Blankets Close Read...

Reading Craig Thompson's "Blankets" I was visually struck by two panels in particular. The first was on page 32. I would call it a "Splash Page". The picture takes up the whole page but holds multiple ideas; the incidents with the babysitter, the tension between Craig and the teacher, the tension between Craig and his fellow students, Craig's shame about the memory as well as his shame in school, and the bell ringing the end of class. It is a particularly painful page with all of its heavy subjects, but impressive in that it can fit so much meaning together. The black around his "thought bubble" sets a depressed tone for the memory and separates it from the buzz of what is going on around him.
The most interesting panel for me is another full page picture on page 158. The story progresses through where he meets Raina, goes to church camp, visits more memories, struggles with his faith, school, and authority figures until your head is swirling with all of these troubles and events and then this panel lands in front of you and everything stops while you take in this heavy piece of information; Raina's parents are getting a divorce. There are times in life that that really happens, time sort of seems to stand still. Craig Thompson effectively illustrates that moment in this story. The empty space around Raina helps clear your mind of all the distractions and focus on the "stunned" feeling one gets with such news.