One aspect of Maus that really stood out to me was how minimalistic Spiegelman's characters are. The faces of the "mice" are practically indistinguishable, yet I never had a problem figuring out who any of the characters were. Witek brings this point up in his article, saying that "Spiegelman performs subtle wonders of characterization and expression using only two dots for eyes and two lines for eyebrows, and the unobtrusive quality of his drawing is one of its strengths." I agree with this completely, and cannot help but notice that this was not the case in his earlier renderings of "Maus", and was one of the many improvements he made in his final version. For me, the main way I could tell the difference between characters was their posturing. For instance, in his flashbacks Vladek has a very confident and composed posture. Though he is not always the tallest person in the scene, it often seems as though he is. This is also the case for the present day scenes with his son. Art is usually slouching and has an extremely agitated posture, and Vladek's remains calm.
I'm sure Spiegelman had many reasons for making his characters so similar. Perhaps he wanted to further emphasize that the Holocaust affected so many people, not just the ones in this story. Or maybe he felt that giving them certain distinguishing characteristics would make them too cartoonish, as is the case in his original renderings of these characters. However, I think that Spiegelman's main point was for the reader to focus on the story and not the people in it. It is very easy to get hung up on the visual aspects of characters, especially in a story that features a lot of them. But more often than not, this can lead to confusion, i.e., in Heartbreak Soup. By stripping his characters of all physical differences and having their distinguishing traits be reflexive of their personalities Spiegelman has forced his reader's attention to the more important elements of the story.
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What also strikes me is the consistency of characters' appearance. In the present scenes, Artie almost always appears in a black vest, Vladek in a white shirt, Francoise in a striped v-neck, etc. In this way, Speigelman makes Maus more comic-like (in the vein of Peanuts or other newspaper strips) and defines the characters through an unrealistic recycling of attire. This consistency becomes more apparent when one compares Maus to something like Heartbreak Soup. Although the cast in HS is confusing, Hernandez does an excellent job of identifying the characters less through a consistent piece of clothing, and more through physical attributes (i.e. Chelo's muscular physique, Heraclio's flattop, Luba's chest).
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