Co-Mix: A Retrospective of Comics, Graphics, and Scraps
Spiegelman is best known for his Pulitzer Prize–winning graphic novel, Maus (1986), but the comics cognoscenti laud him for a five-decade body of work that includes some of the most formally daring efforts the medium has seen. Based on a museum retrospective, this lavish coffee-table compilation encompasses Spiegelman’s 1970s commercial work (including Topps gum trading cards and stickers); book illustrations; New Yorker covers (including his acclaimed 9/11 tribute); and even a painted-glass window done for a New York City school. But his comics output is appropriately at the fore, from his late-1960s underground comics and his groundbreaking strips for his 1980s avant-garde magazine, Raw, to his recent nonfiction pieces for the New Yorker, including tributes to cartoonists Charles Schulz and Harvey Kurtzman. Combining brazen experimentation with lowbrow yuks, Spiegelman pulls off the hat trick of being simultaneously intelligent, graphically compelling, and entertaining. Maus did much to “legitimize” comics to the wider world, but this thoughtfully curated, elegantly presented volume is an even more convincing testament to the potential of the medium. --Gordon Flagg