If you haven’t been exposed to the work of Craig Thompson yet, you have been deprived of a true aesthetic experience.
Craig Thompson is an artist who puts an immense amount of detail into his work; not just visual, but writing detail as well. His stories are never simple, nor is the accompanying artwork. Aside from being visually pleasing, the detail translates into emotional heft. Every detail is lovingly drawn and the reader can sense just how much care Thompson has for the work he’s presenting. The only downside to all this detail is that it takes quite a while for a new work to be published.
Following the release of his Harvey- and Eisner-award winning autobiographical graphic novel Blankets, Thompson began work on the 600+ page graphic novel Habibi, a labor of love which took him over 6 years to complete. Set in a fictional Arabic-influenced world that is both modern and old-fashioned in its societal practices, it follows two young orphans, a beautiful young girl named Dodola and a younger boy she takes in named Zam, but she calls Habibi (which means “my beloved”). The novel follows the difficult life path of Dodola and Zam/Habibi through adolescence, as Dodola deals with the harshness of being valued only for her beauty and what that means in an Islamic society while Zam/Habibi struggles the changes in his body that he doesn’t understand, a confusion that leads to him making some life-altering choices. They end up separated by circumstances beyond their control, and the bredth of the novel is watching them experience life without each other as they find their ways back to each other. Aside from the human story at its center, Thompson continues his exploration of what religion means to the individual (a topic he explored on a personal level in Blankets), this time exploring the ties of Islam to Christianity in their shared mythologies. A good chunk of Habibi is Dodola comforting Zam/Habibi with these Islamic stories from the Qur’an, but all religious discussion is presented as food for thought, never preaching.
To say the work is visually stunning is an understatement. Thompson’s art is simple black and white inking, yet his ink strokes convey a sense of live movement as if you’re watching the characters move across the page. On pages that are simply text, he still creates minutely detailed patterns in which the reader could spend hours getting lost. The art truly grabs the reader when watching how the loss of each other affects each character; the amount of pain in their expressions rendered in ink is enough to break the reader’s heart. Dodola and Zam will break your heart with a solitary facial expression; you’ll want to reach through the book to take either of them in your arms and comfort them.
The art does not make the novel, though; this is a story that will grab the reader and demand to be read. By the time the two main characters are separated, the reader is so attached that they feel compelled to keep reading just to make sure that if they don’t end up together, at least they’ll end up ok. The risk of spoilers is too great to go into more detail than what’s been shared, but the story of Dodola and Zam/Habibi is emotional and beautiful to follow, even in its bleakest moments. The moral dilemmas presented in their individual situations are fascinating to consider, making them human and not some sort of unbelievable saints.
In short, don’t dismiss Habibi as a book of pretty pictures. While the artwork is incredible, Craig Thompson’s Habibi is a book that will affect your heart.
Images copyright Craig Thompson.
