Length Equals Width: Craig Thompson's "Blankets"  [05/20] by Bill Kartalopoulos Osamu Tezuka's "Black Jack: Two Fisted Surgeon" Blankets Page 326 On page 326, Thompson shows himself and his younger brother as children, engaged in bedtime warfare. The weapon is urine. In the fifth panel, Thompson inserts a faux-medical illustration, echoing a device used by Phoebe Gloeckner and Osamu Tezuka. The device is functional, but calls attention to itself: upon reflection, there is no particular need for this graphic flourish. The shift in representational styles doesn't seem to add any purpose, except, perhaps, to help Thompson keep from repeating himself. Thompson diagrams a sewing machine's internal mechanism to similarly slight purpose on page 567. A half-page architectural panel on page 453 recalls Art Spiegelman's "Maus." In "Maus," a similar device is part of Spiegelman's complex graphic examination of historical knowledge and representation. In "Blankets," the device clarifies the unremarkable logistics of a cross-hallway conversation over the following two pages. That these exploded diagrams recur a handful of times throughout the book does not qualify them for "motif" status; the text never engages this mode of visual telling as an aspect of Thompson's experience. Art Spiegelman's "Maus" Book one, page 111 Blankets Page 453  continue...  1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   NEXT >>