CRAIG THOMPSON TALKS BLANKETS

[MattBrady]

To say that another work from Craig Thompson after his acclaimed Good-Bye Chunky Rice has been eagerly anticipated is an understatement. To say that Thompson’s new Blankets set the bar for autobiographical comics hella higher is probably another one as well.

Blankets, published by Top Shelf is a deeply emotional autobiographical look at Thompson’s life, pausing in his childhood, and focusing largely on his relationship with Raina, his first love. Like the best autobiographies, Thompson’s story pulls no punches, revealing sides of both his family and himself that many would choose to keep under lock and key. All told, the pieces fit together to produce the end result, essentially, allowing Thompson to explain to the world who he is, and how he got that way.

Newsarama: Before you even put pen to paper for the first time with this, when did you decide that you wanted to do a major autobiographical comic?

Craig Thompson: The story in Blankets existed in my sketchbooks before Chunky Rice, just as something that was there – more of a vague notion, than anything else. It was before Chunky, and around finishing Chunky Rice, I was being introduced to all the French comics the l’association guys, around the time they were debuting with their 2000 anthology.

That was all new stuff to me, and I was really excited by really long books. I was looking at mainstream comics where, in 24 pages, entire epics can unfold amid all kinds of melodrama. I wanted to do a really big book where nothing happened. In the end, something does happen, but it was a very, very humble beginning. I wanted to focus more on an emotional experience than a proper plot as well. The first thing that jumped into my mind was wanting to express what it was like to sleep next to someone for the first time – that was what I started with.

NRAMA: And 570 pages later…you had a book. What did you mean when you said that Chunky happened almost accidentally?

CT: It started when I moved out here to Portland from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I’d started a minicomic that was a bunch of stories about my friends back in Milwaukee – straight up, autobiographical stories, showing my friends as they were – human, and not animals. To have a cohesive element and tie them all together into a minicomic, I had created Chunky Rice’s little turtle. There were only about eight pages or so of him having this little adventure, so this Chunky character would pop up after every four to five pages of autobiographical stories.

When I met [Top Shelf’s] Brett Warnock upon moving to Portland, right away, he thought the stuff was too personal, but he liked the turtle. Brett said if I did a book with the turtle, he’d publish it. So I sat down and did it.

So, it was accidental in the sense that I didn’t have this vision of what it was going to be before I started it. I was making it up as I went, but then slowed so I could really flesh it out more. But the first 30 pages or so were just drawn as I went. With Blankets, I was much more meticulous. I spent almost a year on the rough draft – a thumbnail version of it all, and edited that before I started final drawings.

NRAMA: Go into the decisions process that went into the choice to do Blankets. Why expose such a large, and personal portion of your life to the public?

CT: I think with both Chunky Rice and Blankets, the audience I had in mind was only an audience of a few specific people. I’ve done a lot of my comics dedicated to specific people, to friends, which has given me a level of focus on it – it makes the work almost a letter to that person.

Definitely with Blankets, there are some really intense communication issues with my family, and there are lot of things that need to be communicated to my parents which I was totally inadequate at in real life. To some extent, the book was just coping with that – giving me a chance to work on my problems with communicating. Part of my feeling with that was that if my parents would see this book, I would be able to communicate something to them that I’m not capable of doing in real life.

And also, there’s a girl involved, of course, and I was having pretty big issues about a girl that I had left behind in Milwaukee. Rather than really doing anything about it at that point in my life, I just channeled that into the writing and drawing of the book. So, to some extent, I was drawing to avoid the problems, which is bad, but ultimately, I was kind of confronting it as best that I could.

NRAMA: If it’s not too personal, how limited had your conversations with your parents been before they saw the book? Were there things in there that you knew that they would be surprised, or even shocked at reading?

CT: They know I’m doing the book, but they don’t know a lot from me – they know a lot through word of mouth through different venues. I still don’t think they know what to expect. The degree of communication has always been very low, and I think I toned those elements down in the book. They’re a very Fundamentalist family, and there are certain things that they would never be willing to accept, and one of them is the fact that any of their children would not be a Christian.

NRAMA: In constructing the narrative, what criteria did you use in picking episodes from your life? After all, in writing fiction, it’s hard enough to create episodes that move the storyline ahead in a meaningful manner – how do you mange it when you can’t really, make anything up?

CT: Well, to start kind of off the subject, there were a lot of things that I cut out that I was a bit reluctant to cut out. I dropped a lot of the real interesting stuff going on. For instance, someone who might work on an autobiographical piece, and focus on the more exciting aspects of their life, I ended up cutting out a lot of that stuff, either because one, it might distance the reader to an extent that they might not be able to identify. I wanted to strip it down. There were also a lot of things that I felt I had to strip down to protect people.

I guess it was always an editing process, trying to get it down to a raw, minimal form that the most people could identify with and understand, rather than add elements that would keep people further away. There were things going on that did tie in, thematically to the story, for example, I have a sister…

NRAMA: You do? Did you just forget to include her?

CT: No - I cut her out entirely.

NRAMA: That should make family gatherings fun…

CT: I talked with her about that. It was pretty weird. In that sense, I don’t know if I like the label of “autobio” on the book as it is, because it’s manipulated from my real life. But – it’s more manipulated for the sake of making things more clear and minimal rather than making things more interesting. In the end, I ended up taking out interesting stuff just to make it more accessible.

NRAMA: And, at the same time, make it more of an emotional, rather than a plot-driven experience for the reader?

CT: Yeah, but there is, to some extent, a plot, and those extra details would have bogged it down. That’s what autobio ends up being for me – an insane editing process. It’s probably more like sculpting than writing or drawing. You have to keep taking away pieces that >aren’t the story you want to tell, even though you have all of them available. Anyone’s life is such a big, chaotic mess, so you have to figure out what can be clipped away to make it something that everyone can relate to, not just you because you lived it.

NRAMA: Then by paring it down, and stripping away the extra elements, you can speak more directly to the emotion…

CT: Yeah. It was like something I wanted to do with Chunky Rice - as cheesy as it sounds, I wanted it to come across as more of a song than a story. I wanted to go for something like the way you can listen to a song and have a very clear, intimate, emotional connection with it. I guess music can cut through without anything in the way – that’s the kind of accessibility I was after in both Chunky Rice and Blankets. I wanted it to have a lyrical quality.

NRAMA: Speaking of Chunky Rice, given that’s autobio as well, there are some parallels between the two, both thematically and specifically. For example, the quilt in Chunky is the same one in Blankets, right?

CT: Yeah – that’s the one.

NRAMA: For the Craig Thompson continuity freaks out there, are there other lines that can be drawn between the two?

CT: Well, they both have to do with that same connection and loss. And there are a lot of the same themes in terms of the characters being very vulnerable, and trying to figure out how to make it on their own. Definitely when I was working on Blankets, I was thinking, “Jeez, this is the same story as Chunky Rice, but fleshed out more and taken a bit more seriously” So yeah, there’s a lot of correlation, but I’d also like to think that Blankets is better.

I do have some fears that might have made Chunky Rice accessible, like the fact that it was cute little cartoon characters in a fantastical world versus the more specific reality of this story, I hope won’t isolate people. Although, I know a lot of people had hang-ups with Chunky Rice specifically because it was made up of these cutesy little cartoon characters.

NRAMA: Going back to what we spoke of earlier about getting over the hurdle of telling your own story – as you were writing and drawing, were there any points where you had to pull back because you were putting too much out there?

CT: I wasn’t really too worried about myself, but pretty much from week to week it changed, from me feeling guilt about how I was presenting other people. It was strongest at first with my family, which is one of the reasons my sister ended up disappearing from the narrative. And then I was nervous about how my parents would react.

When I finally got to Raina’s family, and I had to deal with them, I felt even more vulnerable – it wasn’t even my family to do with as I felt they needed for the sake of the book. So there were little details that changed here and there - to distance it a bit.

NRAMA: But you never had a problem showing yourself, warts and all?

CT: I never had a problem depicting myself, even in a negative light. But it’s very nerve wracking in terms of other people and determining what’s crossing the line. I would never want to be a Joe Matt-style cartoonist.

NRAMA: Right - you almost get the feeling that given the sheer number of people doing autobio now in the industry, sometimes creators might want to limit their friendships so you don’t end up in someone else’s story…

,b>CT: Yeah – I never wanted to be an autobio cartoonist. I didn’t think I wanted to do an autobio piece, especially one of this length, but now that it’s finished, I really want to do either something more socially conscious, a la something that Joe Sacco would do, or at least something more fantastical. So I’m either going to do something fantasy or something dealing with stuff going on in the world.

But I guess dealing with yourself comes first.

NRAMA: Yeah – almost as a hurdle, psychologically or creatively, getting your own story out of the way then opens you up somewhat…

CT: Although, in the realm of social/political, I’d have to say that I was nervous about approaching some of these issues of religious conviction and leaving it behind. That was a subject that felt really touchy to me, especially in terms of my family. But now, in the context of what’s going on in the world, I feel a little better that it’s covered. I guess Fundamentalism to a religion has become a hot topic. Hey – so maybe this is more socially relevant than I thought.

NRAMA: You mentioned Raina’s family. Have you been in contact with her since the book started?

CT: No.

NRAMA: Do you plan to, or at least send her a copy, or is that chapter closed and you’ve moved on?

CT: I feel that chapter is closed in the sense that it’s out of my hands. I cut off contact between us, so I don’t feel like I’m allowed to resume contact, if that makes sense.

NRAMA: What kind of guidance or input did you receive from Brett or Chris in regards to getting it ready for publication?

CT: Actually, the story of getting Blankets ready for publication nearly ended up as being a tragedy in a way. We had to push off the date for it to go to press because of some money issues, and then, the week before it was set to go, my computer died with the book on its hard drive, and so the book was over a week late in going to press while we waited for the data to be retrieved from my hard drive. Brett was gone to Fiji, and so I had to get it to press on my own at the very last moment once we got it.

NRAMA: And you experienced the cold fist of panic in the stomach when the computer dies?

CT: Yeah, and my cat had gotten run over by a truck the day before, so I was in a pretty lousy place to start with. But that’s almost normal for me. I had a publishing deal that was supposed to start on September 11th, and two days later, they cut off the contract. Then, because of the context of what had just happened, losing that deal didn’t really phase me. This was kind of the same deal – our cat had just died, so having the computer die was a smaller crisis.

We all had to cross our fingers that the book got off to press on time. And the production has been really tedious as it is, because I had to scan 600 pages and clean them up. It was insane. I felt like I must be the only cartoonist in the world who sits and scans 600 pages.

NRAMA: Do you draw on full-sized comic boards?

CT: No. Partly because I knew it would be very tedious to scan, I drew it much smaller than Chunky, 9” x 12”, which was hard at times too, because at times it was very cramped for me to draw in. But the reason that I was ultimately doing it was so that it would fit on my small scanner. It was awful.

NRAMA: It’s like Michelangelo making David a compact three feet tall just so he can fit him out the front door…

CT: Yup. It was rough, but I made it. Drawing on that sized paper helped me to draw the book faster – I was up to 2 pages a day, which is what I needed to do, since it was my back-burner project. I had to pay the bills and do mainstream work, so Blankets had to be done fast, and drawing it small helped.

NRAMA: So what people are seeing as one page in the finished book is one half of the original page you drew, right?

CT: Yeah, the size of the book is 6 ½” by 9 ½”. It’s a thick book.

NRAMA: Backing up, when you say mainstream work, what are you referring to?

CT: Chris Duffy at Nickelodeon Magazine pays my bills. He’s my main employer. I’ve been doing lots of comics for Nickelodeon, but I also do a lot of other work for other publishers. This last year, I think Dark Horse has been my principle employer, and I’ve done lots for them – just anthology pieces of all different varieties. I’ve done some work for Marvel – a Spider-Man thing with Brian Bendis, and I’ve done the Fantastic Four covers and all other kinds of stuff for magazines. I’m constantly doing illustrations.

NRAMA: So, given what you said earlier about your next project, what’s on the burners? Are you looking at starting up again, or do you need time to recharge before you figure out what direction you’ll go towards next?

CT: Yeah. My next project is pretty vague right now, because I have all these deadlines that I’ve pushed off since late last year to get everything ready for the book, so I know I’m going to be busy for two or three months now, non-stop catching up on these deadlines, so I’m almost in a panic mode on that.

Then, after that, it’s really vague. I have a few things going on in the sketchbooks. I’m leaning more towards the fantastical project, I have to confess.

NRAMA: Why do you think that is?

CT: Well, too clarify, when I say “fantastical,” it definitely will be fantastical as filtered through my sensibilities. A big part of it is probably spending a little too much time internally, and wanting to get out of that space for a while. This could change at any moment, but it’s appealing to me to make up a crazy new world, and work in that looser structure rather than everyday life.

This may change, of course, because ultimately, I want all my comics to be relevant to where we are now rather than just escapism. That’s what I’ve been trying to work against in comics…but I think it would be fun. I have to have some fun for a while.

[L'Zoril]

loved the artwrok.

[dannyboy]

This looks really similar to artwork by Mary Grandpré, the woman who makes the Harry Potter chapter opening illustrations. You gotta love them! I will totally try to get this one!

[whoME?]

Goodbye Chunky Rice still remains my second all-time favorite graphic novel.

Blankets may push GCR into the third spot.

I love it when that happens.

[Vacuumboy9]

So what's the first?
You knew someone was going to ask.

[Greg B]

I ordered Blankets through Previews and it hasn't come in yet. However, I read somewhere that Top Shelf was going to have copies in San Diego.

Does anyone know when this book is supposed to arrive in comic shops?

[Device]

This looks really good. Thompson has proved himself an excellent story teller who can bring across emotion and subtle humour very well.

Seeing this very different setting in Blankets is interesting. I will most definitely order this.

[firehazard]

top shelf brought a bunch of copies to the MoCCA Art Fest last month. the crowd of people buying blankets didn't die down all day. and craig was a great guy about it all. i talked to him a few times throughout the day and he was having fun, even though he'd been signing and sketching for over seven hours straight. he did a really great sketch of raina for me.
i plowed through the book as soon as i got home that night. i didn't put it down once, read the whole thing in a couple hours. i almost cried a few times during it.
about a week later i lent it to one of my friends who couldn't make it to the art fest. she read the whole thing within a couple hours of me leaving it with her and called me on the phone crying to tell me she was done and i could pick it up again.

get this book. its just that good.

[The Escapist]

Yeah, I also ordered a copy through Previews/my LCS and though Diamond had it tentatively shipping the week of June 11, they updated the list that week and it had been removed from the list. Hasn't reappeared since.

Anybody know when this should reach me?

[heeBGB]

Originally posted by The Escapist
Yeah, I also ordered a copy through Previews/my LCS and though Diamond had it tentatively shipping the week of June 11, they updated the list that week and it had been removed from the list. Hasn't reappeared since.

Anybody know when this should reach me?

I got word from my local shop today (July 19) that it would be in shops this coming Wednesday (July 23rd)... I suppose we'll know for sure on Monday, when the shipping lists come out.

[whoME?]

Originally posted by Vacuumboy9
So what's the first?
You knew someone was going to ask.

FROM HELL

although technically a TPB... it reads a lot more like a graphic novel.

third on the list is MAUS... in case that was your next question.

[heeBGB]

Diamond's shipping list for this week is out, and BLANKETS is on it:

http://www.diamondcomics.com/shippin...ing_072303.txt

Every Monday, we provide a list of products shipping for the current week, as well as those products expected to ship the following week!

Shipping This Week: July 23

The following products are expected to ship to comic book specialty stores this week. Note that this list is tentative and subject to change. Please check with your retailer for availability.

COMICS
MAY032485 BLANKETS GN $29.95

I'll certainly be there to pick it up!

[heeBGB]

I picked up my copies today, and just taking a quick glance inside, I think I'm going to be blown away... This book and it's author deserve to have nothing less than incredible success.

[Michael Eidson]

Originally posted by firehazard
top shelf brought a bunch of copies to the MoCCA Art Fest last month. the crowd of people buying blankets didn't die down all day. and craig was a great guy about it all. i talked to him a few times throughout the day and he was having fun, even though he'd been signing and sketching for over seven hours straight. he did a really great sketch of raina for me.
i plowed through the book as soon as i got home that night. i didn't put it down once, read the whole thing in a couple hours. i almost cried a few times during it.
about a week later i lent it to one of my friends who couldn't make it to the art fest. she read the whole thing within a couple hours of me leaving it with her and called me on the phone crying to tell me she was done and i could pick it up again.

get this book. its just that good.

Yup. Blankets is powerful and impressive, probably the best original graphic novel I've ever read.