Graphic
novels have been all the rage for the past 20 years, but Art Spiegelman’s
groundbreaking Maus, depicting the
Holocaust in drawings of Jewish mice and their feline Nazi predators, wasn’t
the first original novel told primarily in pictures. Wordless Books examines several little-known artists from the early
20th century who composed “woodcut novels.” The author, who teaches at Vermont’s Center for
Cartoon Studies, has chosen a handful of European and American artists, most of
whom used the medium as a leftist critique of capitalist society. Whether or
not Wordless Books portrays a
representative sample, the many pages of black-and-white images are striking
for their stylized artistry, which ranges from satirical cartooning to high
Expressionism, as well as their political content.
