Eisner + Thompson

This week I read A Contract with God, Blankets, and Habibi since I had ordered it and wanted to read it anyway.

Something across the board with all three of these novels is the attachment to religion in their writing. Eisner establishes this pretty quickly, using his first character to actually scribe the physical contract. Then of course there's the questioning of the religion and beliefs, followed by the eventual demise. From this point forward the story really became more about the tenants and people associated with the apartment building. I appreciated the way Eisner split things into individual character studies; having a group of smaller stories held together as a whole by a unifying factor. It helps to really understand their individual personalities, while still carrying out a narrative relating to them. I can really appreciate his attention to detail with illustrating all walks of life.

I have read Blankets before this class, but I enjoyed re-reading it and re-evaluating the storyline. Thompson's autobiography jumps back and forth in time throughout the major part of the story, really as a point of referencing his childhood, his relationship with his family, and how that has affected him. Thompson's take on religion in this novel is very quirky: Although he never really loses faith in God or in his own religion, he does question some of the ways that it's brought down to him (Most notably the pastor who is continuously trying to convince Craig to go into the ministry). His relationship with Raina is one all too familiar to the world of teenagers. The whole idea of outcasts finding love between each other, coupled with the inherent problems of first love, mixed signals, and separation is almost a perfect description of high school romance.

Habibi took a much darker route than what I had expected after having just read Blankets. Although Habibi is heart-warming in some respects, it's also a very heavy story to take in as far as content in concerned. Again, Thompson utilizes religious passages and stories interweaved with the storyline of the book. This makes a very clear and obvious relationship between religion and the characters' path. What I enjoyed about this story is how well Thompson immerses the reader into the environment, but at the same time can throw you off and take you somewhere that seems completely different but is still the same. The relationship between Dodola and Zam was something very delicate and definitely strange, something I can't say I've seen done in comics or graphic novels before. Some of the subject matter is pretty gruesome and a bit harder to take in. What makes this book so wonderful is how delicately Thompson handles these situations; nothing seemed overkill or out of place. I just feel that this book had the space or at least good purpose for having as much of the darker material, rather than with Blankets where these heavier situations seemed to fall few and far between.

Overall I think these books were a good starting point for a discussion of the Graphic Novel format of writing. These were longer stories that needed to be told in an uninterrupted fashion. Eisner's work showed a great sense of connectivity between their characters who never really interacted with each other. Blankets and Habibi both carry on stories that focus on a relationship, and how the characters are able to handle themselves in it, while continuing a narrative that spans many years. Overall the long format is ideal for all three of these works.