Blankets by Craig Thompson

Blankets is an autobiographical graphic narrative by Craig Thompson. It tells the coming of age story of a young man struggling to find his creative voice. Being a coming of age story, there were several common elements that anyone who's gone through childhood and growing up can identify with. It was especially affective to me since it was the coming of age story of an artist. Craig had a very strict, militant father that was effectively expressed in the way the character in the comic was designed and the composition of the panels he was in. The father dominates the composition of all of the panels he is in, we never see his eyes, he is often either in shadow or casting a shadow, and even the typography of his speech bubbles is drawn more aggressively than any other text. I've noticed parents and other adults and authority figures are often drawn similarly in comics with young protagonists. I think that its because as a child there is a universal fear of authority born out of the process of being disciplined and taught morality. Adults have to teach children how to be adults and in the process briefly create a riff between the two. As a child you think of other children as "us" and the adults are "them." Another think that I recognized was how the school bullies were drawn. In the chapters where Craig taks about being bullied, he is in elementary school and therefore, so are the bullies. However, while Craig draws himself to look and have the proportions of a regular elementary school child, the bullies have the proportions and size of full-grown adults. This not only emphasized the helplessness Craig probably felt but it also brings up an experience that I think most people had when they were children. When you are a child, you do not feel like a child. You are as old as you have ever been at any given time and so even though you are a child with child-problems they feel like the biggest problems in the world because they are the biggest problems in YOUR world. Even though the abuse Craig endures is more severe than some people might experience the way your problems look through the lens of your own life is universal. I think this also applies to a criticism that is probably common for Blankets, like it is for most coming of age stories: it is too whiny or "emo." Saying something is "too emo" is just saying the conflict of the story is over dramatized. I think this is particularly interesting when applied to Blankets. I think it is interesting which conflicts the author chooses to dramatize and which ones he leaves more subtle. For instance, the conflicts and feelings of his first love are quite dramatic and prominent in the story line while Thompson only barely hints at the sexual abuse of him and his brother when they were very young. Craig's pastor also says some very cult-y things that are just glossed over. The problems of first love is something the majority of people can relate to and have experienced and is what the author chooses to dramatize while sexual assault is not. Even though the experience of first love is so relatable, when it is dramatized it is criticized as being too "emo." However, what if Thompson were to choose to dramatize his sexual assault or the subliminal brainwash-y tendencies of authority figures in his church? Would that still have been "too emo?" Probably not. So then is something only "too emo" if it is something most of us have experienced and can understand? But then, you would think we would be more understanding and appreciate that problems we struggled with are being legitimized by narrative drama. But that isn't what happens. I think it really comes down to rather its a conflict we've already solved for ourselves or not. I think I would have responded to Blankets differently if I was younger. I remember reading coming of age novels in middle and high school and teachers would always say to read the book again when we were adults and how the book would take on an entirely different meaning. I think that is the appeal of coming of age stories. Its like two-for-one. You read it when you are at the stage of the protagonist at the beginning of the story and again when you are at the stage of the protagonist at the end of the story and its like reading two completely different stories.