Art Spiegelman & Francoise Mouly April 23, 2007

Art Spiegelman is the author and illustrator of the graphic novels Maus I and Maus II. A masterful Holocaust narrative, the two volumes depict Spiegelman's troubled relationship with his father, a survivor of Auschwitz. Almost single-handedly reviving comics as serious art form, Spiegelman was awarded a special 1992 Pulitzer Prize in Letters for his seminal works. He played an essential role in the underground comics movement of the 1960s and 70s as creative consultant for Topps Bubble Gum Co. and as a teacher at the School for Visual Arts in New York. With his wife, Françoise Mouly, Spiegelman founded Raw, the highly praised avant-garde comics magazine. A longtime contributor to The New Yorker, Spiegelman resigned following the September 11, 2001 attacks in protest of the American media's "widespread conformism," which he called "conservative and timid." In September 2004, he released In The Shadow of No Towers, a large format graphic novel focused on his personal experience of the Twin Towers attack and its aftermath.

Françoise Mouly is an accomplished artist and designer. Mouly studied architecture at her native Paris' Beaux-Arts school, but left in 1974 for New York City, initially living at the Y.M.C.A. She worked a series of jobs through which she became involved in a circle of local artists and experimental filmmaking. She first turned to comics to help her learn the English language, and soon met her husband Art Spiegelman while he was living in San Francisco producing Arcade magazine. By the late seventies, Mouly was doing freelance coloring work for Marvel Comics and annually publishing The Streets of Soho Map and Guide. Since 1993, she has served as Art Editor of The New Yorker. Currently Mouly is developing a series of comics for beginning readers called TOON into Reading.

Together, Spiegelman and Mouly edit a series of hardcover comic anthologies for children, called "Little Lit." Married since 1977, they live in Lower Manhattan with their two children.

In conversation with Dave Eggers

Tickets: $19

Official Website: http://www.cityarts.net/n.spiegelman.html