Art Spiegelman is probably the most important figure on the long road that comics have taken to achieve respectability as an artistic medium. Shaped by the transgressive spirit of Mad magazine and the freedom of the underground, Spiegelman followed the trail blazed by Robert Crumb and ended up breaking comics from its chains with Maus, the profound and complex story of his father’s experience as a victim of the Holocaust and an anti-fascist declaration that resonates enormously today. Yet, despite the immense importance of this work in the history of comics, being the first book in this genre to win a Pulitzer, in 1992. Spiegelman is much more than the author of Maus: he also served as a catalyst for underground comics in the 1980s in his role as an editor; he is a great scholar of the history of American comics and the origins of the genre, the author of some of the most significant covers in the history of The New Yorker, and a tireless explorer of the possibilities of the comic strip as a language. 

In conversation with Spiegelman is another comics great, Max, a cartoonist who also came of age in the underground and who, without looking back, has built up a beautiful, bold, and exciting body of work – among the most impressive on the national comics scene. Max, author of some 30 comics and creator of iconic characters like Gustavo, Peter Pank, and the more recent Bardín, was also one of the driving forces behind the first edition of Maus in Catalan, published by Inrevés in 2003.