From Carl Bark's Donald Duck universe to Joseph Barbera's Tom and Jerry to Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes. These works by humans have chosen to center their conflicts around animals. Art has long been used to portray animals. In fact, some of the earliest known works of art, paintings and drawings tens of thousands of years old, portray animals. In the millennia then, animals have taken a central role in our books, TV shows, and commercials. As an example, one comic has used animals to transcend the bonds of humanity.
Maus is a comic book illustrating the author's father's experience in Nazi Europe. Contrary to other popular works, Art Spiegelman (the author of Maus) gives humans animal features, versus giving animals human characteristics. He represents all the Jews with mice and the Nazis with cats, alluding to their predator prey relationship. Maus tackles an extraordinarily hard topic to write about: the Jewish experience during WWII. Through his clever use of anthropomorphism, Art can accurately communicate his father's story without the stigma against Holocaust memoirs. Which just goes to show that animals really do make everything better.
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