Blankets

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Craig.Snow. Brothers. Church camp. Patchwork. Under the pool table. Cubby holes. Identity. Faith. The future. First loves. Doubt (“It’s reassuring”). I’ve always had more of a European take on this stuff in media. I think there should be more sexuality in media and less violence. I actually used to have a rule for myself that I never wanted to have guns in my comics until Ginseng Roots, in which I end up writing a bit about the CIA’s secret war in Laos during the Vietnam War, which required me to draw a lot of guns—but definitely not glorified or glamorized. It was a really weird double standard. It’s reflected in that scene [in Blankets] too, where it’s OK that I’m drawing war on one side of the paper, but the fact that I drew a naked lady on the other side…I was always getting in trouble for that kind of stuff as a kid.

Being raised in a born-again family - which is well-portrayed in this book - is not a foreign concept to me. I've spoken before about how damaging the church's messages about sexuality are. We always think of women being oppressed, repressed, damaged, and unhappy as a result of this message, but as I wrote in my review of TAKE MY HAND, men and boys are very hurt and damaged as well. Craig Thompson’s graphic memoir “Blankets” traces moments from his childhood through high school. The book begins by exploring Craig’s relationship with his younger brother and then follows different threads of his early life: being raised by extremely religious parents, going to Bible camp and not really fitting in, and falling in love with a girl named Raina. Though Craig and Raina start dating at camp, they live far apart and eventually break up. Much of Craig’s focus is his experience with religion and love, and the conflicts between faith, personal morality, sexuality, desire and responsibility. But for me, these are all secondary to a theme of processing memory. How do we understand our memories? How can we move on from the past? How do those memories shape who we are? How do we shape ourselves based on the memories we have, especially traumatic ones? I’m not sure what it was but there was something about the feel of the story that I just wasn't getting.a b Sims, Zach (October 5, 2006). "Library board hears complaints about books/Decision scheduled for Oct. 11 meeting". Marshall Democrat-News. Archived from the original on September 12, 2016 . Retrieved October 8, 2006. I first read about Blankets in an article on the history of graphic novels, where it was mentioned as one of the signature examples of the form - along famous works such as Art Spiegelman's Maus (Interestingly, Spiegelman liked the book, and sent the author a congratulatory letter after publication). Blankets was offered as an example of a serious and important work, which helped define the term and give it meaning and significance - by telling a mature and largely autobiographical story it helped distance the graphic novel from a stereotype of a comic book for children. I've never read anything by Craig Thomson before, so when the opportunity presented itself I chose to take it and dove right in. This book is an autobiographical account of Craig's coming to terms with his faith and reconciling it with his sexuality. WW : As a younger reader, I saw Blankets as a love story. With more years behind me, I see it as a story about how one of the greatest acts of love can be letting go—of a person, a relationship, of a time in your life.

Graphic novels are especially impressive because they must portray characters from an endless array of angles, and in this case, we recognize a character as he grows over a period of years. Moreover, we are feeling that character struggle with the promises and constraints of his religion and the actual manifestation of those teachings that he can see. When Craig’s pastor suggests he consider a religious calling, Craig seriously contemplates the idea. Harper, Rachel (February 8, 2007). "Library policy has first reading". Marshall Democrat-News. Archived from the original on March 11, 2016 . Retrieved March 5, 2007.To me, it’s more about Craig’s isolation, his struggle with his faith and his need to find his place in the world. This book is a masterpiece of form, symbol, and structure. Tokens bend and writhe and carry narrative significance throughout. Thompson's art here is fluid and is of that less-polished variety found also in Goodbye Chunky Rice and serves well to establish the variety of moods described in his several vignettes. This blanket does not always protect us, for there are moments when the past is too present to be warded away. Memories haunt Craig, an experience represented masterfully by the reproduction of the same images in new contexts throughout the book. Thompson captures not only his character’s memories but the process of remembering: how present events trigger the past in ways sometimes unexpected. I especially appreciated the belly laughs he led us to near the end of the memoir when some of the church elders in his hometown warned Craig not to consider going to art school, lest it lead him to sin. Our hearts nearly break with what the teen will miss if he doesn’t follow his passion, but again he manages to avoid confrontation while following his dreams.

There’s a line in Blankets where Raina says something to you like, “You’re going to drown yourself in cheesiness.” But I never saw Blankets as cheesy. I saw it as committed to unabashed romanticism. I can’t describe it properly, and hopefully people who are familiar with graphic novels will understand what I’m trying to say, but emotional scenes in graphic novels seem to somehow create a sense of distance (minimal words telling you how you should feel) and intimacy (almost like you’re looking through their living room window as their world falls apart) that other books can’t seem to recreate. Do you remember the exuberance of love, especially first love? The dilated pupils, the irrational desire to follow the pheromones wherever they may lead you, the unpredictability of aroused body parts? Sometimes, upon waking, the residual dream can be more appealing than reality, and one is reluctant to give it up.” That night was colder than the last, and the extra layer – held close to my body – was just what I needed. Sometimes, upon waking, the residual dream can be more appealing than reality, and one is reluctant to give it up. For a while, you feel like a ghost – not fully materialized, and unable to manipulate your surroundings. Or else, it is the dream that haunts you … “

Ocr tesseract 5.0.0-1-g862e Ocr_detected_lang en Ocr_detected_lang_conf 1.0000 Ocr_detected_script Japanese Ocr_detected_script_conf 0.6508 Ocr_module_version 0.0.14 Ocr_parameters -l eng Old_pallet IA-WL-1200080 Openlibrary_edition I went to art school for one semester—that’s all I could afford—and I really appreciated and thrived in figure-drawing classes. I remember bringing those drawings home to my parents and they looked through them in quiet disgust. I was really proud of the work and I was like, “What do you think?” and they were like, “What can we say, Craig? It’s just a bunch of naked drawings.” You could tell they were disappointed.

There were a lot of parts of the book that made me sad, or made me think. Craig goes through frantic periods where he literally burns everything he owns that he thinks is 'sinful' or a 'temptation.' Many born-again Christians do these purges. The results are almost never permanent. I was upset because some of the stuff he burns is very personal and valuable stuff that I knew he would regret burning later.However, I have struggled to understand the whole disruptive part of the biblical quotations and religious experience, I presume of some extreme Protestant wing.... ( For us Europeans, it is a bit strange and to understand certain realities of the Church, not having here so many Protestant confessions and all their variations of church)