Blankets

I found Craig Thomson’s Blankets to be an extremely personal, relatable and well-told graphic story. I found myself engrossed and engaged in the narrative from start to finish. Thomson so eloquently translates the innocent thoughts and viewpoints of childhood into a visual form to the point where several times throughout the process of my reading, I clearly recalled from my own life the same memories and emotions the “characters” were experiencing.

Similarly to Thomson, I grew up in a very Christian home. I remember struggling with my own faith in God, and feeling as if I had no calling or purpose. I remember being sent to church-camp, and can attest to how fake and phony the people who go there really are — Not to the point of cursing, sex and drugs, but I was always disappointed to see how differently people behaved in of the chapel, to outside of it. I liked how the story was able to criticize the faults of modern Christianity without insulting or discrediting it, to me, when a story can do that, it makes its message so much more poignant.

Another thing I really appreciated about Blankets, was its nonlinear story structure. I enjoyed how it wove childhood memories into the bulk of the main story, relating the present back to the past. It opened a lot of opportunities to utilize a creative narration of the story. I was very pleased by Thomson’s ability to capture the internal thoughts of his “character”. By simply overlaying a thought bubble overtop a meadow of text, it clearly and elegantly conveys internal thought and external narration. I was able to read it in a very cinematic manner, and at many times, could even see it making an incredible and moving piece of cinema some day.