‘Maus’ by Art Spiegelman, image via Wikipedia

Comics used to be for kids, and nobody really approved of them. Whether the comics were about Archie, Richie Rich, or Batman, no one felt they had any redeeming value. Parents and teachers saw them as time-wasters that kept children from reading “real” books.

Then the world began changing. Will Eisner (1917-2005), known as the “father of the graphic novel,” expanded his cartooning, and he began using sequential art to tell visual narratives that were of interest to adults. The first book of this type created by Eisner was “A Contract with God and other Tenement Stories.” During the next decade, Art Spiegelman wrote his two-volume Maus, about Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, and in 1992, Spiegelman was given a special Pulitzer Prize for his work.

From that day forth, comics — graphic novels — took on a more literary reputation, and the watch words were that “comics weren’t just for children anymore.”

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