Pre-reading Vocabulary List (Maus)
an Arab chief: a man who is irresistibly attractive to women
sheik
a woven or knit cloth or yarn used in making cloth
textile
a man who is unmarried
bachelor
women's nylons or men's and women's stockings
hosiery
money or goods that a woman brings into a marriage
dowry
a ground, deboned fish recipe using a variety of Kosher fish meat
gefilte
what other people say about your character
reputation
the killing of Jews and other racial groups in WWII
Holocaust
a novel written in picture form
graphic
the author of Maus
Art Spiegelman
a historical account or biography written from personal knowledge or
Memoir
special sources.
place where large numbers of people, especially political prisoners or
Concentration
members of persecuted minorities, are deliberately imprisoned in a
Camp
relatively small area with inadequate facilities, sometimes to provide
forced labor or to await mass execution.
The box or segment that contains the image and text frame the border that
surrounds and contains the panel. The space that lies between panels bleed
when an image goes beyond the borders of the page
Splash is a kind of panel that spans the width of the page. If it runs off the
page entirely, it is kwon as a “bleed”.
Narrators have the possibility to speak directly to the reader through a voice
over. Usually this is done with a hard line separating the narrator’s speech
at the top or bottom of a panel from the image within the panel.
These are frames around the character’s language, a kid of “direct speech”,
where the characters speak for themselves. If these appear as clouds, they
represent the character’s thoughts. If they appear in jagged lines, the
character is shouting. This contains the dialogue spoken by different
characters within a scene. It’s usually enclosed in a bubble or another
shape; otherwise, can stand on its own, close to the speaker.
Panel
Splash
Voice over
Speech bubble
This term refers to the teardrops, sweat drops, question marks, or motion
lines that artists draw beside characters’ faces to portray emotion.
Emanata
This refers to the space between panels. Readers tend to “fill in the blanks”
and imagine what happens between panels, a process known as “closure”.
Gutter
The heaviness or intensity of a line or block of shading for visual focus. The
bolder the graphic weight, the greater the visual focus, making that element
more salient in the scene.
graphic weight
A box or section of text that gives details on the background and setting of
the scene. It sits separately to speech and thought bubbles, often at the top
or bottom of the panel.
caption
thought bubble
Similar to the speech bubble, this contains the internal dialogue of a
character and is usually shaped like a cloud, coming from the character’s
head
Sounds words that give a sense of sound on the page (e.g. BANG! THUMP!).
To heighten their impact, the words are either bolded or have a special
graphical treatment to make it stand out on the page.
special effects
The configuration of all the elements on the page; the way in which the
frame, panels, speech bubbles, etc. are arranged to tell the narrative
Layout
An angle that zooms into an image, like a character’s face, to allow for
closer view. This technique is sometimes employed to convey a feeling of
intimacy between the reader and character, such as when a character
reveals their thoughts or revelations
close-up -