and Carlos Sampayo, the Congolese painter Chéri Samba, and several Japanese cartoonists known for their work in Garo. Each issue contained a broad variety of styles linked by a common theme, be it urban despair, suicide, or a vision of America through foreign eyes. To comics academic Jeet Heer, Raw was "a singular mixture of visual diversity and thematic unity". The best-known work to run in Raw was a serialization of Spiegelman's (eventual) Pulitzer Prize–winning graphic novel Maus, which ran as an insert for the duration of the magazine from the December 1980 second issue. Individual chapters were packaged as small comic books bound within each issue of Raw Volume 1; starting with Raw Volume 2 (a few color comics, such as Spiegelman's "Two-Fisted Painters: The Matisse Falcon" and Yoshiharu Tsuge's "Red Flowers", were also packaged as inserts). By Volume 2 Raws own dimensions had shrunk to match those of Maus. Although comics were the main focus, many issues included galleries of non-comics illustration and illustrated prose or non-fiction pieces; for example, Raw Volume 2, #2 featured one of the earliest published articles on Henry Darger, complete with fold-out color reproductions of his paintings and diaries. Raw also frequently reprinted public domain works by cartoonists and illustrators of historical significance such as George Herriman, Gustave Doré, and Winsor McCay. Issues Volume 1 #1 (July 1980): "The Graphix Magazine of Postponed Suicides" #2 (December 1980): "The Graphix Magazine for Damned Intellectuals" #3 (July 1981): "The Graphix Magazine That Lost Its Faith in Nihilism" #4 (March 1982): "The Graphix Magazine for Your Bomb Shelter's Coffee Table" #5 (March 1983): "The Graphix Magazine of Abstract Depressionism" #6 (May 1984): "The Graphix Magazine That Overestimates the Taste of the American Public" #7 (May 1985): "The Torn-Again Graphix Magazine" #8 (September 1986): "The Graphic Aspirin for War Fever" Volume 2 #1 (1989): "Open Wounds from the Cutting Edge of Commix" () #2 (1990): "Required Reading for the Post-Literate" () #3 (1991): "High Culture for Lowbrows" () Notable works published in Raw Maus by Art Spiegelman "Here" by Richard McGuire "The Boulevard of Broken Dreams" by Kim Deitch Contributors Notable Raw alumni include: Reception Raw had a strong critical reception, and also sold surprisingly well. It was also not without its critics, who charged it with being highbrow and elitist, or claimed it to be a one-man Spiegelman show. Pioneer underground cartoonist Robert Crumb responded in