Nerds Like Us

There is secret violence to childhood, a secret terror to young love, a freedom in disillusionment. And yet, looking back, these things sooth us, they wrap us and keep us warm. Blankets is soaked with these life shaping conflicts.

A graphic novel of massive proportions, Blankets is nearly 600 pages long. Significant, as it pushed the boundaries of the usual notion that graphic novels are a collection of a few thin comics. And in these 600 pages there’s something that’s moved me more than any medium I’ve ever read, seen, or heard. Yes, this means Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, this means U2’s With Or With Out You, this means Free Willy; they are all crushed by the massive tome, by the raw emotion Blankets deliver.

Blankets

Blankets

If there’s one graphic novel to read, this is it. Actually Maus is it, but Blankets, in terms of non-superhero graphic novels, Blankets ranks in that snow capped mountain top echelon of Maus and Contract with God. Blankets will take the pages and tear through you. Not a good read. No. A chronicling of the way we bleed.

will break that notion that comics equate superheroes. In fact, it’s as far from a superhero comic as you might get. There’s a quiet moral confusion, a love that grows real, no n’er-do-wells, monsters, or misogyny. The art itself is fluid ink strokes; rough in some places, long and languid in others. The snow covered landscapes ring from the page with a vibrancy. Thompson moves from the dark, frightening, nearly Guernica-like images to the thick branches of iced trees and gleaming facial expressions. Emotion explodes from the page. takes place in the mid-west, switching between scenes of Craig Thompson’s childhood and teenage years (the writer and artist for the comic). He looks back without distorting what he’s experienced: his ugliness as an older brother, his failure to stand up for his little brother, his sheer cruelty is painted with honesty, and a small gaze of regret. He then tracks his strong Protestant faith that crumbles as he grows; he begins to question the brutality of the teachings, the threats of hell, the fanged God of the Old Testament. This faith, which he uses as a shield during his high school years, evaporates in a way that is both liberating and frightening. But the center of the story, the real mass of it, is found in his first love: Raina. He meets Raina at a Christian Camp and their friendship blossoms. Soon, this friendship turns to something more through letters, through mailed poems and drawings, and finally through two weeks they spend together at Raina’s home. But the way Craig Thompson approaches the story is…refreshing. Never overly nostalgic, sappy, or cheesy (in fact there’s absolutely no cheese to be found), the story seems as pure and cathartic as a vista of untarnished snow dusting a soft, undulating landscape.