Eversince I was a child, I imagined drawing chronicles of the endeavors and phases I go through in life. The first inspirational ignition was from
Calvin and Hobbes when I read them as a child, which tells the highly imaginative days of Calvin and his tiger friend Hobbes, which is actually a stuffed toy. Then when I moved back to Malaysian shores it was
Mohammad Nor Khalid's(more commonly known as Lat)
Kampung Boy, an autobiography of his earlier life as a child living in a traditional Malaysian
kampung. When I reached my teens I watched
American Splendor, where Paul Giamatti portrayed
Harvey Pekar, who writes an autobiographical underground comic book by the same title as the movie.
And now, on the verge of turning 19, my last year of wild nights and constant procrastination before I hit the big double O and all this teenage illusion of security will be shattered by life's cold harsh reality, I finished
Blankets; a book I've been meaning to read since the first time I laid eyes on it at Izzy's place a few years ago. Blankets is an illustrated novel by
Craig Thompson, a coming-of-age autobiography.
Thompson has said that the novel grew out of a simple idea: "
to describe
what it feels like to sleep next to someone for the first time". It is named as one of the Top Ten Graphic Novels of All Time by Time Magazine. Indeed it is as good as Izzy's hype about it. It's around 500 pages plus long but it's actually a short read, almost only half as long as The Perks of Being A Wallflower if this book was written in text. In fact I finished it in around two hours plus. But the illustration in this book is just amazing, in my opinion.
And the messages it gives to the readers, some direct, some metaphorical, some just blindingly beautiful. After reaching the last page, I was even more determined to do my own Calvin and Hobbes, Kampung Boy, American Splendor and Blankets one day. In the meantime...
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