The Master of Graphic Novels
Craig Thompson is one of the hottest comic artists of our time. He recently published his first work for young people: "Space Crumbs". A comic book for children - which is very unusual for the 40-year-old who attracted the world's attention with the masterly Orient saga "Habibi" in 2011. We introduce the Master of Graphic Novels.
Craig Thompson was born in Traverse City, Michigan (USA) in 1975 and grew up in a fundamentalist Christian family in Wisconsin. As a child, he was not allowed to see any movies or TV shows. His parents allowed him only Christian music. His only options to enjoy art were the "Sunday Funnies". These comics that were published in daily American newspapers. He began to draw comics on his own and to discover his passion for it.
After a few semesters at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design, Thompson then moved to Portland, Oregon in 1997. He worked for "Dark Horse", an American comic book and manga publisher. After some time, however, this actually bored him and he devoted himself to his own work. His debut graphic novel was the semi-autobiographical work "Good Bye, Chunky Rice", with which he won the Harvey Award for "Best New Talent" in 1999. In the following years, he highly concentrated worked on "Blankets," a 600-page autobiographical graphic novel, in which Thompson openly reports on his growth in his fundamentalist Christian family and tells about his great love. For "Blankets“, the exceptional illustrator received the three major US comic prizes, the Harvey Award, the Eisner Award and the Ignatz Award in 2004. Craig Thompson made the international breakthrough with "Blankets" and he gained notoriety even beyond the comic scene.
Then after another seven years of work, "Habibi" was published in 2011. Here his graphical journey does not reach into his own Christian past, but rather to the Arab presence in the world of Islam. The love story of the two orphans "Dodola" and "Zam" is drawn. They experience a graphic odyssey across the Orient. With this work, Thompson celebrates an ode to the magic of storytelling. The graphic novel achieved great successes worldwide.
Now the latest graphic novel "Space crumbs" appeared in 2015. It has become a colourful, cosmic adventure, appealing to all ages this time. Thompson claims he wanted to make every book new. Moreover, this time he wanted to create something playful, something fun. The plan for the future is to even publish "Space Crumbs" edition 2. In case, the publisher and the fans also demand it.
