Blankets

Craig Thompson published Blankets in 2003 through Top Shelf Productions. It is a coming-of-age autobiography in comic form, and it was widely praised when it appeared: Time magazine put it first in its list of the best comics of that year and eighth among the comics of the decade.

Thompson began work on the book late in 1999, and it took him about three and a half years to finish. He has said that he made it partly as a way of telling his parents that he was no longer a Christian, which is one of the subjects the book takes up alongside the story of his first serious relationship.

The story follows its protagonist Craig from childhood to early adulthood. He is a talented artist and a devout believer, and much of the book is concerned with the church and the family that formed him, and with the winter camp where he meets the girl he falls in love with. The long middle section of it is given to the two of them, and to what happens when they try to hold on to each other at a distance.