Drawing attention.

Byline: Bob Keefer The Register-Guard

Art Spiegelman has spent years trying to get the world to take comic books seriously. He may finally have succeeded.

While noting that Spiegelman's latest comic, last summer's "In the Shadow of No Towers," is flawed and incomplete, New York Times book reviewer Michiko Kakutani nevertheless says it may be the best artistic response yet to emerge to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

"His book points the way - one way, anyway - for artists to begin getting their minds around the horror of Sept. 11 and to memorialize the unimaginable," Kakutani writes.

Since when did it fall to cartoonists to lead the nation's culture?

"I've spent years asking the world to take cartoons seriously, and now look what happens," Spiegelman said in a phone interview from his New York home. "This cartoon stuff, it's dynamite. It's a dangerous weapon. It can do all kinds of stuff. It's potent. It's worth looking at. That's why cartoons seem to be rising."

Spiegelman will talk about his work Monday at the Shedd Institute. Tickets are no longer available and there is a waiting list for standing-room-only tickets.

For a guy who hasn't always gotten much respect, Spiegelman's career has certainly been on the rise lately.

The Stockholm-born artist was a little-known underground comic cartoonist for many years before winning the Putzer Prize in 1992 for "Maus: A Survivor's Tale," a graphic novel - that's a fancy word for a comic book for grownups - about his father's experiences in the Holocaust.

Original panels from "Maus" are included in "Masters of American Comics," a sprawling new show now up at the Hammer Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles.

The exhibit, MOCA director Jeremy Strick has said, makes the case that comics are "one of the great art forms of our times."

This is all heady stuff for a cartoonist who's developed a bit of touchiness over the years about his place in American culture. Comics aren't kids' stuff, Spiegelman insists, again and again.

"Some library gave me a 'young adults' award when 'Maus' came out," he says. "I sent it back, angrily. The idea that my comics are for kids? That's a form of child abuse, lady. I'll report you."

One of the rewards of artistic fame, usually, is being able to do things your own way. But even after the Pulitzer, Spiegelman had difficulty finding a publisher for "No Towers." (It was finally published by Random House, the publisher of "Maus.')

"Everyone always seems to like what I have done but hate what I am doing," he said.

That may be because he keeps ratcheting up the difficulty of his work. "Maus," for example, offered a relatively straightforward narrative, done in traditional comic book fashion. If you could follow "Superman," you could follow "Maus."

"No Towers," by contrast, is much less linear, with pages and pages of panels that work and rework the horrifying image of the north tower aglow from fire in the moments before its collapse.

The book's cover is a re-creation of Spiegelman's famous New Yorker magazine cover from just after the attack, showing the twin towers in a subtle, black-on-black image.

The body of "No Towers" traces the artist's own reactions over time, weaving together his feelings about the attack itself with the aftermath, from the invasion of Iraq to curtailment of Americans' civil liberties.

In an odd segue, a little less than half the book is composed of reprinted comics from early 20th century newspaper cartoonists.

Spiegelman doesn't apologize for his new book's complexity and strangeness.

` `Maus' was intentionally made to be as complex as it needed to be, but organized to be as easy to grasp the elements as possible. It wouldn't be setting up visual obstacles you had to climb over. In `No Towers' I wasn't worried about it. I was just knitting while waiting for the world to end."

Spiegelman's appearance here is in connection with a reading project sponsored by the University of Oregon's comparative literature program; more than 350 students enrolled in nine different courses in the humanities and the hard sciences are studying the book.

LECTURE PREVIEW

Art Spiegelman

What: The former New Yorker staff artist and Pulitzer prize-winning creator of the comic book "Maus" talks about his latest book, "In the Shadow of No Towers"

Where: Jaqua Concert Hall at the Shedd Institute, 285 E. Broadway

When: 7:30 p.m. Monday

Tickets: Free but required for admission; call 346-3986

CAPTION(S):

Art Spiegelman's work has earned a place in a Los Angeles art show, "Masters of American Comics." Spiegelman says his comics are not kid stuff. "This cartoon stuff, it's dynamite. It's a dangerous weapon. ..." Art Spiegelman The book's cover is a re-creation of Spiegelman's New Yorker cover.