Blankets

 
 
Blankets
by Craig Thompson

Drawn & Quarterly
2003
 

 

20 years old this year, Blankets is a graphic memoir that tells the story of the author's strict Evangelical childhood, his first love, and how he eventually outgrew both relationships. It's moderately famous, and something that I think is sometimes credited with helping to popularize independent comics in the 2000s.
 

There's a central narrative that's told in order, but time moves subjectively. We return over and over to Thompson's painful memories of his childhood, when he shared a bed with his younger brother, their parents were harsh disciplinarians, and a babysitter abused them. Thompson remains haunted by guilt for not being a better brother - from growing up and out if their early closeness, and for failing to protect him from the adults who hurt them both.

 
In his rural high school, Thompson is bullied for having long hair and being sensitive and artistic. (He's not gay, just grunge.) He feels even more an outsider at the church camp he attends every winter - he's still bullied, the other kids come from better-off families, and he seems to be the only one there who's really devout. But at camp he meets Raina, a sensitive artistic girl, and the two of them become fast friends.

 
Because Raina's parents are also conservative Christians, Thompson gets permission to visit her at home in Marquette, Michigan for two weeks. She greets him with a handmade quilt. Raina's parents are getting a divorce, and she does a lot of the care work for her two adopted siblings (who both have Downs Syndrome) and her infant niece (because her recently married biological sister wants more time alone with her husband.)
 

Thompson and Raina spend all their time together, he helps her with her caretaking responsibilities, and at night, at her request, he sleeps beside her before sneaking back to the guest room each morning just before her parents wake. Over several days, they work up the courage to kiss, then make out, then, if not actually 'have sex,' then something very similar. They make plans that Thompson will come back after high school graduation, live with Raina, work in her father's construction company. The two weeks span at least half the book, their brief time together seeming to last forever, the way it must have felt at the time.

 
Afterward, we see Thompson and Raina try to maintain a long-distance relationship by phone, begin to grow apart, break up, stop talking entirely. We also see him begin to question his faith, and during seminary, lose it. Throughout the book, child and high-school-age Thompson quotes Bible verses related to his current situation. His sexual love for Raina is maybe the first thing that really makes him question his faith, but other doubts come from the strictness and intolerance of the church. Learning the history of Biblical translation is the nail in the coffin. He moves to a city, gets a job, and resumes his art. He also reconnects with his younger brother, now an adult too.

 
Thompson's lines are fluid and expressive. Almost the entire book takes place in the winter, beneath the snow, another kind of blanket, along with the one from his childhood bed, and the one he shared with Raina. Thompson's love and faith are both incredibly intense. There's something comforting, in the final part of the book, about seeing that intensity reach a fever-point and break, seeing him healing and leading a calmer, healthier life afterward.