Blankets

Blankets by Craig Thompson is a highly personal graphic novel. It's a coming of age story about falling in love for the very first time. The autobiographical comic follows Thompson in (mostly) his teenage years, bullied all his life and believing that Religion is his calling until one day he meets Raina, a girl he encounters at a Christian camp for teens. The comic explores sexual and religious exploration, as well as coming to terms with love just not working out. I grew up in an extremely Italian Catholic household where I was homeschooled until high school. It's needless to say I had my family's religion forced in my mouth like a strep throat test, and my gag reflex is horrible. I never necessarily felt any connection with God, or Jesus, or any part of "my" religion, but I felt obligated to go because people told me I had to. And of course, like any white Catholic boy, I was an altar server, which made my parents think it would be perfect if I went into religious studies. What they didn't expect was for me to be a gay, gender confused, blue haired art student who doesn't particularly care about religion. I'm delving into my forced Catholic background because, when I was in Catholic high school, I read Blankets for the first time. It was the most relatable work I'd ever read in my life, and it validated to me that I wasn't crazy for not believing in what I was raised to believe. While I may not be a straight Christian fundamentalist with long hair and a sad, long distance relationship, I definitely understood all the social awkwardness, the bullying, and the unsureness of what's up there beyond space.

What I've found out after reading the comic is that when Thompson's parents read the book and found out about their son's true feelings towards religion and how they were depicted in the book, they didn't talk to him for six years. I've had points like that with my parents, where we completely disagree on matters and they never attempt to see my side of things. Or they do, and pretend like they didn't hear it. All in all, Blankets is one of my favorite works because I understand the Christian guilt, that's beat into us at a horrifically young age, is what makes us so afraid to enjoy life at times. And while it's just another wall I have to break through, breaking things is fun, and I like to have fun.