Hi, I'm Michael Silverblatt. On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of Art Spiegelman's Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel Mous,

and to mark the release of his new book, Meta Mouse, I hope you'll enjoy this re-airing of Bookworm's first interview with Spiegelman from 1992.

In it, he tells us how he aimed to use comics, not as a pleasurable narcotic, but as caffeine, to wake you up.

You are a human animal.

You are a very special breed.

Or you are the only animal.

Who can think, who can reason, who can read?

Hi, this is Michael Silverblad, and welcome to Bookworm.

My guest this afternoon is Art Spiegelman, the author of the Mouse Books,

Mouse of Survivor's Tale, and Mouse Part 2, and Here My Troubles

began. This book was just published by Pantheon. He's the editor as well of Raw Magazine,

and probably one of the people who've altered the face of comics permanently.

I wanted to start by talking about the way in which comic books usually

defy gravity, offer superheroes, take off into space,

whereas these books seem to be about powerlessness, and thereby, you know, are the antithesis of what most people look for in comic books.

I suppose it's become a medium of escapist entertainment, and that's kind of moving in an opposite direction,

like as opposed to trying to make comics into a narcotic.

I'm trying to make comics that can kind of wake you up,

like caffeine comics that get you back in touch with what's happening around you.

On the other hand, comics also have had a tradition that includes very much like being

used as barometers of moral behavior, that was a satirical tradition in comics that is involved

not in fantasy, superhero, Manichian escape adventure, like today reading in the newspaper

...