Sexuality, Art and Religion in Craig Thompson's Blankets |
| Print | |
| Written by Kevin Johns |
| Sunday, 02 September 2007 19:00 |
|
The rough and jagged bark of adolescence, pushing its way up through the pure white winter snow of childhood, before springing forth into the branches of adulthood, reaching ever higher towards the stars. Two teens staring up into the sky. Making angels in the snow. Young brothers sharing a bed. A love letter. A painting. It is with images as simple as these that cartoonist Craig Thompson tackles all the complexities of life, love, and religion in his magnum opus graphic novel, Blankets. In 1999, publisher Top Shelf Productions released Thompson's debut graphic novel, Good-bye, Chunky Rice. It was a touching story of farewells and new beginnings, told from the perspective of a small turtle who must leave his mouse friend behind to embark on an adventure at sea. The confident art, intermingled with a melancholy and subtle, yet profoundly moving, narrative earned Thompson several accolades, including a 1999 Harvey Award for Best New Talent. After only one book, it was already clear that Thompson would be a presence in the world of alternative art comics in the years to come. Just what a presence he would be, few predicted. A full four years after the release of Chunky Rice, Thompson unleashed his follow-up graphic novel. At 600 pages, it is immediately apparent that Blankets is an ambitious book, a novel in every sense of the word. The narrative, which might well have been called "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Christian," is an autobiographical tale dealing with the complexities of coming of age and determining one's identity when the very tools with which one forms identity are withdrawn by church doctrine. The book's dense narrative is layered throughout with poetic, linguistic flourishes, mirrored by innovative visual techniques and startling brushwork. Thompson's Blankets art is looser than his Chunky Rice work, less technically perfect and more immediate, as though groping not for visual perfection, but visual presence. There is an immediacy to the art that draws in the reader, reminding one of one's own family, of personal triumphs and failures. You see a Fugazi sticker, a glimpse of a Sonic Youth t-shirt, or you recognize a Kurt Cobain poster on a wall, and the story becomes not just Thompson's story, but that of an entire generation. It is a generation that felt attacked from all sides: by family, by consumerism, by religion. In the early portion of the novel, Craig's strict Christian rural family struggles for money, and this, combined with his skinny, shy appearance, makes the young artist a target for his peers, who abuse him regularly. His father is a domineering threat, and his mother a religious fanatic. Craig can find solace in only two places: God and art. It is in reconciling these two opposing forces that much of the narrative's tension is found. This tension arises because young Craig grasps with and articulates his budding sexuality through a filter of fine art, imagination and surrealism. The draftsmanship during the book's more metaphysical sequences reveal some of Thompson's influences. The art suggests hints of the French L'Association crowd of graphic novelists; most notably David B, whose own extensive memoir, Epileptic, uses similar imagery. While David B uses metaphysical surrealism to try to articulate his brother's debilitating epilepsy, Thompson uses art as shorthand for sexuality. Therefore, in its condemnation of lust, the Church in which young Craig finds so much solace also condemns the world of art and imagination, the only other place where he can find peace from the cruelties of the world. Craig and his brother share a bed as youths, and throughout the novel we are provided with flashback glimpses into these early years. In the summer, the two young boys push the blankets away from themselves and onto each other, desperate to stay cool. At one point, they are so overwhelmed by the intense heat that they cover their bodies in their own spit in order to convince their parents to bring out the fan, despite the electrical expenses the family would incur. In the winter, when the frigid bite of frost seeps in through the siding of the old house, the boys huddle together, trying to share body heat. These moments in bed together are sexual, though not incestuous. It is a sexuality of youth, that is to say sexuality rooted in primary impulses: to stay warm, to stay cool, to find strength in companionship against the injustices perpetrated by the threatening forces of the adult world. The boys are brothers, and so the awkwardness of their pre-pubescent youthful sexuality must be displaced into sources other than physical consummation. In this case, they pour their energies into the delightful world of imagination and adventure. In one thrilling sequence, the brothers pretend that their bed is a boat, adrift in a storm at sea. Their situation is made all the more precarious by the sharks circling their craft. Like in Chunky Rice, where the ocean served to separate the protagonist from his friend, here the terrors of youth, the threats of parents and of pitiless teenage peers, become an ocean of adventure. Through Thompson's pen, and his youthful counterpart's imagination, the sheets become water, and a teddy bear hurled to the floor becomes a pirate fallen overboard and the first victim of the deadly sharks. Beautiful parallels are drawn from panel to panel, between the innocence and fears of youth, and the flourish of graphic art and childlike imagination. There is something magical about the adult artist's ability to give beauty and form to his childhood imaginings that gives Blankets an almost fairly-tale-like feel. Similar to the sequence where the boys rub spit on their bodies, at another point body fluids are again exchanged. The boys are lying in bed together and Craig's brother licks his finger and touches it to his Craig's back. When Craig reacts to the surprising feel of wetness against his skin, his brothers insists that he has peed a single drop of urine onto him. In response, Craig removes his penis and attempts to release an actual drop of pee. Of course, what follows is a torrent of urine that soaks his brother. His younger brother, in turn, attempts to soak Craig in a war of piss. The boys are wearing Batman and Spider-man pajamas at the time, and the scene is appropriately framed as an action sequence. Again, sexuality is understood through the realm of art: Craig's brother, penis in hand, flies through the air, pee blasting like a fire hose, while the author defends himself behind a pillow. The sequence is not dissimilar from a mid-90s Image comic book. This is youth sexuality as action comic -- as silly but enjoyable art. At that moment, when both have their penises out and are drenched in each other's urine, their mother enters the room. Thompson brilliantly captures the utter shock and disappointment on her face, while the boys, who moments before were battling like superheroes, now look small and very human. Both are instantly ashamed of their actions. Their mother forces them into the shower, where the water washes off the urine, but not the shame. The comfort found in each other's bodies, the freedom of revealing one's penis and urinating freely, the imaginary battles created in the minds of youth, suddenly come under attack by the forces of Church and morality. Blankets is a coming of age tale, and in that moment they realize what they have done and why it is socially condemned by the adult world, a world that is characterized throughout the text as the world of the church. It is the first shower that either of the boys has ever had. It serves as a baptism of sorts, a rite of passage, and an initiation into adulthood. They have reached a new stage of adolescence, and as the boys reach puberty, they drift further and further apart. As post-pubescent sexuality arises in Craig, he distances himself from his brother and the youthful sexuality that their relationship represented. The sexuality of the two brothers in bed together is soon replaced by the more mature sexual desire of Thompson's lust for his teenage girlfriend, Raina. Thompson himself has said that Blankets was an attempt to communicate "what it is like to sleep with someone for the first time," and, though his relationship with Raina is clearly the centerpiece of the text, the flashbacks to sharing a bed with his brother play an important role in establishing the way Craig understands his sexuality, and the way it is condemned by the Church. As Craig transitions from child to teenager, his interest in Christianity blossoms, as does his sexuality. These two driving passions coalesce when he meets Raina while attending church camp. One understands why teenage Craig would fall in love with Raina, for Thompson illustrates her with loving brushstrokes and a minimalism that allows her too serve as stand-in for all of our first loves. While the other students are playing sports and dancing to Christian rock tunes, Craig and Raina are united - playing in the snow, or hidden away from the rest, simply enjoying each others company. The group-think mentality of church doctrine is contrasted with the whimsical spontaneity of play, love and art. It is specifically through art that Craig is able to communicate his desire for Raina when he is invited to spend two weeks at her house. He calls her his muse, but at the same time she is very much his object of lust, for the two are inseparable in this passage of the text. Sexual desire can only be understood through artistic creation within the narrative and graphic framework of Blankets, and so when Raina asks Craig to paint something on her wall, he paints an image of the two of them sitting in a tree together. The sprouting tree, the metaphor for youth grown to adulthood, cradles the two of them in its arms. The painting is a testimony to the comforts of love and sexuality awakened but not yet consummated. When Thompson says that this is a book about what it is like to sleep with someone for the first time, this is what he is really talking about. This is a text about intimacy before penetration, about the brief period of time in one's life where sexual desire has manifested fully into lust, and yet must be repeatedly sublimated and supplemented into other outlets, such as fine art and emotional infatuation and devotion. This connection between burgeoning sexuality and artistic endeavor is presented most clearly by Thompson in a beautiful and haunting sequence in which his teenage self masturbates onto a piece of paper. His semen spills forth across the blank page, like paint across a canvas. Afterwards, he crawls across the floor, crumpled paper in hand, so that he might place it in the tin garbage can, a boy clearly wracked by shame. It is in this sequence that the art/sexuality conflation is made most concrete, for the cartoonist Thompson encapsulates the sexual indulgences of his youthful self specifically through art - ink on paper. The metaphor of the semen on the page (sexuality as artistic endeavor) is intensified by the fact that it is not really semen, only the adult Thompson's ink representing semen within the context of Blankets. It is art as signifier for memory of a signified sexual act. Craig's act of sexual creativity through the production of semen has quite literarally become a work of fine art. Ink as semen as sexual desire as art. This semiotic chain, of course, includes another link, for it is really: ink as semen as sexual desire as art as shame. Thompson's narration notes that most readers will not believe that this was the only time during his senior year that he masturbated, but thus is the power of religious faith. It is a power that works to curtail the creative forces pulsing through Craig's body and soul. In another flashback, we learn that Craig's bus driver found a drawing of a naked woman that he had done, and delivered it to his parents. Craig's parents bring him into their room, and they sit before a painting of Jesus while explaining the grave moral implications of committing such a drawing to paper. As his parents instill a deep sense of shame, Jesus looks down on Craig from the wall, espousing spiritual disappointment at the young artist's attempt at sexual sublimation. It is clear that in the eyes of the church, sexuality and art cannot be tolerated. Years later, Craig discovers that Raina has the same painting of Jesus in her bedroom. The very locale for his sexual discovery is watched over by the ultimate force of moral judgment, Jesus himself. His youthful sketch of a naked girl and his current desire for Raina are thus implicated as equally suspect within the moral confines of Church doctrine. Craig desperately wants to please Jesus and to be a good Christian, but the primal forces of sexual desire and artistic output constantly press against the Church's teachings, condemning the very things in which he finds bliss, while instilling a deep shame that cannot be conquered. When Craig and Raina can no longer contain their sexual longings, he finds a new bliss. It is not bliss sublimated through art, but the joy of life itself experienced through touch, feel, and the fulfillment of desire. Thompson communicates this bliss through several pages of beautiful surreal art freed from the confines of shame. Raina and Craig are no longer cradled by the arms of a tree; rather, they float freely through complex visual representations of love itself, swirling whirlpools of joy and fraternity, satisfaction and ecstasy. It is here, in a world of beautiful art fuelled by love and passion, that Craig (the teen character) and Thompson (the adult cartoonist) find synthesis as Craig Thompson. Blankets is hardly a condemnation of religion. It is, instead, a resigned acknowledgement that a fundamentalist black and white view of the world simply cannot be reconciled with the complex tapestry that is life itself. Love and art are too wonderful and complex to be contained by doctrine. Blankets is a vast and sprawling text because life and love are vast and sprawling. Ultimately, Blankets is about choosing love over shame, sexuality over repression, art over censorship, and individuality over conformity. It is a graphic novel about taking an active role in determining your own identity, and it demonstrates the transcendental significance of art and graphic fiction. The often admirable morality of the bible is contained within the pages of Blankets, but the content is presented through a beautiful expression of freedom, not shame and bondage. Like the quilted panels of the blankets under which mankind experiences bliss and freedom through sexual consummation, the panels of Thompson's text combine to form a comforting, safe, and ultimately satisfying space in which art, sexuality, and religion can be explored, questioned, and celebrated.
Bookmark
Email this
Comments (2)
 |
In the following years, Thompson produced works for Nickelodeon's kids magazine, and the odd cover or short story for publishers such as Dark Horse comics. It was work-for-hire pieces here and there, and no one took any particular notice. Few suspected that, in between these freelance jobs, Thompson was spending his free time over the years putting together a masterpiece.
Subscribe to this comment's feed
