Maus: A Survivors Tale Part Two

"Maus: A Survivors Tale Part Two - And Here My Troubles Began" is the second in a two-part graphic novel series that was written by Art Spiegelman.
The comic was originally published in monthly comic strips in the magazine Raw from December 1980 to 1991 when the magazine was disbanded. Every chapter but the last one was published in the magazine.

After the series was finished, Spiegelman began looking for a publisher to turn it into a graphic novel. The novel was split into two parts and released in 1991 and released in bookstores as one of the first graphic novels to be released to a wider audience beyond comic shops.

The graphic novels received much critical praise and went on to win the first Pulitzer Prize ever awarded to a graphic novel in 1992. It has also won many prestigious comic awards like the Eisner Award (1992) and the Harvey Award (1992). It has been translated into about thirty languages and is regularly taught in schools in Germany.

Part two of the series consists of five chapters all of which tell the story of Art Spiegelman and his idea to turn the tale of his father's time in Poland during World War II into a graphic novel. The characters in the story are all depicted as different animals, with the Jewish people appearing as mice and the Germans and Polish people as pigs and cats. Spiegelman was intent on depicting the Jewish characters as mice because of his knowledge of Nazi propaganda that depicted Jewish people as vermin.

Art's father, Vladek was a Jewish man living in Poland during the onset of World War II. In his story, he tells of how he watched his beloved country fall to the Nazi's and how he struggled to find somewhere safe for him and his wife to hide. Part two tells the story of Vladek's time in the infamous Nazi Concentration Camp, Auschwitz, and his release after the end of the war.

Book Summary

Chapter One: Mauschwitz

It's summer vacation and Art and his wife Francoise are on vacation with friends in Vermont. Art is sitting alone and drawing when his wife asks him what he is doing. He confesses that he is trying to decide how to draw her in the comics. Because she is the only French woman in the graphic novel, he does not know if he should draw her as a mouse or a bunny rabbit. Francoise insists that she be drawn as a mouse as she has converted to Judaism after their marriage. They are talking it over when one of their friends tells them that Art's father has called and said that he had a heart attack.

Frightened, Art immediately calls his father. After we see his side of the conversation, he hangs up and reveals that Vladek did not have a heart attack, he only said so so that he could be sure that his son would call him back. However, Art's stepmother, Mala did leave Vladek and he wants his son to come and stay with him. Art and Francoise decide to leave their vacation immediately to go to his father's house and see him. They tell their friends that they will be back in a few days and set out.

On the way, Art tells Francoise that spending any long amount of time with his father drives him crazy and begins worrying that he cannot write his book because he doesn't understand his relationship with his father and therefore, cannot make any sense out of Auschwitz or the Holocaust. Art tells Francoise that he often wonders if his he and his deceased brother, Richieu would have gotten along if they had ever met. He says that after the war, Vladek and Anja could not accept that Richieu was dead and began searching orphanages for him all over Europe. He says that as a child, he only knew Richieu from a picture that was hanging in the house and that he often felt that he failed to live up to the standard of his dead brother. He calls him his "ghost brother".

Art and Francoise make it out to Vladek's cabin in the Catskills where he is staying for his summer. He shows them the room he has set up for them although Art makes sure to tell him that they are only planning on staying for a few days. The next morning Vladek wakes them up early and tells Art that he needs help getting his taxes and bank papers in order as Mala has left him without any help. Vladek also tells Art that Mala left after a trip to the bank where Vladek tried to set up trust accounts for his brother and Art. Mala wanted all of his money for herself and became enraged and drove away. Mala cleaned out the money from their joint account and also took the car and some jewelry. He assumes that she went to Florida so she could sell their condo and take the money.

Art goes outside for a cigarette and is interrupted by Vladek's neighbors, the Karps, an old couple who bring him inside as ask what Vladek is going to do now that Mala has left. Art tells them that he doesn't know, but he assumes that Vladek will need a nurse to live with him. The Karps don't believe that Vladek will agree to spend money on a nurse.

Francoise fetches Art and tells him that she feels claustrophobic around his father because the man is so anxious. She asks if Auschwitz made him like that and Art says that lots of his father's friends, including the Karps, were in Auschwitz and don't act that way. He says: "If they're wacked up it's in a different way from Vladek". A few hours later, Art and Francoise are helping Vladek with his bank papers when Vladek tells Art that he is doing the additions incorrectly. They argue until Francoise tells them to go out for a walk so that she can fix the papers. They agree and Art grabs his tape recorder so that he can hear more of the story.

During the walk, Art asks his father what happened after he and Anja made it to Auschwitz and were separated. Auschwitz was in a town called Oswiecim, where Vladek had sold textiles in the past before the war. Now he came to the town again under terrible circumstances. After arriving, he was brought into a big hall with the other Jewish men in his convoy and told to undress and hand over his valuables. The Nazis took their papers, their clothes and shaved their heads. After this, they showered them in one room and threw them prison clothes. They registered the men and took their names, giving them a number which they branded into their arms. Vladek and the other prisoners were put into a room where he sat down and began crying.

A priest who was not Jewish but was a prisoner came over to him and asked why he was crying. He asked Vladek to show him his number and told him that it was a lucky number as it started with 17 which is a good omen in Hebrew. It also ended with 13, which was another good omen and added up to "Chai" the Hebrew number of life. The priest tells Vladek that he is certain that he will come out of the camp alive because of this. This cheered Vladek and although he never saw the priest again, while he was in Auschwitz he often looked at his number when he needed strength to go on.

A day after Vladek arrived at the camp, a truck was brought in with 400 more Jews who were all put into the room he was in. The room was so overcrowded that many men had to sleep on the floor. The barrack was overseen by a prisoner called a Kapo who was a peasant from the German part of Poland. The man was a tyrant and regularly made the Jewish prisoners do exercises until they could not move. One day the Kapo asked the prisoners who among them knew English and Polish and Vladek told him that he had taught English years earlier. The Kapo told him that he wanted to learn English. Because he helped the Kapo, the man confided in him that since the barrack was overcrowded it would be culled the next day and that when the German's came to line them up he needed to make sure he stood on the far left.

The next morning Vladek managed to survive the line-up by taking his advice and was sent out for work duty instead of being sent to be killed in the ovens. The Kapo came for his lessons again and allowed Vladek to share his breakfast with him which was the heartiest meal that Vladek had enjoyed in a long time. The Kapo confesses to Vladek that he is trying to learn English because the Allies are bombing the Reich and he thinks that they might win the war. After this, the Kapo became friends with Vladek and protected him on many occasions. This caused the other prisoners to fear Vladek as the feared the Kapo.

One day the Kapo told him that he had protected him for as long as he could and the German's would soon come to assign him work duty. He said that skilled workers usually lived longer and that he would try to get Vladek a job doing something he knew from before the war. Vladek interrupts the story to tell Art that they can sneak onto the patio of a hotel called The Pines and watch the bingo tournament. Art agrees and Vladek tells him that Mala never wanted to watch bingo with him.

Chapter Two: Auschwitz (Time Flies)

The next chapter begins with a depiction of Art sitting at his desk telling the reader that his father died of congestive heart failure in August of 1982, just 3 years after Francoise and he stayed at his cabin in the Catskills. The depiction of Art has changed for this part and he now appears to be a normal, human man sitting at his desk with a mouse mask strapped to his face. He tells the reader that Maus has become a critical success and fifteen foreign editions have since come out and that he and Francoise are expecting a baby. He has gotten offers to turn the book into a movie and reveals that he does not want to do this.

One panel reveals that he is sitting at his desk with piles of mouse bodies at its foot and reporters begins converging on him, asking about the novels and trying to get him to do licensing deals. Art begins screaming and the reporters all disappear, leaving him as a much smaller version of himself in the same chair. He tells the reader that he can't believe that he is a functioning adult and about to become a father. He has an appointment with his therapist who asks him how things are going. Art complains that he has no time for work because he is doing interviews and business propositions. He says that even when he does have time, he is suffering from writer's block and cannot think of anything to write.

Art's therapist, Pavel is a survivor of Auschwitz himself and asks Art if some questions about his father and his father's need to show that he was always right because he felt guilty about surviving the camps when so many others did not. Art asks Pavel if he feels guilty for surviving and Pavel confesses that he only feels sadness. He tells Art a bit more about Auschwitz that his father did not fill in before he died. Feeling better, Art goes home and listens to the tapes he made of his father continuing the story.

The Kapo got Vladek a job in the tin shop because of his time working as a tinsmith in the Jewish Ghetto. The chief of the tin workers was a Jewish, Russian man named Yidl who was a communist. He hated Vladek immediately because of his former success in the business world. The other prisoners told Vladek that he could win Yidl over by bribing him with good food like sausage and cheese. Vladek began trading with the Polish workers who were paid to work in the camp.

Vladek says that everyone in the camp was starving all the time because they were fed very little. For breakfast, they were only given a drink made from roots. Once a day they were given watery soup made from turnips and a small square of bread that was made from batter mixed with sawdust and then at the end of the day they would get spoiled cheese or jam. Eating only what the soldiers gave you without trading meant that you would eventually starve to death.

Vladek discovered Anja's location and her number from workers who he befriended. He found out that she was in a separate part of the camp that was called Birkenau, which was located about 2 miles up the road. Birkenau had five times as many prisoners as Auschwitz. A Hungarian woman named Mancie working in the camp told Vladek where Anja was and put him in touch with her by delivering letters between them. Mancie took a great personal risk in helping them as she would have been killed by the guards instantly if she were discovered but she agreed to do it only because she saw how much they loved one another.

Anja was not doing well in the camp and her Kapo was cruel to her, making her work jobs that she was not physically capable of doing. One day, Vladek managed to arrange to have himself sent to Birkenau for work duty. When the workers were let into the other camp they began shouting out their relatives names in the hopes that they or someone they knew would hear it. Someone did know Anja and went to fetch her but Vladek could not speak to her directly. He continued to do his work fixing a roof while she stood on the ground below and pretended to be working herself. Vladek told her that he loved her and gave her instructions for taking care of herself. Anja told him that Mancie had gotten her some better jobs in the kitchen and that she often ended up with table scraps at the end of the day.

Vladek managed to bump into Anja again while working but a guard caught them speaking and beat Vladek severely as a punishment. The next day, Vladek struggled to work with his wounds but he could not go to the hospital as most of the people who went never returned. He tells Art that he stood in a line up in front of the infamous Dr. Mengele. The doctor looked him over for sores and to see whether they were still fit to work. These exams were called "selektions" and those Jews who failed were sent away to be killed.

Vladek began working in the shoe repair shop in the camp. Because he had some experience repairing shoes, he was able to fake his way into the shop so that he was no longer under the boot of Yidl and was kept in a more private area. A group of women was set to be moved from Birkenau into new dorms in Auschwitz and because Vladek had gotten in with the guards by fixing their shoes for them so well, he managed to bribe them into arranging it so that one of the women was Anja. This way, Anja and Vladek were in close proximity to one another and could pass packages and messages. However, one day Anja was caught by a Kapo while leaving a package and only narrowly managed to escape and hide in the dorms. The Kapo tortured all of the women in the dorm by forcing them to do exercises until they dropped of exhaustion but no one gave Anja up. After this, Vladek and Anja stopped passing packages to one another.

Vladek was taken from his shoe repair duty and put into work called "Black Work", hauling stones and digging holes. It was the hardest work he'd been made to do yet and the prisoners were not even allowed to take a break for fear that they would be beaten or set upon by the dogs. Vladek says that he did Black Work until almost the end of his time in Auschwitz when he became a tin man again. He says that when the Russian's began advancing on Germany, the Germans wanted to be ready to leave Auschwitz in a hurry, so they created large gas chambers where they could kill off more of the prisoners at a time. They began digging huge pits to bury the bodies and would kill the prisoners digging the pits by burying them alive inside of them. All ages were killed in these gas chambers, from the elderly down to babies.

Chapter Three: And Here My Troubles Began

The next morning, Vladek and Art talk more about his plan for Art to stay with him the whole summer. Art reminds him that he only intended to stay for a few days. Vladek begins clearing out his summer cabin and encourages Art to take leftover food from Mala. Art argues and Vladek says that ever since he was in Auschwitz he does not like to leave food behind. Art feels guilty and apologizes to his father for snapping at him. He says that he read that a few of the prisoners working in the Auschwitz gas chambers managed to revolt and kill 3 S.S. Officers. Vladek says that three of the girls who helped them were friends of Anja's and that they were hanged afterward. He says that if they had only waited a few more weeks, they would not have had to do anything because the end of the war was drawing near.

Vladek begins the story again and says that after 10 months in the camp, the Russian's began getting closer until the war front was close enough that the prisoners could hear shells exploding. One of Vladek's friends heard a rumor that the German's were planning on evacuating the prisoners and moving them to another camp in order to keep them from being released. He tells Vladek that he and some other men plan to hide before the evacuation in a disused laundry room. However, once the evacuation begins, the man hears a rumor that the German's plan to bomb the camp and set fire to everything. The men had to join the march out of the camp.

The prisoners were marched on foot all through the night and anyone who lagged behind or collapsed was shot. The man who had wanted to hide in the laundry room arranged to bribe a guard to let him and several others run off into the woods. He offered to let Vladek come but Vladek declined, thinking it was a trap. Of course, that night when they tried to run off the man and his friends were shot immediately.

Eventually, the prisoners made it to Gross-Rosen a camp in Germany. Many more thousands of prisoners were being brought in as they were being pulled back into Germany. The camp was a chaos and Vladek narrowly avoided being beaten or killed by volunteering to haul soup in large cans out for the prisoners.

The next day they have marched out of the camp again and onto a train that had been designed for animals. Vladek managed to string up a blanket on two hooks to get out of the crowd who were pressed into the train so close that only about 25 people out of 200 managed to survive being crushed or trampled to death. After the train was stopped, the prisoners were left inside for days with no food, water or sign of life. Many people began dying from lack of water. Vladek managed to survive by sticking his hand through a window and eating snow from the roof of the train. The train sat for a week until it was opened and the Germans ordered them to throw out the dead bodies. They then locked them back in and this process repeated for a few more times before the remaining prisoners were down to about 25 and they had room to even sit on the floor.

Many more train cars were surrounding them some of which were never even opened. The train began moving again at one point and the prisoners were brought back into Germany to a camp called Dachau. When they were brought to Dachau, the prisoners were put in barracks and given straw to sleep on. The straw was infested with lice which gave many people typhus. When they were lined up for their daily bread ration, they had to show their shirt so the guards could see if they had any lice. If they did have lice they were not given food. But the lice were everywhere and often people went without food.

Vladek got an infection in his hand and tried to make it worse because he had heard rumors that the infirmary in the camp was a relative paradise, where prisoners were given three meals a day and beds that only had to be shared with one other person. He was taken to the infirmary eventually, but he still tells Art that he still has a scar to this day on his hand.

Vladek befriended a French man within the camp who was allowed to get packages from the Red Cross because he was not Jewish. The French man could not speak German and only knew English, Vladek was the only person he could talk to because of this and they became friends. The man shared his packages with Vladek who traded a chocolate bar for a clean shirt that he took great care with and used to show the guards so that he would always get his daily ration of bread.

Vladek soon contracted typhus and suffered a high fever. He was very worried that he would die, as many people in the camp died from this disease. Every night in order to get to the toilet he had to walk through the dead bodies of prisoners piled in the hallway. Soon, Vladek began to recover from his illness a little and one day the Germans announced that everyone who was strong enough to line up outside was going to be exchanged as a war prisoner at the Swiss border. Vladek managed to get two friends to help him stand and was brought outside to see a large passenger train waiting. He and the other prisoners boarded the train that took them from Dachau to Switzerland.

Art asks his father whatever happened to the French man that helped him in the camp and Vladek tells him that he corresponded with the man for years after the war and that he still lives in Paris. Vladek says that he kept the letters until he burned them with Anja's journals. He says that he wanted to be rid of everything from the war and was until Art started asking him about it.

At this point, the Art, Francoise, and Vladek are driving home from the store. Francoise sees a hitchhiker and stops to pick him up and Vladek becomes uncomfortable and angry because the man is black. After they drop the man off, Vladek asks her what she was thinking and says that he was worried that the man would steal his groceries. Francoise can't believe that Vladek would make such a racist comment and points out that he's treating black people the same way that the Nazis thought of the Jews. Francoise continues to argue but Art tells her to forget it and that there is no point in arguing about this with Vladek.

Chapter Four: Saved

Back at Vladek's home in New York City, he laments to his son that he is alone without Mala and that all of his saving in his life was for nothing. Art suggests that he hire a live-in nurse and Vladek turns down that idea, instead suggesting that he find a tenant to live in one of the rooms upstairs. Art asks him where Anja was when Vladek was in Dachau and he says that he isn't sure, but that she left Auschwitz before him and went to Gross-Rosen. From there he confesses that he does not remember where she went.

He says that Anja managed to survive because Mancie kept her close by and that she came out on the Russian side of the front. She made it back to Sosnowiec before he did and was liberated sooner. Vladek was put on the train and given a box full of snacks from the Red Cross. The train was supposed to be taken to the Swiss border but was taken to the war front where a rumor passed through the crowd that the war was over. The Germans told the prisoners that they were putting them on another train and that the Americans could have them.

When the prisoners arrived in the next town, the Americans were not there but there were no guards, so the prisoners began wandering around. They soon stumbled across another group of German guards who lined them all up by a lake. Vladek felt that the Germans were planning to kill all of them on the spot. The prisoners were made to wait into the night and in the morning one of them announced the Germans had left. He said that he overheard the head officer arguing with his girlfriend, who told him that he would be punished if he killed the prisoners. She told him the war was over and that they should just run.

The Germans left. The prisoners returned to town but many German patrols were still lurking. Vladek and one of the prisoners whom he knew from back in Sosnowiec decided to find a place to hide in town and hid in a barn. The villagers in the town were packing their things and fleeing, worried that a fight was about to begin. A short while later, Vladek heard a loud explosion and realized that the Germans had blown up the bridge into town during their retreat so they could not be followed.

For a few days, Vladek and his friend lived very well in the farmhouse that had been abandoned, eating chickens and drinking milk. They stole some of the clothes that had been left behind so that they would not look like prisoners anymore. Of course, because they were suddenly eating and drinking rich foods again their bodies revolted and they became very sick.

The Americans came soon and confirmed that the war was over and the Germans were in full retreat. The Americans took over the town and allowed Vladek and his friend to stay as long as they helped out and kept their house clean. They began calling Vladek "Willie" and got along with him because he could speak English.

Vladek pauses the story here and tells Art that he found a box of old snapshots from Poland. He tells Art what became of both he and Anja's families. Most were killed in the camps and at the end of the war only one of Anja's brothers and one of Vladek's brothers had survived.

Chapter Five: The Second Honeymoon

Art and Francoise begin the last chapter discussing what they are going to do with Vladek so that he will not live alone. Art receives a call from Mala in Florida who says that Vladek is there with her and that he is ill but will not go to the hospital. He wanted to go to the hospital in New York to be close to Art in case he died. Art hops on a plane to Florida immediately to help his father return to New York.

The next morning Vladek begins his story again as they are waiting for the plane. He tells Art that he and several other refugees boarded a plane from Poland to Sweden in 1946. In Sweden, Vladek began working in a department store owned by a Jewish man and worked his way up the ranks until he was nearly a partner. He says that he worked there until he and Anja moved to America but that he never had it that good again.

That night, Art, Mala, and Vladek board the plane for New York and Vladek is taken to the hospital upon arrival. Vladek is deemed healthy enough to go home and goes back to his home with Mala. A month later, Art visits to get the rest of the story and although Vladek is bed-ridden and suffering memory loss he agrees to finish it.

Some months after the war ended, Vladek's refuge town was flooded with other former prisoners. An area was set up for displaced refugees and the people were given papers and beds to sleep in. Vladek's friend tells him that he is welcome to travel with him to Hannover to see his brother. On the train ride through Germany, Vladek sees first hand the destruction that the war has caused in the towns.

Vladek begins looking for Anja, but he believes that she is dead as he has not seen her in a year. Finding the location of family members was chaos at this time but slowly things began to get more organized and many Jewish people were pouring into a nearby town called Belsen. Vladek traveled to Belsen and happened to bump into two girls that he knew from Sosnowiec. The girls inform him that they have recently seen Anja and that she is in Sosnowiec trying to get her home back from the Germans. However, the Germans in Sosnowiec were still killing Jews.

Anja was all alone in Sosnowiec and went every day to the local Jewish Organization to see if they had news of her husband. She began to despair until Vladek was able to get a letter to her telling her that he is alive. He traveled to Sosnowiec as soon as he could and at one point had to begin traveling on foot which he continued to do for 3 or 4 weeks until he reached Sosnowiec. He was reunited with Anja after going to the Jewish Organization and many people around them cried tears of joy at the sight of their reunion. He says that they both lived happily ever after.

At this point, Vladek tells him that he is tired and calls Art "Richieu" before falling asleep.Character Analysis -

Characters Analysis

Art Spiegelman - the author and artist of the graphic novel. Art is the conduit that brings the story of his father's time in Poland during World War II to the reader through the medium of a comic. Not much time is spent on Art's life or developing himself as a character. We know that he is a grown man by the time that he begins the novel and that he has a wife. Art has lived in America most of his life and was born after the war, thus never experienced the horrors that his father is talking about and has no concept of some of the things that his father went through. Art is an artist and reveals in the first novel that he was attracted to the idea of becoming a professional comics artist largely because he knew his father would see it as an impractical profession. Art and his father did not get along well for most of his childhood and he felt distant from him.

Vladek Spiegelman - It could be said that Vladek is the main character of the novels. The story of his time in Poland during World War II and the infamous Concentration Camp, Auschwitz is the main plot of the book and it is mostly told through his words and perspective. Vladek is a very clever, resourceful man who uses his know-how to scrape by during the war. At one point, Art tells his therapist that he realizes that his father used a combination of luck and resourcefulness to survive his time in Auschwitz and that realizing that he was a very clever man does not erase the negative feelings that Art had built up for him over a lifetime.

Vladek's relationship with Art was very different than what his son felt their relationship was. Vladek obviously loves his son and enjoys spending time with him. He does not seem to recognize the resentment his son has for him nor does he see the ways in which Art has rebelled against him. Vladek has experienced much hardship in his life and because of this, he is permanently scarred both physically and mentally. He shows some of this vulnerability in small ways throughout the novels but for the most part, he appears to put on a front of acceptance.

Anja Spiegelman - Art's mother. Anja committed suicide before the story begins and only appears in flashbacks throughout Vladek's story. Anja's thoughts and emotions are represented only through the recollections of Vladek and suppositions of her son. Throughout the war, Anja kept her own diaries and records of what was happening but Vladek burned them after she died. Despite this, Anja is depicted as a full, vibrant character. Her mental illness is foreshadowed after the birth of her first son, Richieu when she struggles with postpartum depression. Anja is a very strong character, who manages to get through the horrors of Auschwitz and the death of her young son and continue to move forward. In the end of the second novel, she makes her way back to Sosnowiec on her own and waits for her husband to return.

Francoise Spiegelman - Art's wife. Francoise is a french woman but although Art depicts the French people as frogs, as fits with the derogatory term for them, Francoise insists that she be depicted as a mouse because she has converted to Judaism. Francoise is a forward-thinking 21st-century woman who is compassionate toward her father-in-law but still takes a no-nonsense approach to dealing with him and his old-fashioned ideas.

Art Spiegelman Biography

Art Spiegelman was born on February 15th, 1948 in Stockholm, Sweden. Spiegelman's parents were from Poland but were forced out by the Nazi's after being taken to Auschwitz, the most famous and deadly Concentration Camp in existence. Spiegelman came to America as a young boy with his parents in 1951 and his name was changed from the Hebrew Itzhak Avraham ben Zeev to the Americanized Arthur Isadore. The family first moved to Norristown, Pennsylvania but later moved to Queens, New York City in 1957.

As a young boy in 1960, Art began drawing comics by imitating the art styles of some of his favorite comics at the time. He began selling his artwork by the time he was in high school and was brought to the attention of the United Features Syndicate who offered him a syndicated comic strip which he turned down because he felt that it was too commercial.

Art attended the High School of Art and Design in Manhattan and began submitting to a local newspaper. Art's parents urged him to attempt to find a more secure and lucrative career after his high school graduation in 1965 but he continued to work freelance jobs and began working as a staff cartoonist for his college newspaper, Harper College.

In 1968, Art suffered a mental breakdown during which he was admitted to Binghamton State Mental Hospital. Shortly after he was released, his mother, Anja committed suicide. In 1971, Art moved to San Francisco and began contributing to the then burgeoning counterculture of "underground comix". The underground comix scene was mostly concentrated on sexually explicit material and Art created work for this scene from 1970 to 1977, publishing in men's magazines and underground magazines. It was during this time that he began to conceptualize his most well-known work, "Maus" as he was asked to draw a comic for a magazine called "Funny Animals".

In 1976, Art moved back to New York City where he met his wife Francoise Mouly and the couple was married the next year. The two have two children a daughter, Nadja born n 1987 and a son, Dashiell born in 1992. In 1980, the couple decided to begin publishing a new magazine together which later became Raw the monthly magazine in which "Maus" was first published.

Vladek Spiegelman did not live to see the end of "Maus" being published as he died only 2 years after it was started in 1982. In 1991, after Raw had ended, Art began trying to find a publisher for the collection of the "Maus" comic strips that would become a graphic novel. He was successful and the graphic novels were published in a collection later that year. For the next ten years, Art worked as a contributing artist for 'The New Yorker' and in 1997 he published his first full-length children's book.

He currently lives in New York City with his wife.