Chapter One - The Sheik Summary

Artie, now an adult, visits Vladek in Rego Park. Artie notes he is not particularly close to his father, and Vladek appears saddened that Artie is not accompanied by his girlfriend Françoise. Vladek is disgusted when Mala, his wife and Artie's step-mother, hangs Artie's coat on a wire hanger; Vladek quickly moves it to a wooden hanger. After dinner Artie and Vladek begin to talk and Artie explains that he has decided to create a graphic text about Vladek's life's experiences. Vladek's narrated experiences are then presented as a collage of flashback sequences interspersed with his commentary and occasional panels showing Artie and Vladek discussing Vladek's life's experiences in the present.

In the mid-1930s Vladek lives in Czestochowa, a small Polish city, and makes his living selling textiles. He is young, strong, and...