Geekomon

Maus

This comic is in two volumes. When the old father dies, that's where the story ends. And it's not melodramatic, it's not "Noooooooo!", it just is. And that serves the whole thing really well because its only in movies do family bawl their eyes out to the world--truth is, death is more an empathic experience, shock, freezing, locking in place, and a general sense of being lost is what happens. Not very cinematical but oh so utterly refreshing to read about.

The comic's about Art Spiegelman's father and how he survived as a Jewish man during those dog days of Nazi war. And how it was 3 parts luck and 7 parts elbow grease of pure determination and willingness to lie, cheat, and manipulate. Without which, he could have never survived as long as he did. It's a very refreshing take on the Holocaust. It's one of those thinky type pieces of literature, and its not really a biography of a Holocaust survivor--its just plain survival.

Which is what we should be doing everyday of our lives. We should outthink our fellow man. We should be better at stuff. We should not be complacent and at every moment we should be willing to dominate. For the alternative is..well...that's going a bit too far but I think you get the point.