Blankets

Blankets

A few days ago I did some­thing I haven't done in over 10 years: picked up some comics and a graphic novel.

Today I fin­ished the graphic novel Blan­kets by Craig Thomp­son, an au­to­bi­og­ra­phy of the au­thor's life from child­hood on through high school and a lit­tle bit of adult­hood. It tells par­al­lel sto­ries of broth­er­hood and first love.

It was a joy to read, filled with beau­ti­ful art­work and an en­thralling story. Every page evoca­tive of what it's like grow­ing up, of that over­whelm­ing feel­ing of falling in love for the first time. This is a great book for any­one -- even if you don't like comics, I im­plore you to pick this up.

This is ac­tu­ally the first graphic novel I've read. De­spite hav­ing the ca­pac­ity to read more than your run-of-the-mill X-Men or Fan­tas­tic Four comics as a pre­teen (I dis­tinctly re­mem­ber read­ing my first Stephen King novel It and get­ting my feet wet pro­gram­ming Hy­per­Card around that time), I can't re­call ever read­ing a graphic novel or even being aware of their ex­is­tence. I rarely went to comic book stores for more than Magic cards, in­stead choos­ing to bor­row them from a friend's vast col­lec­tion.

After a cou­ple years of watch­ing The To­tally Rad Show, it fi­nally sunk in to me to go grab some comics. I chose Blan­kets specif­i­cally be­cause of the TRS guys rav­ing about it. Thanks guys!

I re­mem­bered a girl I be­friended when I was a child, who was liv­ing with her dad down the street from my house over sum­mer break. Hardly a foot­note in my life's story, I never saw her after that one sum­mer. Funny, the mem­o­ries this book brought for­ward.

Posted on May 22, 2009 in Blankets, Comics, Graphic Novels

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