Week 5

For week five, the validation of the graphic novel, I read Blankets.  

Blankets tells an autobiographical story in a very imaginative way through the graphic novel medium while also being unique in its art techniques.  The way the book is drawn, it has a sense of graphical feeling that is conveyed through the simple shape language of the character and the boldness of the inking style.  The harshness of this style, shows the audience exactly what the author is feeling without having to always tell the reader through words.  I especially liked the way pages and panels flowed from one another, and the approach he took to them being strung together.  It really does feel like a story of someones life being told to you from a friend.  Its brutal and honest about what he felt, making it seem harsh, but therapeutic to how the author dealt with his troubles.

Personally, I connected this work to a similar work I read in highschool, Stitches by David Small. This was a graphic novel the author wrote about his journey he had with becoming an artist and dealing with the cancer he had as a child. Both authors struggled with religious families, and both authors also give a feeling of harshness and understandable resentment to the treatment they received growing up-- with the both of them having similar conflicts as they grew up.