Jan Freeman writes The Word column for Ideas.
Joshua Glenn is a Boston-based writer, editor, and multimedia
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Christopher Shea writes the Critical Faculties column for Ideas.
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Mind the gap
Shop talk What he learned in the newsroom Mr. Boffo lays an eggcorn Curse of the mummy's tummy More in Word Watch  |
« William Styron 1925-2006 | Main | Singapore swings » Thursday, November 2, 2006A portrait of the maus as a young artistArt Spiegelman, the graphic novelist and memoirist, best-known for "Maus," which won a Pulitzer in 1993, has been working on an autobiography, after his own fashion. The Virginia Quarterly Review is publishing sections of it as Spiegelman finishes them. Only excerpts are available online, but from them you can still get a sense of the arc of a distinctive -- not to mention idiosyncratic and, by now, improbably distinguished -- life. VQR and the artist are now up to Episode Three, in which Spiegelman meets his mentor, the filmmaker and SUNY-Binghampton professor Ken Jacobs, and stumbles toward the idea that will form the basis of his breakthrough book. In an earlier installment, a young Spiegelman discovers a cultural object that will change his life: Mad magazine, which he calls "my Talmud." (Fun fact: From 1966 to 1989, Spiegelman worked for Topps Chewing Gum -- that's how he paid his rent -- helping to create Wacky Packages and, later, the Garbage Pail Kids. Josh Glenn mentioned that aspect of Spiegelman's career in an "Examined Life" column last year.)  Posted by Christopher Shea at 03:59 PM
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