LitFilm 2025 Opening Film: Art Spiegelman: Disaster is My Muse & Talkback

Documentary, dir. by Philip Dolin & Molly Bernstein 
U.S., 2025, 97 min 

The film will be followed by a talkback with director Philip Dolin and artist/author Molly Crabapple. Throughout his career as a cartoonist and editor, Art Spiegelman has never shied away from provocative storytelling in his comics. From his early art for the countercultural underground comix movement to his acclaimed graphic novel Maus, Spiegelman’s legacy in the comic arts world continues to grow and has inspired many of today’s beloved cartoonists. Discover Spiegelman’s career and how his life story inspired his groundbreaking work, even in the face of looming censorship, in Art Spiegelman: Disaster is My Muse.

Featuring archival footage and stills, illustrations and new interviews with Spiegelman, Art Spiegelman: Disaster is My Muse follows Spiegelman’s early career as co-editor of comic magazines Arcade and Raw before becoming 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. 

All screenings are free but require reservations. Times subject to change. For the full LitFilm roster, go here.

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Molly Crabapple, an artist and writer in New York, has drawn in Guantanamo Bay, in Abu Dhabi’s migrant labor camps, and with rebels in Syria, and received widespread praise for her illustrated memoir Drawing Blood. Crabapple is a contributing editor for Vice and has written for The New York Times, The Paris Review, and Vanity Fair. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art.