In 2022, the school board of McMinn County, Tennessee voted unanimously to remove Art Spiegelman’s graphic work Maus: A Survivor’s Tale (Pantheon, 1986) from the curriculum, ostensibly due to its graphic language and content. The decision generated impassioned responses from teachers, administrators, parents, and scholars across the United States. One, perhaps predictable, consequence of the decision was that sales of Maus soared, with the book selling out in stores and from online vendors. The uproar caused by the book’s removal (part of a general trend of book banning) and the resulting fervent interest in Maus show that graphic works are culturally significant works of art. The commonly held notion that comics are unserious is, if not passé, at least now a minority view.
In the wake of nearly two decades of scholarship on Jewish comics and graphic novels, Jewish Comics and Graphic Narratives by Matt Reingold provides a cogent overview of the central texts, themes, and trends in Jewish graphic novels. A prolific scholar in his own right, Reingold has produced a lucid and detailed guide that appears at a time when interest in the genre is at its peak.
Chapter 1 situates Jewish comics and graphic novels within the larger fields of Jewish literature and graphic novels. After surveying other approaches, Reingold adopts the framework “Jewish graphic narratives” to refer to comics, graphic novels, and graphic memoirs that “consider the Jewish experience writ large and where depictions of Jewishness play a primary role in the narrative arcs, where Jewishness is woven into the very fabric and essence of the work, irrespective of to what degree an author or artist is Jewish” (12).
Chapter 2, which narrates the history of Jewish graphic narratives, is divided into two sections—one on Jewish comic books, the other on Jewish graphic novels. This division allows Reingold to distinguish between the genealogy of Jewish superhero comics, beginning with Superman in the 1930s, and graphic novels and memoirs. While acknowledging the foundation laid by Will Eisner’s A Contract with God and Other Tenement Stories (Baronet, 1978), often considered to be the first “graphic novel,” and Spiegelman’s Maus, Reingold focuses on Jewish graphic narratives written after the year 2000, as their production, along with Jewish literature more generally, exploded in this period. This chapter also highlights one of the most significant features of Reingold’s book: that he attends to Jewish graphic narratives produced not only in the United States, but also in Israel and, on occasion, other countries.
The third chapter (titled “Social and Cultural Impact”) explores four major trends in Jewish graphic narratives. While not exhaustive categories, they highlight the topics on which authors of graphic narratives have tended to focus. They are: (1) the Holocaust, (2) the modern state of Israel, (3) the Jewish diaspora, and (4) religious texts and experiences. Maus is just one of the many graphic narratives that deal with the Holocaust. Reingold discusses other memoirs by the children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors, as well as works of fiction that engage with the Holocaust. Additionally, he introduces graphic narratives written by Israelis from across the political spectrum that engage with Israel’s history and culture, as well as works by non-Israeli writers.
The first three chapters prepare the reader to appreciate the theoretically engaged fourth chapter, which is organized around five critical questions or topics raised by Jewish graphic narratives. First, Reingold considers how memoir has become a primary genre of Jewish graphic narratives. Relatedly, he analyzes the prevalent use of photography in graphic memoirs. Reingold insightfully shows how photographs “allow the reader to see the past as a real space even when it is mediated through filters and lenses offered by artists” (91). Thirdly, Reingold analyzes how gender is depicted in graphic works, while the fourth question asks how religious figures are portrayed. Lastly, he surveys the topic of how graphic narratives have been taught in academic institutions. These topics demonstrate the breadth and complexity of Jewish graphic narratives. By framing them as critical questions, Reingold invites scholars from a range of disciplines (such as those working in literary and religious studies) to engage productively with the genre.
Chapter 5, titled “Key Texts,” includes longer descriptions of representative works in the categories outlined in chapter 3, with an eye toward the critical questions raised in chapter 4. A representative discussion is the section on graphic novels about Israel. Across several pages that include excerpts (another common and much-appreciate feature of the book), Reingold discusses Ilana Zeffren’s 2005 (as-of-now) untranslated Hebrew graphic memoir Pink Story that “juxtaposes the history of LGBTQ communities in Israel with Zeffren’s own coming out story’ (116). Next, he introduces Rutu Modan’s The Property (2013), a fictional graphic novel in which an elderly Israeli woman who had fled Poland before the war returns with her granddaughter. Rather than merely summarizing the work, Reingold shows its significance within the broader context of Jewish graphic narratives. These longer, interest-piquing descriptions both enrich the preceding discussions and serve as an opportunity to introduce the reader to other texts. However, because most texts were introduced in the preceding chapters, some of the discussions may feel redundant. Perhaps chapter 5 might have been written to stand independent of the other chapters.
Although Reingold carefully articulates his framework of “Jewish graphic narratives” and distinguishes it from other scholarly approaches, the book would have been enriched by an exploration of the trends in the scholarly study of Jewish graphic works. The book certainly draws upon scholarly discussions of specific texts, but the reader does not have a sense of the broader themes of scholarship on Jewish graphic narratives, or how scholarly conversations have evolved. Moreover, the book could have highlighted possible areas for further research. Nonetheless, Jewish Comics and Graphic Narratives is an exceptional resource for teachers, scholars, students, and readers of all stripes who are curious about Jewish graphic narratives.
Brian Hillman is an assistant professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Towson University, Maryland.
Brian Hillman
Date Of Review:
June 21, 2023
