Comicsphere: Breakdowns by Art Spiegelman

All I really knew of Art Spiegelman was his work on Maus, but the documentary Art Spiegelman: Disaster Is My Muse acquainted me with his earlier work and his work for Topps, including Garbage Pail Kids, which I loved.

A lot of the pieces in this collection felt like they were more interested in exploring and breaking the conventions and constraints involved in a comic, than giving you a narrative.

This book is the comic artist becoming the comic artist — not fully arrived in his thinking or his style. Does that make it any less essential? Perhaps as a comic book, but as a lesson in thinking about what a comic is, you might be able to consider it a more esoteric companion to Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics. It’s not necessarily instructive though — more inspirational, and interesting. A curio that I am glad I own.