Blankets by Craig Thompson

After reading Craig Thompson’s Habib, where a little girl marries an older man (considered rape in most countries) I could see that he obviously connects with kids who are getting screwed, which is what this story is about. He and his brother live in the attic and share a bed, and if they make a sound, their abusive father will lock one of them in a closet. Don’t bother screaming that there are spiders in there or you’re afraid of the dark, because a guy who locks his kids in the closet won’t give a damn what they’re going through. If you wonder what motivates his parents to act like this, one word: RELIGION! Their parents are nutjob Christian fundamentalists, and they lay a massive guilt trip on the poor kid when he’s caught drawing a nude woman.

Because his parents are so strict, he doesn’t learn to make decisions. He gets beaten up at school by the older boys, then molested at home by a teenage boy who babysits for the family. The parents send him to some stupid Christian camp during the winter break (what kind of kid wants to spend his winter break at camp?) and he gets bullied there too. That is, until at age 16, when he meets a bunch of teenage misfits who flip the bird at authority. One of them, a girl named Raine, takes a liking to him, and that’s where the dynamic suddenly changes.

Raine’s family is even more messed up than Craig’s. She has two adopted siblings, both of whom are retarded, and the burden of caring for them falls on her. The parents are totally oblivious, and her older sister Julie is a narcissist. If that’s not annoying enough, she and her husband take their parenting duties lightly; they’re always looking for an excuse to dump their baby so they can party.

The title Blankets comes from the fact that he and his brother sleep in the same bed, until the parents decide to spend more money getting them their own. But in some ways, Craig is left in limbo. It takes him a long time to really think for himself, and perhaps Raine's family is the spur to leave home. Maybe he thinks that this is how he’ll end up if he stays. Being stuck taking care of his parents doesn’t sound fun, does it?

The drawings in this comic are extremely realistic, despite his use of sharp lines. It reminded me of El Greco’s paintings, with their gaunt, hollow-cheeked figures and depressed faces. The style works perfectly here. After all, Blankets is a depressing story about depressed people.

Jessica Farm

One of the things about comics that annoys some readers is that you can get away with quite a lot. This story would make no sense as a novel; a teenage girl gets up, talks to imaginary friends, plays in an imaginary home on her way to breakfast, all with no point.

If you like David Lynch's movies, you'll probably like this book, but othetwise, it'll be hit-or-miss.

Maus: A Survivor's Tale

Vladek Spiegelman had great business sense, and he used it to survive. He survived on it as a young salesman, and as a prisoner of war, and as a victim of Hitler’s death camps.

    Fast forward 40 years. Vladek is old and cranky. His son, with whom he isn’t close, wants to hear (and tell others) his father’s story. He knows his father is angry; after all, he grew up with this man’s stinginess, crankiness, and lack of empathy for anyone. But he’ll soon see that there’s a part missing. Although his father is alive, part of him died when he “survived.”

When I was growing up in the 1980’s, I knew many Holocaust survivors. They were either glad to be alive or full of anger. Some were eager to tell their stories to the young; others carried the scars deep inside. For many years (perhaps until the 1970’s) it was almost taboo for the survivors to talk about what happened. The children of Holocaust survivors have a lot of emotional baggage.

    Vadek Spiegelman is one such survivor. He kept himself alive using his great business sense and his “street smarts.” He knew when to speak up and when to remain invisible, and used these abilities to help anyone who needed him. In fact he risked his life to save people when even his own relatives turned their backs on him.

    But Vladek’s survival skills couldn’t save everyone. His father, his oldest son, his sister, and countless other relatives didn’t survive. You wonder if Vladek feels guilty for not dying. Does he feel ashamed that he kept himself alive while his friends and family were killed? Does Vladek have “survivor’s guilt”?

    Artistically, the book is unique. Spiegelman draws the Jews as mice, the Nazis as cats, the Poles as pigs, the Americans as dogs, French as frogs, and so on. The use of animal faces is great for this story because it highlights the aggression of the Holocaust. Vladek is essentially a mouse hiding from a marauding cat, and the Poles are these big, aggressive men who don’t want the Jews around. If you need to clarify, there’s a scene in Maus Book II where a Polish capo rages “Jew, you just got here and you’re ready to do business!” The Poles are portrayed as pigs who don’t want mice in their stall. The Poles don’t get off light in this story.

    When I read Roger Ebert’s review of The Killing Fields I was reminded a little of Maus. Ebert wrote “In a Hollywood epic, Shamberg would go back into Cambodia to rescue his friend, accompanied by mercenaries, but in this movie, all he can do is make phone calls and write letters.” That’s what Maus is about, and it’s also what Schindler’s List, Hotel Rwanda, and The Pianist are about. In the middle of a genocide, you have to survive by your wits. Armed resistance worked in Sobibor and Treblanka, but it didn’t happen in most death camps; the camps were patrolled by guns and dogs, and the prisoners were weak from starvation. Hostile Polish towns surrounded the camps. They were made for nobody to escape.

    In the second book, Art Spiegelman talks about survivor’s guilt. Would he respect his father as much if he hadn’t survived? Does death equal losing the fight? Vladek may have survived the war (as did his wife) but his spirit didn’t. Did his father hate himself for not saving more of his relatives? He certainly did more than his cousins did, who betrayed him. When Art asks his father “He didn’t want to help you? But he was family, wasn’t he?” Vladek replies “it was every person for himself.” You have to wonder if maybe Vladek had lost faith in humanity too?

    I recommend this book for anyone who wants to learn more about Jewish history and the Holocaust. Spiegelman has done a great service, not only to the comics medium, but also to Holocaust studies. He captures the feeling of the camps, with the dirt, filth, and cold, and sometimes I can almost smell the stench.