‘Art Spiegelman: Disaster Is My Muse’ Review: ‘Maus’ Cartoonist Grapples with the Weight of His Most Seminal Work

variety.com:

Carlos Aguilar From his father, a Holocaust survivor, cartoonist Art Spiegelman learned how to best utilize the limited space in a suitcase, knowledge that he then applied to his hand-drawn panels, where information has to be conveyed in a concise manner.

An eminence in the realm of comics, Spiegelman is best known for “Maus,” the two-volume graphic novel about the Shoah — where the Nazis are depicted as cats and the Jews mice — based mostly on his dad’s firsthand recollections and Spiegelman’s need to grapple with the trauma he inherited from both of his parents.

The subsequent, almost inescapable acclaim for “Maus” would in turn become another source of anguish for Spiegelman. From co-directors Molly Bernstein and Philip Dolin, the documentary “Art Spiegelman: Disaster Is My Muse” is a linear account of how his career in comics evolved from underground publications to mainstream recognition.

Constructed from talking-head conversations with Spiegelman and his friends and family, the standard biographical piece doubles as a history of how the medium transitioned from being perceived largely as a vehicle for humor into one suitable for stories of all tones and magnitudes — a shift in which “Maus” played an important role.