Week 5: Contract With God and Blankets (3 points)

 

Both Will Eisner and Craig Thompson are fine with capturing emotion, but it is their visual metaphorical choices that yielded the biggest emotional reactions in me. There is a moment in Blankets when Craig’s first love leaves for the last time and as her car drives away, he draws the car falling off the face of the earth. I found this visual metaphor to be much more impactful than expression because that is exactly how it feels when you know you won’t be seeing someone again.

In regards to style, both of them have a simplistic Disney-esque style with bold lines and stylized characters. Eisner’s comics feature a hand drawn lettering style that is much more influenced by the events of the narrative than Thompson’s comics. As in, when a dramatically sad moment is happening, the letters will shift and melt like tears for added effect. I read the entirety of Blankets and I do not recall this technique being employed.

What I find most interesting however, is both comic authors have a strong focus on religion, including disillusionment with religion. Like, wow, I did not expect people struggling with faith to be a common topic in comics. It’s not something that is intimately focused in modern graphic novels. To be honest I found both narratives to be somewhat frightening. Seeing people get into such personal contracts with faith to the point where it causes them so much suffering – and these stories are based in real experiences – I find it sad and concerning.

I do find the part in Blankets about Craig’s catholic school teacher warning Craig not to go to art school because they make you draw NAKED figures that will turn you GAY to be extremely funny. I am so grateful I did not go to Catholic school.