Were it not for Spiegelman's own role in raising comics to a bona fide artistic and literary form, this Ward retrospective might not have been published.
Although I was raised on comic books, for many years I thought I'd lost the ability to lose myself in them.
The stories tend to be things that middle-aged guys raised on comic books think are cool or deep.
George Carlin, the hell-raising comic who died in 2008 at 71, was once George Denis Patrick Carlin, the hell-raising child in Morningside Heights - a boy in a Catholic school on West 121st Street long before he famously declared: "I used to be Irish Catholic.
A charismatic father figure, he claimed his devotees could read minds and levitate, and thousands of alienated young Japanese, raised on comic-book superheroes, believed him.
People also interact with DJ B on Facebook, commenting on issues raised in the comic or on syndicated radio shows.
He'd conquered the highest landmass on Earth, raised thousands for Comic Relief – and he'd trumped the other 145 climbers with him by making the world's first live videocast into a smartphone on the top of the world.
As a comic raised on Second City and Saturday Night Live, Murray knows never to be so taken by your own joke that you laugh at it yourself – soon enough the laughers will forget why they are laughing.
Living Doll Cliff Richard and Young Ones/April 1986 It wasn't that great in 1959 and it certainly wasn't good in 1986, but at least it was sort of funny, raised money for Comic Relief, and Rick, from The Young Ones, got to record a song with his all-time hero.
Last year, he swam the length of the River Thames and in total has raised £8.5m for Comic Relief and Sport Relief.
In a natural bit of casting for the series' Minnesota roots, Midwestern-raised comic Jim Gaffigan will join the cast as a police deputy.
