Literature of Comics & The Graphic Narrative

With This One Summer, the Tamakis create a vivid summer memory. With a calm breezy atmosphere and a delicate art style, they beautifully capture a bittersweet coming-of-age. The transition to adolescence is often an awkward and confusing one, with a growing sexual awareness and emotional maturity that adults are unwilling to acknowledge. This story handles this transition with charm and subtlety. It consists of a sensitive exploration of girlhood and innocence, and a nuanced portrayal of friendship and familial relationships. The story also highlights the importance of creating a safe and welcoming environment in which young girls can grow and develop, where their curiosity isn’t met with ignorance.

Art Spiegelman’s Maus is a deeply impactful and memorable work but by no means an easy read; stories of cruelty that we, as a society are capable of, never can be. The very first words I noted down for my response were “it hurts.” Though the tone of the narrative feels devoid of sentimentality, you can’t help but grieve with him, for him. For the suffering of his family and his own burden of guilt for not having had to suffer similarly; for the loss of the opportunity to reconcile with his father; for the loss of his mother, her story, and several other stories that will remain untold. With Maus , Spiegelman makes us confront the harsh reality of the Holocaust and the horrifying mark it has left on generations to come, while he himself attempts to confront the root and nature of his own sorrow. The crudeness of his drawings emphasizes the harshness of that/this world. He parallels his father’s story of the Holocaust with his own interactions with his father and m