As the latest fight overMauserupts, its artist-creator searches for his spectacles.
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I dont know what happened.
Im almost positive I took them with me.
I put them into a sleeve so they wouldnt crush in my pocket.
Then hed returned to the studio: Nothing there, either.
Yes, he says, he checked his coat pockets already.
Could she check her office?
Try by where our coats are, he suggests.
When he loses something, everything just tightens, he says.
Losing his glasses is especially difficult because of the amblyopia hes had since childhood.
Spiegelman, a monumental creator of comic books, began drawing his seminal workMausin the early 1970s.
My life went into a stasis.
Ive become cannon fodder in a culture war.
But on this February afternoon, the glasses are the more pressing matter.
Spiegelman and Mouly talk for about five more minutes until they realize theres nothing to be done.
Damn, he says after he hangs up.
I was always good at losing things.
I had a Polish name my parents called me Zguba which means loser.
In 1968, Spiegelmans mother, Anja, killed herself and left no note.
InMaus,Art depicts himself raging at his dead mother (Mommy!
he yells) and seemingly careless father (Murderer!
Art calls him).
The curse words and his dead mothers barely visible breast are both sources of complaints from the McMinn parents.
I feel like this wasnt an actual anti-Semitic incident.
It was an incident created by somebody who probably knows very few Jews, he says.
The thing that really upset them was me yelling at my father for burning the diaries.
But that would not have been accurate to my intensity of horror.
There are no saviors.
No one is redeemed.
The characters Spiegelmans family remain the imperfect people they were to begin with.
Its a very not-Christian book, Spiegelman says.
Vladek didnt become better as a result of his suffering.
He just got to suffer.
They want to teach the Holocaust.
They just want a friendlier Holocaust to teach.
The irony, of course, is that Spiegelman never wantedMausto be used as an educational tool.
I never wantedMausto be for children, he says.
He tries to cite the part ofOn Tyrannywhere that idea appears, but he cant find that, either.
After the day has faded past dusk, Im getting ready to leave, and I hear a shout.
I look up to see the cartoonists knees melt in relief.
The glasses were in his coat pocket.
The first thing he does is phone his wife.
He omits where theyd been.
A weight just lifted, man, he says to me, beaming.
Now today has been agoodday.
He finds his way home with the help of a talking worm.
When the boy gets within view of his front door, he sees an ambulance leaving.
His mother has just died.
In the final panel, we see the scene at the devastated boys feet: The worm is grinning.
the joyous worm yells.
Losing your glasses, Spiegelman says.
Youre going to lose everything.
Thats how it works.
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