I can't remember whose blog it was on which I first read about Craig Thompson's Blankets, but I wish I could, if only just to thank them.
This is a HUGE graphic novel - or as it says on the front, 'an illustrated novel' - with 582 pages. After a while the experiences it outlines of extreme bullying, being an outsider, falling in love for the first time so so sweetly, complicated sibling relationships, learning to cope with a relationship breaking down together with the hints of more dangerous narratives of abuse and depression, feel as if they could only be told in graphic form. I was interested to see that Thompson includes Art Spiegleman in his acknowledgements because it gave me the same complicated feelings as when I first read Maus - should I be reading about this in comic form? Until of course I stopped thinking and just started seeing.
6 comments:
I'll add it to my wishlist. I love graphic novels and this one seems to be a little bit different.
Thank you x
Love to know what you think, Caroline, although if your wishlist is as long as mine...!
yo Sarah.....Craig Thompson is one of the members of a collaborative art group I'm in called Paintallica!
We will all be working together in September in Portland at the Time Based Art Festival.Cool.
No Greta! That's so cool. What a small world!!! I so much wish I was going to be at the circus at the same time as you. Tell him I think he's amazing - and if he ever wants a writer to work with ....! I think the scenes when the bed becomes a banquet were just beautiful.
yeah, he is a friend of a friend....Dan Attoe who was one of the co-founders of the group. ..haven't worked with him yet, but his work is quite lovely.
I'll drop Sarah Salway plugs as much as I can while I'm there....."Hey Craig, what's your favorite pen to use?" "Oh yeah, my writer friend Sarah uses that pen too."
"Hey Craig, is that hair on your head?" "My writer friend Sarah has hair too."
I think we may have one day of overlap! I wish it were more!
Yep, Greta, I think that would be perfect. If you could follow him around, watching closely and commenting on everything he and I have or do the same - we both have eyes, for instance, and we breathe - and in meantime, I stalk him on the internet, then I might make a bit of an impression on him, mightn't I?
Hurrah to our overlap and please tell Carlos I've been taking lessons in being 'deeply creepy' (see above...!!!)
xx
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