Blankets Craig Thompson Autobiographical Novel Part 1 – Author, Characters, Setting, Plot American cartoonists Craig Thompson is the author of the graphic novel ‘Blankets’ which published in 2003. This 600-page autobiographic novel is black and white in colour, the story simply goes around first-love, coming of age, sex, sibling relationships, anxiety, pursuit of spiritual identity and religious. The intended audience would be the young adults. Craig Thompson is the main character, who is depicted from childhood to a young adulthood. Being raised in a fundamentalist Christian family, religion has been one essential part of his life; although he embraces Christian, some values just seem imposing on him and often find contradiction with life, for example, a teacher questioning whether drawings can be used to praise God. (See the picture on the left) Later, he met a girl who has a similar background called Raina in a Christian Camp and the girl becomes his first love. Raina is discontent and stressful after her parents’ divorce. She also has the burden to take care sibling. Craig's parents are other main characters in the graphic novel, they believe in Christians devoutly. Part 2 – Attractiveness of the Novel Blankets is special and different from traditional tone of comics, it is not cynical and nihilistic but it covers the conditions what people commonly faced. It succeeds to explore the adolescent social yearnings and the power of young love. The youth sexual plot is a boldness part but it does not make the novels become vulgar. The struggling of religious belief can generate resonance among public. The plot and theme of the novel is attractive, but the drawings and use of words in the novel cannot be neglected too. A 600-page novel can easily become boring if the drawing is dull and ambiguous. Even using black and white color can attract audience attention and allow them to read till the end, it is because the characters and settings are drawn in detail. For instance, the detail part of clothes is not missed by drawing lines and curves. The words inside speech bubbles are also clearly shown and no wasted words are used. |