[this is for Jan 28, too; Blankets, by Craig Thompson, chapters 6-9 & Understanding Comics, by Scott McCloud, chapters 3-4]

Remember my last post, on the 28th, about how I'd just combine both days into one? And I said it was because I wanted to do the rest of Blankets justice? Yeah, somehow I thought we were supposed to finish the novel for Monday. Not true. Not what it says on the syllabus. I swear, though that I heard Spencer/our prof say, on Wednesday, "finish Blankets for Monday!" So I did. And didn't need to. I mean, it was good, and I'm glad to be through it, but I feel like an idiot for not posting on Monday now. Oh, well. On with the show, I guess.

I don't have much to say about McCloud. I've read it before, which I think I mentioned (new age cinema class, yeah?), so there aren't any new and/or brilliant thoughts leaping out at me. Mostly I think it's entertaining, but that it's largely self-explanatory. I've only read one series of actual comics, and I'm not even finished with that (part 4 of 6 right now). Comics are too short, too fleeting, too fragmented. I know McCloud discusses different forms of media, but since it's in the form of reading a comic... I think you understand.

I actually like Raina's character, an unpopular opinion. I think she's interesting and more realistic than other characters. We see her flaws and her perfections. She carries so much on her; taking constant care of her family and trying to take care of herself. At her age, 18(ish), she can't possibly be expected to take care of Craig, too. Also, it seems like Craig wouldn't let her. Craig idealizes (and idolizes) Raina. He twists his beliefs about lust/passion to make what they're doing "okay" in God's eyes. (Actually, that says more about Craig's fading belief and his willingness to break away from what he's been spoon fed.) All the same, Craig wants Raina to be this perfect angel, a goddess even, and she's just a kid, too.

This novel started out about Craig and Phil, and that theme continues, makes the story what it is. They are two completely different people, but that common thread of "family" is there. Phil takes everything more relaxed. He keeps drawing, finds someone he loves, and stays light-hearted. Craig doesn't seem to be able to do that until he moves out and leaves his Bible behind.

[pg 250 from Blankets]

These two panels are a great example of how different the brothers are, even as children. Their parents have a surprise, which Phil accepts, but Craig's just scared.

[pg 459 from Blankets]

The clear separation between them is shown and said beautifully in this image. And it's so true. As we get older, we do everything alone. When we're young, we bathe together, dress together, and sleep together. When we're older (high school+), we do these things with select others, the ones we choose to spend our time and privacy with.

The best thing, I think, about Blankets, and some graphic novels in general, is the ability to get so much across with pictures and little words. The next few panels are all great uses of no dialogue, yet an entire idea is portrayed with ease.

[pg 488-9 from Blankets; Craig finding Raina's note]


[pg 510 from Blankets; Craig trying to write to Raina, or even trying to draw. Mostly trying to "thaw."]


[pg 580 of Blankets (almost the end); Craig making a mark, even if it doesn't last forever]

Like my group was discussing a week ago, about how graphic novels make you imagine a story sometimes, or just words. As opposed to regular novels, which make you imagine the pictures. When I read an all-words book, it's like a movie in my head-- always has been. When I read Blankets, I fill in the words. Not many, because it's a quiet, spare sort of story, but some. I think of things that describe the snow in the last panels, for instance. Or I supply the verbs that are only shown.

The epilogue gave a nice closure, by the way. It wrapped up Craig's religious doubt and his ability to move on with his life. Past high school, past his parents' house, past the Bible, past Raina. It was far more hopeful than all the other pages combined, but not too much so. I believed that everything had changed, and that it'd work out for all the characters involved.

And that's Blankets, I guess.

Side note: If anyone was wondering, I wasn't in class Monday due one-part to illness and one-part to an impending show. See, I woke up feeling awful, and I knew I had to drive up to Chicago that afternoon and last all through a concert and driving again, so I fell back asleep through class. I suck, I know.

Today's blog is going to be late, unfortunately. See, I don't own a scanner, and I intended to use my grandparents', since I was there all weekend, but it doesn't function well (apparently). I got back to campus too late last night to use one at the Union or the English building, and it's a little late now to get all of the scanning done before 11 now. I'll be in Chicago all afternoon, evening, and night for a show, so blogging should occur Tuesday. It'll be like double-blogging.

I'd just post an all-words entry, but for this last Blankets bit, I feel the images necessary. Sorry the lateness!

[Blankets, by Craig Thompson; chapter 2-5]

Blankets seems to just get more beautiful the more I read it. I want the time to sit and read it all in one go, but I'm glad in a sense that I don't have that time. I'm glad it's being drawn out like this, chapter to chapters. If I read it all at once, I'd be afraid of missing something, of not spending enough time with each picture, each set of words.

Raina, though, yes, not complicated, brings a sort of hope for me to the story. All of the religious prattle gets obnoxious. I have a distinct distaste for these kinds of Christan camps, as well as the adults that run the churches and know everything. I'm not religious and very not Christian, and very possibly an atheist, so I'm consistently annoyed at the tie to God and the Bible throughout the story. I see Craig turning away from drawing as a horrible thing. He squelches his creativity for awhile to please God, or something, and I find it sickening. If there is a God, wouldn't He praise creativity in any form? Our imaginations are the only things that truly belong to us anymore. Doesn't that, shouldn't that, mean something?

The language of Blankets is surprising. I guess I expect comics and graphic novels to be on a level below literature, like penny romance novels or something. It's a ridiculous concept, but really, you know what I'm talking about. But then, Thompson will go and write something like--

And the fallen snow welcomes the falling snow with a whispered "HUSH."

--and I'm kind of blown away. The language is maybe a little too elaborate at times, but it has a way of drawing me in, as if the actual drawings don't do that enough already.

I'm having trouble being literary-critical behind my coffee cup this time. It's easier to let the words fall out of me then to dissect the scenes today. All I can say is that this story reminds me continuously of The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, only more hopeful.

(Oh, and I'm sorry about the lack of images this time. I don't have a scanner, and I didn't have time to get myself to lab one this time.)

Blankets & Understanding Comics

[Blankets, by Craig Thompson; chapter 1 & Understanding Comics, by Scott McCloud; chapters 1 and 2]

Thompson's Blankets is a little heartbreaking. It's the kind of thing I inevitably read, whether it's assigned or not: all soft but cutting underneath. "Cubby Hole," the first chapter, tells the story of Craig (the author) and his brother, Phil. They say the first sentence of any piece of writing is the most important to the reading of it. Thompson's first sentence fits the mode, saying, "When we were young, my little brother Phil and I shared the same bed." Being three years apart feels like a lifetime when you're a child, and Craig explains the gap he felt and sequentially made wider between his brother and himself. The only time they were (felt) close was in drawing and in exploring a forest behind their home.

Craig is bullied at school, even through secondary levels, and tries to escape through drawing and dreaming (shown below). When he's older, though, he reads, "A profusion of dreams and a profusion of words are futile. Therefore fear God," from Ecclesiastes. He interprets this (wrongly or not, I don't know) to mean that "dreaming & drawing [are] the most secular and selfish of worldly pursuits." He burns all of his childhood drawing, and he tries to burn his memories with them. The chapter is bookended with Phil being locked in a hidden closet (the “cubby hole”) by their father, Craig unable to do anything about it (shown below).

[pages 42-43 from Blankets; Craig using dreams as escapism]


[pg. 65 from Blankets; Craig listening to Phil cry in the "cubby hole"]

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

McCloud gives us a brief introduction to comics, spanning the background and different kinds. He also tries to come up with a definition. Staring with “sequential art” (shown below), he works off the two words to try to make comics something definable. He has trouble, in the form of a comic himself after all, and concludes that comics will always mean something different to everyone, every culture, and even every generation.

In Chapter Two, “The Vocabulary of Comics,” McCloud discusses icons and how they are used in comics to universalize the images (shown below). Humans are set up to recognize them/ourselves in everything around us-- to see faces and mouths when there art any; this is why there's a Man in the Moon. McCloud also addresses the relationship between writing a comic and drawing one. An artist and a writer must bridge that chasm to create an effective storyline. He presents an equilateral triangle, its base angles being "reality" and "language/meaning," and its peak being "the picture plane." Art is effectively the peak, nature the lower left, and "ideas" on the lower right. Artists and writers must find some feasible way of blending the three to create a comic without separating the words and pictures.

[pg. 5 from Understanding Comics; visual examples of sequential art and what they represent/what we read from them automatically]


[pg. 46 from Understanding Comics; how we arrive at iconic images from photographic/real ones, and how that also makes the image "universal," "subjective," and "simple"]