On Art Speigelman’s Maus: Should Comics Expose Kids to the World’s Horrors? Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #122

in Comics/Cartoons, Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop | May 6th, 2022

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In light of its being recent­ly banned in some set­tings, we dis­cuss Art Spiegel­man’s Maus (1980–91), which con­veys his father’s account of liv­ing through the Holo­caust. We also con­sid­er oth­er war-relat­ed graph­ic nov­els like Mar­jane Satrapi’s Perse­po­lis (2000) and George Takei’s They Called Us Ene­my (2019).

Your host Mark Lin­sen­may­er is joined by comics schol­ar Vi Burlew, comics blerd/act­ing coach Antho­ny LeBlanc, and come­di­an/graph­ic nov­el­ist Daniel Lobell.

Are comics par­tic­u­lar­ly effec­tive in chang­ing hearts and minds when they dis­play peo­ple’s hard­ships? Should kids be exposed to the hor­rors of the world in this way? What about the com­plex­i­ties of social jus­tice and gen­der iden­ti­ty? We also touch on Gilbert Got­tfried and the rela­tion­ship between humor and tragedy, learn­ing his­to­ry vs. read­ing one per­son­’s expe­ri­ence, the ages at which became polit­i­cal, and how comics may have aid­ed that.

Read Vi’s Wash­ing­ton Post edi­to­r­i­al about cen­sor­ship that inspired this episode.

Oth­er rel­e­vant sources include:

If you enjoyed this dis­cus­sion, try our episodes fea­tur­ing Vi talk­ing about the trope of the hero­ine’s jour­ney in film, Antho­ny talk­ing about blerds, i.e. black nerds, and Daniel talk­ing about the com­ic Peanuts.

Fol­low us @ViolaBurlew, @anthonyleblanc, @DanielLobel, and @MarkLinsenmayer.

Hear more Pret­ty Much Pop. Sup­port the show at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by choos­ing a paid sub­scrip­tion through Apple Pod­casts. This pod­cast is part of the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life pod­cast net­work.

Pret­ty Much Pop: A Cul­ture Pod­cast is the first pod­cast curat­ed by Open Cul­ture. Browse all Pret­ty Much Pop posts.

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Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #26 Discusses Alan Moore’s Watchmen Comic and the HBO Show with Cornell Psychology Professor David Pizarro

in Comics/Cartoons, Film, Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop, Television | January 9th, 2020

Per­haps the most laud­ed graph­ic nov­el has been sequelized for HBO, and amaz­ing­ly, it turned out pret­ty darn well (with a 96% Rot­ten Toma­toes rat­ing!).

Your hosts Mark Lin­sen­may­er, Eri­ca Spyres, and Bri­an Hirt are joined by the Cor­nel­l’s David Pizarro, host of the pop­u­lar Very Bad Wiz­ards pod­cast. We con­sid­er Alan Moore’s 1986 graph­ic nov­el, the 2009 Zack Sny­der film, and of course most­ly the recent­ly com­plet­ed (we hope) show by Damon Lin­de­lof, the cre­ator of Lost and The Left­overs.

How does Moore’s idio­syn­crat­ic writ­ing style trans­late to the screen? Did the show make best use of its nine hours? Are there oth­er sto­ries in this alter­nate his­to­ry that should still be told, per­haps to reflect on oth­er recur­rent social ills or crises of what­ev­er moment might be depict­ed? Was Lin­de­lof real­ly the guy to tell this sto­ry about race, and does mak­ing the show about racism (which is bad!) under­mine Moore’s rejec­tion of (moral­ly) black-and-white heroes and vil­lains?

Some of the arti­cles we used to warm up for this dis­cus­sion includ­ed:

You might want to also check out HBO’s Watch­men page, which includes extra essays and the offi­cial pod­cast with Damon Lin­de­lof com­ment­ing on the episodes.

Fol­low Dave @peez. Hear him on The Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life, undoubt­ed­ly the apex of his pro­fes­sion­al career.

This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion that you can only hear by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop. This pod­cast is part of the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life pod­cast net­work.

Pret­ty Much Pop: A Cul­ture Pod­cast is the first pod­cast curat­ed by Open Cul­ture. Browse all Pret­ty Much Pop posts or start with the first episode.

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