Grace Gamm Theater

Talkback with Jim Vacca

Directed by Molly Bernstein and Philip Dolin 

USA/English/2025/98 min

The Pulitzer Prize-winning creator of “Maus” revolutionized comics by exploring dark, complex themes, his life and work having been shaped by his Holocaust-survivor parents and inspired by MAD magazine’s irreverent satire. This award-winning portrait of a provocative and influential artist features archival footage and illustrations, as well as recent interviews with Spiegelman and interviews with his family and contemporaries, including fellow cartoonists Joe Sacco, Robert Crumb, Emil Ferris, Jerry Craft, and Bill Griffith.

This fascinating new documentary follows Spiegelman’s early career as co-editor of the comic magazines Arcade and Raw, before he became a contributing artist for The New Yorker, as well as the origins and impact of Maus, his autobiographical work that became the first and only graphic novel to win a Pulitzer Prize. Because Maus has been widely praised as a teaching tool for students studying the Holocaust, the decision by a Tennessee school board to remove it from its 8th-grade curriculum sparked controversy. A defender of free speech and a candid cultural critic, Spiegelman continues to speak out against censorship. 

Jim Vacca is a retired teacher and a local comics enthusiast who most recently taught a class on Comic Books and the Jewish Imagination at the JCC. He still actively collects and reads comic books. His mother never threw out his comics. He has taught Maus at Boulder High School. 

Sunday, November 2 | 12 pm | $18.40

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