It’s hard to explain, but Maus unsettles me in a way that neither Watchmen nor DKR could.  Maybe it’s that this story is based much closer to reality, but I think it’s just the sheer moral ambiguity and uncertainty that permeates all the characters’ actions.  Vladek’s opportunism and Art’s enthusiastic reactions to getting the material stand out the most in this respect.  Vladek’s attitudes towards relationships and life in general is well-summed up by Mala’s outburst at the end of chapter four, and seems to illustrate his behavior from his own introduction up to our current stopping point.  Everything is so much more personal.

The narration is a little confused, a mix of unreliable first person and limited-omniscient third person (the text boxes and the art/speech bubbles).  Still, this adds to the ambiguity of the entire narrative.  There’s no clear way to say that people are doing the right or wrong things to this point, or even if such distinctions apply given the horrific circumstances.

The art itself is mesmerizing.  It’s abstract in purest form, almost absurdist.  Who would think of writing a comic book about the Holocaust starring funny animals?  It makes no sense to the point where it makes perfect sense.  Irrational divisions defined the whole affair on all sides, and the mental absurdity takes form in the distinctions between nationalities and ethnicities that aren’t actually an integral part of the story.  The Jewish characters during the Nazi occupation wear Stars of David; Vladek appears to wear a stationary pig mask to appear Polish.  The species of the characters do not reflect any actual distinctions; this is an abstraction that makes the whole story all the more terrifying.  How exactly is this piece supposed to make the reader feel?  It’s unsettling and strange.