attention to
detail he lavished on the work. A scene where Vladek enters Auschwitz is shown to be carefully researched as to which camp gate was used and the direction used by the truck carrying the prisoners into the camp.
You glimpse penciled images being carefully laid out to conform to a comic-book grid and then witness the text accompanying the artwork's voice balloons being edited and pruned to fit the panels. CD-ROM's big advantage here is that both graphic novels are richly reproduced at full size. A small page layout adjoining the full-screen image is marked with colored panels that act as links to drafts of the artwork, while other icons supply voice commentaries by either Spiegelman (describing the assembly of the page) or Vladek (his recounting of the incidents appearing on the page).
If you're keenly interested in what went into the making of Maus, Voyager's The Complete Maus will be of interest to you. If not, you might be better off finding Maus on the bookshelf. However, The Complete Maus is
a good example of how the CD-ROM medium can enhance the original work, provided the subject matter is of interest to you.
A Holocaust Story
