work of Eisner and Thompson (3 points )

 I loved the art in these Graphic novels. The book I read was Contract with God by Will Eisner. The issue I kept having with Contract with God was that I was so infatuated with the beautiful drawings I was not paying much attention to the story at first. I have this issue with many graphic novels that I read. I enjoy art and forget to read the story. The contract with God, the stories are dark. They don't have much of a happy ending. The story feels much more real and adult, seeing the world's hard truth that good people can and will get abused and hurt. Not every relationship is honest. The book talks about the darkest stories in and around the city with so much visual detail. I felt it was soo cool to see how the artist was able to capture the rain's heaviness on the clothes and the people. Each character's face can see the wrinkles, and each facial feature is so distinct. I read Blankets next, and the two novels are very different but just as well crafted. All of the characters felt so simple in design, but the environments were all so detailed. The story felt personal and a real journey through growth.

I enjoyed how the story was able to go through the characters' past and present without getting too confusing. It was clear who the focus was. The story is told very visually with context clues and expression with symbols. The symbol of the blanket comes in many different ways in the book. With him and his brother, in the beginning, sharing the bed using the covers as boats.  Then the quilt that represented him and the girl's relationship and the constant change in time shown by the snow's blankets. The use of scale and shape for characters was all very well done the having some characters out of the frame. For example, the baby sitter where the viewer can not see their face furthers the story and the emotions coming from their actions towards the protagonist and his little brother.  When the father gets angry, takes up most of the frame, it shows how the kids see them. The characters are all very floured in motion, falling up and down the page. There are many leading lines by using the characters and having them turn into shapes. I loved how the artist used patterns. The textured used to show what the character is thinking or emotionally struggling with, for example, the static use when the main character was going through the struggle of being with the girls sexually and his sexual assault experience as a child. It feels like the static of television when changing channels, and the static you see in the pitch-black makes a nice transition between the past and the present. It was a great coming of age story that I would read again. 



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