Product Description

At 592 pages, Blankets may well be the single largest graphic novel ever published without being serialized first. Wrapped in the landscape of a blustery Wisconsin winter, Blankets explores the sibling rivalry of two brothers growing up in the isolated country, and the budding romance of two coming-of-age lovers. A tale of security and discovery, of playfulness and tragedy, of a fall from grace and the origins of faith. A profound and utterly beautiful work from Craig Thompson. The New Printing corrects 3 small typos, widening the spine graphics, but otherwise is identical to the first printing.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5089 in Books
• Published on: 2003-08-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 592 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Revisiting the themes of deep friendship and separation Thompson surveyed in Goodbye Chunky Rice, his acclaimed and touching debut, this sensitive memoir recreates the confusion, emotional pain and isolation of the author's rigidly fundamentalist Christian upbringing, along with the trepidation of growing into maturity. Skinny, naive and spiritually vulnerable, Thompson and his younger brother manage to survive their parents' overbearing discipline (the brothers are sometimes forced to sleep in "the cubby-hole," a forbidding and claustrophobic storage chamber) through flights of childhood fancy and a mutual love of drawing. But escapist reveries can't protect them from the cruel schoolmates who make their lives miserable. Thompson's grimly pious parents and religious community dismiss his budding talent for drawing; they view his creative efforts as sinful and relentlessly hector the boys about scripture. By high school, Thompson's a lost, socially battered and confused soul-until he meets Raina and her clique of amiable misfits at a religious camp. Beautiful, open, flexibly spiritual and even popular (something incomprehensible to young Thompson), Raina introduces him to her own less-than-perfect family; to a new teen community and to a broader sense of himself and his future. The two eventually fall in love and the experience ushers Thompson into the beginnings of an adult, independent life. Thompson manages to explore adolescent social yearnings, the power of young love and the complexities of sexual attraction with a rare combination of sincerity, pictorial lyricism and taste. His exceptional b&w drawings balance representational precision with a bold and wonderfully expressive line for pages of ingenious, inventively composed and poignant imagery.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
Adult/High School-Thompson's Good-bye, Chunkie Rice (Top Shelf, 1999) offered readers well-realized but fantastic characters in a tale that nicely combined sentiment with adventure. This second, much longer work shares the acuity for character development and dynamic sensitivity that makes the author so compulsively readable. In Blankets, however, realism reigns supreme in both the story arc and in the humanity of its characters. Thompson himself is the protagonist, and this is his tale of growing up, falling in love (and realizing the physical and moral complications that can imply), discovering the texture and limits of his faith, and arriving at a point from which he can look back at those experiences. The snowy Midwest, peopled by overweight parents, hairy youths, and lovingly depicted younger siblings-including a respectfully and realistically treated minor character with Down syndrome-is energetically realized in Thompson's expressive lines and inking. Much of the story occurs when Craig and his brother Phil are young boys and includes images of such boyish pranks as peeing on one another. Older high school students who have reached an age when nostalgia is possible will warm to Thompson's own wistfulness. This is a big graphic novel, in concept and successful execution.-Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley Public Library, CA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
*Starred Review* Thompson's graphic novel debut, Goodbye Chunky Rice (1999), was a delicate parable of loss that garnered deserved acclaim. The eagerly awaited, autobiographical follow-up to it is more ambitious, more accomplished, and more accessible. Thompson recalls growing up in a religious family in rural Wisconsin, particularly his affectionate tussles with his younger brother, with whom he shared a bed and the titular blankets. A few years later, he experiences the painful intensity of first love with Raina, a girl from Michigan he meets at a regional church camp. When the pair are separated, his loss of faith in his love for Raina presages his later loss of religious faith. The blanket motif reappears throughout the work, forthrightly as the handmade quilt Raina gives him, and more subtly as the blank sheets of paper he confronts as a budding artist. Eschewing the usual alt-comics cynicism, Thompson's evocation of high-school romance manages to be both romanticized and clear-eyed. His visual mastery shows in fluid line work, assured compositions, and powerful use of solid black areas and negative space. Weighing in at nearly 600 pages, this is a genuine graphic novel, with a universal appeal that suits it for any collection. Gordon Flagg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

Thompson realy believes that this is a story to be told...
"Blankets" dramatically fails in fulfilling the fundamentals of a good story. One of them is how surprising - the story. Blankets has very common story about two lovers, some flashbacks from childhood, one weak motive(the blanket), common characters with common problems, and after reading it all, you're going to ask yourself- "So...? What's the big fuss? It's everyday life, everyday problems of all of us, and not the interesting ones - just the commons. The hero has boring life, a true old fashion naive roman, and above all questions of faith in the lord and the way of Christianity life.
The other big flaw in the story is that it touched so many nice and complex moments and situations with such a potential, in the author life, but none to deal with, and so you missed all the could- have-been good parts. So is for the relationship with the parents, which can stand for its own book, but Thompson, chooses not to develop this point. I'll explain later why.
The big love to his girl was so naive and most of the time boring, full of silent pictures describing the goodness and pureness of her. Yeah yeah, we got it. You were both 17 or so, but the world looks like that to everyone. What make yours special? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
The book starts good, with the motive of the blanket, the relationship with the parents and his brother - but than it falls into the outcast-guy-with-the-popular-girl-which-fell from-the-sky clichés. And what a clichés! I mean standing alone, or hiding under the table, in some college party is so banal idea! So for a lot of other situations.("I need some space"??? Come'on!!!)
Eventually - this book is about someone youth. An ordinary youth, like you saw in 6000 movies or so.
The illustrations are pretty good but nothing special that takes the story higher. The story is the main job of this book. The illustrations are just here to support it and no more.
And all the religious stuff? Well, in this point the author choose to show only his inner conflicts, which are very boring and childish, but he choose in his life (and in this book) not to confront them over the surface with his community, parents and friends. All you can see is the surrounding people telling him what is the best Christian way to do so and so, and the author stands aside with dumb face like "they don't understand me, they are not convincing me, why why why..." and so on.
If the guy could grew some balls than the story would be much more interesting, and that's the reason that they aren't interesting conflicts in this book. There were just none in his true life. He is like a weak leaf going where the wind blows. Just hearing everybody and stand steal without saying nothing. A good example is to see how he decide TWICE to literally burn his past instead of dealing with it in an adult way. Nah...lets act like 4 yeas old...
A word to the author: Do you really think you deserve to be main character? No, you are not. You are the less interesting character in the story. You are so self-concentrated and so enthusiastic to show the world your silent, quiet, boring life, but believe me - you can open a blog instead.
So why read this book? What happens in this book? Well, nothing. Save your money. Read "Epileptic" instead, and see that are some stories that have to be told, and some not.


*pardon for the english mistakes if any. not my main lang.

A Beautiful Book Full of Wonder and Truths
"Blankets" is a literary achievement, and probably one of the top five graphic novels of all time. It's a story so fulfilling and so immensely--almost staggeringly--beautiful that it, like first love itself, almost aches to experience it. But, again like first love itself, is something that I'd recommend to any and everyone.

As a man very much like Craig--a Christian who doesn't find everything the church teaches to his liking as well as a person who had a bittersweet first love--I found this book to be so full of poignant truth that I was brought to tears many times over. The way Craig Thompson describes the first contact with his love, Raina; the way he describes the state of waking from a particularly profound dream ("For a while, you feel like a ghost-- Not fully materialized, and unable to effect your surroundings); and, not least of all, how he finds such beauty in things others might see as mundane. When I bought this attractive book, I knew I was going to be experiencing some beautiful art, but Thompson is more than an artist who also writes. He is so talented at both of his crafts that, while reading this, I often felt that these pages may not have been created, but simply generated by Thompson's brain.

The way the art is handled is nothing short of masterful. Craig Thompson is a master of comic art, and knows how to evoke just the right kind of emotions. Whether it be the framing of a panel, the use of white space, the way some things are so detailed but others look so mundane, the way some things look so realistic while others look like caricatures, how some panels are inked and shaded while some are just bare-boned (not shaded)... Whatever Thompson does from panel-to-panel--and trust me, I've read a lot of comics, some of his techniques are breathtakingly innovative--evokes just as much emotion as his writing itself does. The writing blends so nicely with the art, creating such a tight, purposeful feeling behind every page.

I read "Blankets" in about half the time I thought it would take to finish it. It's focused, poignant, and so very beautiful. For my four hundredth review, I am more than proud to give this classic graphic novel five well-deserved stars.

10/10 Classic.

Nice Coming of Age Story
Craig Thompson produces a powerful coming of age story in Blankets, and a lengthy one too: it weighs in at almost 600 pages. Growing up in a fundamentalist Christian household in rural Wisconsin, the semi-autobiographical character named Craig must share a bed with his little brother. He grows up in a cultural environment that I know all too well. There are signs on the road that proclaim `Jesus is the only fire insurance,' and the boys are forced to attend a church in which even questioning things in good faith is strongly discouraged and dismissed.

At a winter church camp, Craig just doesn't see how so many people can actually all be on the same page in regards to their worshipping of Jesus, much less be able to jointly carry out any kind of cohesive policy in the world. But at this camp he meets a somewhat kindred spirit named Raina, and most of the remainder of the novel follows their relationship.

Thompson exploits the graphic form quite well. The snowy landscapes provide a sense of otherworldliness, and all adult authority figures are presented as giants, towering over the young boys and filing them with fear and intimidation. Though he is questioning his faith to some degree, Craig is fairly devout and Thompson presents a war between his desires and the Bible graphically. As he is told about Hell for the first time, the young Craig's imagination shows people in agony in a style that is much more traditionally gothic than the typical style of the primary narrative. And upon learning that the book of Ecclesiastes had been revised and added to many years after it original composition, the artist presents the more hopeful additions with cartoonish pigs, contrasting the presentation of the darker statements, which reflect a surrealist type of horror.

Though the love story between Raina and Craig worked quite well and was very believable to me, I was more affected by Craig's stifling religious environment because it reminded me of my own as a boy. When questioning his pastor about the changes made to Ecclesiastes, the minister dismisses him by saying that even if some additions were made as the translations took place across the centuries, one shouldn't let that fact dissuade them from God's holy word.

In the last chapter of the book, Craig as a young adult returns home and has a conversation about leaving Christianity behind with his brother. He adds that he doesn't feel he can ever tell their parents because they would think of nothing else but saving his immortal soul. And this is precisely how I feel as well. After years of hearing that the answer to my questions was God, but then being forbidden from asking questions in God's church has left me feeling like Craig: apart from my family, yet overwhelmingly confident that I am on the right side.

As one would expect, there is a blanket motif throughout Blankets, and towards the end of the novel Craig notes as he walks through snow how `satisfying it is to leave a mark on a blank surface.' Thomson would be happy to know that no only were his marks satisfying to make, but they were very satisfying to read as well.