Revealing Characters: Maus and Essex County

In the story of Maus, the character Vladek is a very charismatic and lively person.  His personality aids in revealing his character more in depth and at a quicker pace as the story progresses. Since the story is focused mainly on the character Vladek and his story, readers are able to learn more thoroughly about his character.  His background is almost forcefully learned by the nature of the story.  As he recollects his story of the Holocaust to his son Art, we learn about his past in depth and are given some foreground into the character he is in the present and will be in the near future.

Spiegleman's style provides lots of information within each page.  This leaves less questioning from the readers since they can understand exactly what is going on.

On the other hand, Jeff Lemire reveals the character Lester, from Essex County, very differently. Lester is a more enigmatic individual.  His character doesn't speak much when he actually does speak. This speaks volumes based on the style of Essex County.  Unlike Maus's small panels with lots of text, Lumire creates a story with large picture panels and very little dialouge within. Some pages are solely artwork. Very little information is gathered between pages. Given this style, each character is revealed very slowly.  Readers eventually learn some background on Lester, but they are still left questioning.