Blankets by Craig Thompson

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I just read Craig Thompson's Blankets for the first time tonight, basically cover to cover in one sitting. It's somewhere around 570 pages but it's not like reading just any 570 page graphic novel. It even seems kind of weird to call it a graphic novel, but that's what it is.

It's almost 2 AM and I'm tired, but I feel so emotionally exhausted after reading it that I don't feel like I can go to sleep. It's just kind of one of those things that makes you think...for me, mostly about how disappointing life can be when you grow up, as you discover that people are basically disappointing, etc.

Then I find myself trying to translate that into raising my kids in a way so they don't have to experience that, or at least not prematurely, and not so dramatically that they become jaded and can't enjoy life.

As much of a downer as it was, it was a pretty amazing read. I resisted reading it because it seemed like it was something that kewl people read just to appear different from other comic book readers (and I still feel like it is because some of the people I've seen talk about it...I don't believe they can relate to the less transparent themes that this book presents, as jerky as that sounds for me to say), but I'm glad I finally did. It's really good. Anything that can make you feel that much emotionally is a good read.

I'm kind of disappointed that this is the first discussion of it here and it's been out for over 9 years.
 
I read it and thought it was rather... childish in terms of writing, but it is very emotionally sensitive and beautifully expressed. Makes up for the lack of substance. I forget more and more what happened in the comic but the mood and atmosphere remains strong.
 
Simple, yes...childish? It never once seemed childish to me. I do think that the simplistic nature really adds to the depressing tone, though.

And I couldn't disagree more about lacking substance. Maybe in terms of plot, if that's what you mean, but its an autobiography; I guess I don't think of those in terms of plot. More of a documentary.
 
I meant childish in that its autobiographical but he never really seems to have grown up, and lacking in substance because while its minimalism, very little really happens.
 
oooooooooh.....Blankets.

Not

happy-10th-birthday-blanket-jackson.jpg




My bad.
 
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I read this in my comics class last semester and I thought was brillant. It was depressing and thought provoking. I need to read his new book.
 

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