Maus is a graphic novel by American cartoonist Art Spiegelman (pictured in 2007), serialized from 1980 to 1991. It depicts Spiegelman interviewing his father, a Polish Jew and Holocaust survivor. The book is self-referential and postmodern—most strikingly in its depiction of Jews as mice, Germans as cats, and non-Jewish Poles as pigs. The narrative consists mostly of flashbacks to the war years, framed by the interview that takes place in 1978 in the Rego Park section of New York City. Much of the story revolves around Spiegelman's troubled relationship with his father, and the impact of his mother's suicide when he was 20. The book uses a minimalist drawing style with innovative page and panel layouts, pacing, and structure. Maus was serialized as an insert in Raw, an avant-garde comics and graphics magazine published by Spiegelman and his wife, Françoise Mouly. It was one of the first graphic novels to receive significant academic attention in the English- speaking world, and in 1992 became the first to win a Pulitzer Prize.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maus

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1138:

English forces repelled a Scottish army at the Battle of the Standard near Northallerton in Yorkshire. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Standard

1639:

The East India Company bought a small strip of land on what is today Chennai (modern skyline pictured), the capital city of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, from the King of the Vijayanagara Empire, Peda Venkata Raya. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chennai

1791:

A slave rebellion erupted in the French colony of Saint- Domingue, starting the Haitian Revolution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_Revolution

1910:

Japan annexed Korea with the signing of the Japan–Korea Annexation Treaty, beginning a period of Japanese rule of Korea that lasted until the end of World War II. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korea_under_Japanese_rule

2012:

A series of ethnic clashes between the Orma and Pokomo tribes of Kenya's Tana River District resulted in the deaths of at least 52 people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%9313_Tana_River_District_clashes

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

angleworm: (Northern US) An earthworm, used as or destined to be used as bait to catch fish. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/angleworm

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches. Every minority, be it Baptist/Unitarian, Irish/Italian/Octogenarian/Zen Buddhist, Zionist /Seventh-day Adventist, Women's Lib/Republican, Mattachine/FourSquareGospel feels it has the will, the right, the duty to douse the kerosene, light the fuse. Every dimwit editor who sees himself as the source of all dreary blanc-mange plain porridge unleavened literature, licks his guillotine and eyes the neck of any author who dares to speak above a whisper or write above a nursery rhyme.   --Ray Bradbury https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ray_Bradbury