SSR Response - “The Sky is Falling!”: A response to In the Shadow of No Towers by Art Spiegelman

Darcy Smittenaar

Professor Clayton

EN224P

April 1, 2013

Presentation URL: http://prezi.com/gnme7ur20oeb/the-sky-is-falling-in-the-shadow-of-no-towers-by-art-spiegelman/

“The Sky is Falling!”

A response to In the Shadow of No Towers by Art Spiegelman

Art Spiegelman, born in Stockholm, Sweden in 1948, is a second-generation Holocaust survivor (Ryan).  In his own words, Spiegelman is “easily unhinged,” and reacts to the barest minimum of disturbance with Chicken Little-esque intensity (Spiegelman).  Despite this trait, which is quite understandable considering his family history, Spiegelman has a flourishing career as a writer and cartoonist.  His work includes “political commentaries on world events” such as World War II and the 9/11/2001 terrorist attacks (Ryan).

One such work, In the Shadow of No Towers, is an autobiographical account of Spiegelman’s experience on September 11, 2001, and his reactions—both personal and political—after the fact.  Originally released in full-page serial form in the German newspaper Die Zeit, the entire series is bound in a large, cardboard book, which is mostly read sideways.  The cover of this compilation, a silhouette of the twin towers of the World Trade Center in black-on-black, “was included in the American Society of Magazine Editors’ 2005 list of ‘Top 40 Magazine Covers,’” as it had originally been printed on the cover of the New Yorker’s 9/11 issue (Ryan).  This acclaim, as well as that received from previous works, including Maus, a comic about his parents’ experiences of the Holocaust and his life as a second-generation survivor, has garnered “widespread acceptance of graphic novels as serious literature” (Ryan).

In the Shadow of No Towers, especially, has brought comics into the open as a legitimate literary genre, not only due to its serious subject, but also because Spiegelman uses images and ideas from the past—even comics from his own past and earlier—to explain his take on the events of 9/11.  These past comics are not just alluded to; in the Comic Supplement portion of the collected series, Spiegelman explains some of the old comics that he read to try and make sense of the tragedy and why the outrage did not last longer.

Many of the themes in common with these older comics are also present in In the Shadow of No Towers.  For instance, there is a sort of “geographical transience” in “Krazy Kat” (Spiegelman), “The Kin-der Kids abroad” (Spiegelman I), “The Upside-downs of Little Lady Lovekins and Old Man Muffaroo” (Spiegelman III) and “Little Nemo in Slumberland” (Spiegelman VI), in that the main characters do not seem to be rooted anywhere.  They are constantly moving, and although they are not necessarily on a pilgrimage, it is not difficult to see the parallels in the Hebrew wish to return—at least in spirit—to the promised land.  In the Shadow of No Towers sort of mirrors this wish.  Spiegelman used to consider himself a “rootless cosmopolitan,” but after the events of 9/11, he finds that, although he feels nothing as strong as can be called “patriotism,” he must revise his own status to “rooted cosmopolitan,” saying, “I finally understand why some Jews didn’t leave Berlin right after Kristallnacht” (Spiegelman 4).

The events of September 11, 2001 changed many lives, for better and worse.  For Art Spiegelman, the results are ambiguous.  Following another theme common to many of his works, In the Shadow of No Towers also explores the “importance of place in establishing one’s identity” (Ryan).  Indeed, the events of that Tuesday morning have caused “a pang of affection for his familiar, vulnerable streets,” even though “he’d never own an ‘I ♥ NY’ t-shirt” (Spiegelman 4).

Spiegelman also explores the theme of mass forgetfulness, or complacency throughout In the Shadow of No Towers.  Every single page includes multiple instances of the “pivotal image . . . that didn’t get photographed or videotaped into public memory but still remains burned onto the insides of [Spiegelman’s] eyelids several years later,” the image of glowing support beams, the “north tower’s glowing bones just before it vaporized” (Spiegelman).  Repeating this image, which he recreated digitally, and reducing the number of times it is repeated—or the amount of print space it takes up—shows as time passes just how well Spiegelman may or may not be able to cope with the horror of the attacks and adjust to the world as it is after 9/11.

Overall, In the Shadow of No Towers is a visually and emotionally compelling work, and captures the events of September 11, 2001 well.  Drawing not only on his family history, but also on comics from previous decades, Spiegelman bares his own horror and shines a light on the reactions and fears everyone else seemed to bottle up and hide away—or just wanted to ignore—so early after the attacks.

 

Works Cited

Ryan, Jennifer D. "Spiegelman, Art (1948-)." Encyclopedia of Comic Books and Graphic Novels. Ed. M. Keith Booker. Vol. 2. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood Press, 2010. 589-591. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 28 Mar. 2013.

Spiegelman, Art. In the Shadow of No Towers. New York, NY: Pantheon, 2004. Print.