veteran artist Art Spiegelman says that he withdrew an essay he wrote for an upcoming book about marvel history after the publisher asked him to cut a Trump reference. publisher The Folio society commissioned Spiegelman to write the essay, but asked for the edit while claiming that marvel wanted to remain “apolitical.” marvel did something similar with the mark Waid Essay.
Who is Art Spiegelman?
He is best known for writing the graphic novel Maus, an account of his father’s experience surviving the Holocaust. The novel takes its title from the characterization of the players. For example, he depicts all of the Jewish characters, like his father, as mice. Meanwhile, Germans are depicted as cats and Poles as pigs.
Spiegelman serialized the novel himself from 1980 to 1991 in a comic magazine, Raw, that he and his partner Mouly created. After The new York Times gave the serial a glowing review, Pantheon books picked it up for publishing. After they released it, it won a Pulitzer Prize, the special award in Letters.
Despite the acclaim, Spiegelman is no stranger to controversy. Translations of the book are available in numerous countries, but the book has faced resistance. For instance, polish journalist Piotr Bikont set up a publishing house to distribute the book in Poland. In response, crowds gathered outside his office and burned copies. Unruffled, Bikont put on a pig mask and waved.
Marvel in The golden Age
image through DC Comics
The Folio society commissioned Spiegelman to write the forward for Marvel: The golden Age 1939-1949, expected this fall. In the essay, Spiegelman writes about how events during that time inspired Marvel’s work. The rub for the publisher, apparently, was Spiegelman’s comparison of president Trump to a marvel villain. According to Spiegelman, his essay contained the line, “In today’s all too real world, Captain America’s many nefarious villain, the Red Skull, is alive on screen and an Orange Skull haunts America.”
After he turned in his essay, Spiegelman writes, The Folio society asked him to cut that line. Their reasoning, he says, is not only that marvel wants to be apolitical, but also “is not allowing its publications to take a political stance.” Spiegelman, thinking it was a bit much for such an “anodyne reference,” withdrew his essay, instead.
Marvel is Apolitical?
Captain America certainly not being political, image through Marvel
The joke, of course, is that an apolitical stance for marvel would be relatively new. In the golden Age the book is purportedly commemorating, comics were rife with political themes. ever because then, they’ve been used to make numerous political statements. As Art Spiegelman himself writes:
…the pioneers behind this embryonic medium based in new York were predominantly Jewish and from ethnic minority backgrounds. It wasn’t just Siegel and Shuster, but a whole generation of recent immigrants and their children – those many susceptible to the ravages of the terrific depression – who were especially attuned to the rise of virulent antisemitism in Germany. They created the American Übermenschen who fought for a nation that would at least nominally welcome ‘your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe totally free … ‘
As such, it’s likely this obvious new stance has a easy explanation. Ike Perlmutter, Marvel’s chairman, is a longtime pal of the president. So cutting the line may be less about politics in general and much more about one politician specifically. and that’s just…impolitic.