CRAIG THOMPSON's previous graphic novels include Blankets (for which he received three Harvey Awards for Best Artist, Best Graphic Album of Original Work, and Best Cartoonist; and two Eisner Awards for Best Graphic Album and Best Writer/Artist); Goodbye, Chunky Rice; and Carnet de Voyage. He lives in Portland, Oregon.
"The character depth, plot complexity, and storytelling in this lyrical, sexual, and scholarly epic would make any novelist proud...Thompson strings compositions that are often more tapestry than comics and that balance graphic design, illumination, calligraphy, and cartooning in steady alignment. It is unfair to expect two masterpieces in a row from anyone, but here Thompson sits securely in that rarefied air." -Booklist, starred review
"A lushly epic love story that's both inspiring and
heartbreaking...In addition to richly detailed story panels, the
gorgeous Arabic ornamental calligraphy makes each page an
individual work of art. A dense, swirling dervish of a tale...this
will be the most talked about graphic novel of the fall."
-Publishers Weekly, starred review "The exquisite beauty and
deep magic of this Arabian Nights-style love story cannot be
overstated...Habibi is certain to join the ranks of graphic novels
that expand our understanding of not only the genre but also the
world it describes." -Library Journal, starred review
"Habibi lifts the bar of graphic storytelling to new
heights, both by the intricate, dramatic density and breathtaking
scholar-ship of Thompson's panels and by the sheer scale and
decorative beauty of his flowing, roiling, protean style. Thompson
is the Charles Dickens of the genre, able to capture all the scary,
heartbreaking, brave, uplifting details of his characters' fates
while orchestrating the big-picture machinations that connect them
to the lives and times of his readers...Habibi is a
masterpiece that surely is one of a kind." -Elle Magazine "A
graphic novel that is sure to attract attention...A mature--in all
its meanings--glimpse into a world few Westerners are at home with,
and Thompson is respectful throughout." -Kirkus
"Exquisite...HABIBI is a remarkable feat of research, care, and
black ink, and a reminder that all "People of the book," despite
the division of their individual traditions, share a mosaic of
stories." -Zadie Smith, Harper's Magazine "Habibi has
classic written all over it. It's a modern literary triumph, a book
so broad and magical in its scope, only a master could pull it off.
This is no ordinary comic, it is a complete work of art. Beautiful,
thought provoking, both timeless and of its time...An awe-inspiring
read you can't afford to miss" -Grovel, graphic novel reviews
"Easily the best graphic novel of the year, and probably the
decade...Thompson's line work here is beyond brilliant, combining
myriad styles and capturing the rich historical legacy of the
cultural and religious volumes that inspired it. This is a work
that truly changes the game and sets a new standard for all the
graphic novels that follow it." -GraphicNovelReporter.com
"Craig Thompson's new graphic novel, Habibi, is a masterpiece. This
isn't an opinion. This book is a gorgeous object; to make it,
Thompson apparently covered himself in honey and rolled around in a
thousand years of Arabic calligraphy and Islamic art, and the
result is breathtaking." -The Boston Phoenix
"Erotic, grotesque, and profoundly moving...I don't think I've ever
read a book quite like this, and I expect I'll be thinking about it
for a long, long time." -Boing Boing "Layered, daring, and
brilliantly told--an intricate story of love, religion, desire,
survival, poverty, hope. It's drenched in metaphor and rich with
double meanings. Yet for all it takes on, Habibi feels light
on its feet; throughout, we feel Thompson reveling in his skills as
a writer and artist. Its exuberance, even in its darkest moments,
feels somehow celebratory. I'm not sure that I've read a better
graphic novel...Thompson's own work is manically elaborate and
ingeniously laid out; he's become expert at moving the eye through
exploding, dexterous panels." -The Millions
"Mere words--or at least my mere words--seemed not enough to
even try to convey just how intricate and ornate, lush and
seductive, arabesque and sometimes knowingly grotesque this
artistic epic is...a visual masterpiece." -Comic Riffs,
Washington Post blog "Like the elegantly dense mosaic
patterns that Thompson fills the background of his pages with,
Habibi is a book that weaves isolated shapes into an
overpowering tableaux, its pieces carefully fit together and subtly
repeated until a gorgeous unity emerges." -National Post
"Relentlessly virtuosic... It is a tribute to Thompson's skill as a
cartoonist that the transition from an old fashioned Orient to
modern Babylon leaves few visual seams." -New York Times Book
Review "While the storytelling is gripping, surprising, and
emotionally and intellectually hard-hitting, it almost takes a back
seat to the artwork that is alternately robust and fragile.
Thompson's deft, assured lines have never been more delicately and
profoundly inked than here...This book is a monument of
intelligent, vibrant design, all in service to the story." -Barnes
and Noble review "Brilliantly imagined...celebrates the power of
the artist to tell a story with ink teased into magisterial letters
and visual images." -Newsweek "Thompson makes a good third
of the other illustrators out there look like total chumps. Each
page is carefully designed with recurring motifs-that draw from
sources like the Qur'an and other storytelling traditions-to add
multiple layers of meaning to every moment. Scenes of city life and
vast endless oceans of sand are drawn with such attention to detail
that you'll be staggered imagining a human being crafting the
images with human hands and commonly available tools...It's a story
told with technical precision and real, honest-to-gosh passion, and
if you cry at the end it won't be because you've been successfully
manipulated-it'll be because this world and these characters have
come to mean something to you, and you'll miss them once you reach
the final page." -Richmond News "If you haven't been exposed
to the work of Craig Thompson yet, you have been deprived of a true
aesthetic experience...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...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." -Wit and Fancy blog site "Artistically, it's
the most gorgeous book I read this year, with compositions and
layouts weaving together effortlessly and with endless depth and
detail...an outrageous success, and worth every bit of time
Thompson spent on it. As great as this year was in comics, Habibi
might have been the best thing I read in all of comics all year,
and it makes me all the more excited to see what Thompson will be
up to next." -MultiversityComics.com, "Best Graphic Novel of the
2011" "The intricacy of patterns and motifs (both visible and
metaphorical) hold the text together and astound in their
complexity. In the world of Habibi, art is never divorced
from meaning; drawings are symbolic verse, words twisted into new
shapes...Habibi is about the power of words to carry and
envelop us, and in Thompson's beautifully written novel, the reader
experiences a similar magic." -ALARM Press "Habibi is a
confident, powerfully drawn graphic novel, telling its tale with
passion, humor and an endless understanding of the human
condition...A graphic novel masterpiece that explores what it means
to be human through religious story, slavery, prostitution and
personal and societal struggles within the industrial and third
worlds." -Shelf Awareness, starred review
"A lush commentary on love and lust, wealth and want,
religion and storytelling...the power in this tale lies in human
passion, sometimes cruel and sometimes sweet, combined with its
geometric precision and deep sense of the sacred." -Harvard
Crimson "Lushly illustrated, at times unbearably sad and
unexpectedly erotic." -Paste Magazine "To read Habibi is to
sink into the sensuous arabesque patterns that decorate its pages.
Steeped in the imagery and storytelling traditions of the Muslim
world, this densely layered love story is as grand and sustained a
performance as any cartoonist has published...Thompson's fluid,
evocative artwork is pretty miraculous too." -Time Magazine
"Habibi is like a big, rousing, unabashedly tear-jerking Dumas
novel, with fascinatingly intricate designs and fabulous tales on
almost every page." -Salon
"It's impossible to read this book and not walk away with a deeper,
more profound understanding or appreciation for not both Arab
culture and for the subtle and varied ways in which populations
portrayed as enemies are in fact alike. Thanks to Thompson's deft
storytelling, 'Habibi's' seemingly daunting 700-plus pages can go
by in a breeze; you won't want them to, though, because his
delicate, yet ornate art make this a story you won't want to
finish." -Deathandtaxesmag.com "Audaciously ambitious. Just the
decorative and calligraphic elements of its design alone are enough
to recommend this volume." -Icv2 review "Executed with enormous
empathy and something that in earlier times would have been called
divine inspiration, Habibi is an extraordinary milestone in
the world of drawn stories. Who would have thought that black ink
could make such complex, soul-filling music?" -FT.com "Habibi is a
triumph of creativity. Thompson dazzles us with his pen strokes,
with his mastery of storytelling, his research, plotting and
characterisation. The book is destined to become an instant
classic, confirming the author's position among not only the most
masterful of graphic novelists but our finest contemporary writers,
regardless of medium." -The Independent "A fascinating
exploration of a foreign cultural tradition by an American
cartooning auteur at the height of his powers...never anything less
than a breathtaking visual and intellectual experience."
-Pittsburgh Post-Gazette "Brilliantly imagined...it
celebrates the power of the artist to tell a story with ink teased
into magisterial letters and visual images." -Daily Beast
"The art and lettering are both stunning and Thompson has rendered
a complicated, dense story that truly elevates the medium." -Forces
of Geek Holiday Gift Guide "A subtle and engrossing tale that
encompasses everything from Islam to climate change...Thompson is a
consummate storyteller, and his talent shines through in every
line, every frame, and every speech bubble...In a medium that's
still dominated by masked crusaders, Habibi stands testament
to the ongoing versatility of old-fashioned pen and paper."
-Culture Mob review "Craig Thompson doesn't fail to impress with
yet another beautifully crafted graphic novel...The art is
breathtaking, and the imagery that pulls the whole thing together
help the reader step out of the everyday and enjoy this rich
mythology illuminating universal human truths about love...It is a
beautiful book. The illustrations are exquisite. Holding it in
one's hands, and reading it for the first time, is quite the
experience." -Lari is Writing blog review "Thompson is a superb
artist...Habibi is a success." -Washington Times "The work
of an artist creating at the height of his powers with a confidence
and an artistry that reveals grace in every pen stroke, in every
panel, and it deftly makes greatness look easy... The scope of this
book is simply massive and what it achieves is not only unique for
a comic book or graphic novel, but also important and so relevant
to the times in which we all live...This is an important book that,
hopefully, will be read by as wide an audience as possible. It
completely deserves all the attention and all the praise that's
sure to come its way. Craig Thompson has created something truly
special here that will surely be read and reflected upon for
generations to come." -TheShortBox.com "Habibi isn't just
Thompson's greatest work yet; it's one of the most beautiful novels
I've read this year...The artwork is elegant, striking, reverent."
-The Portland Mercury
"This is almost without question one of the most important graphic
novel releases of the year. It overflows with elegant, elaborate
and brilliantly composed hybrid imagery." -warmoth.org
"Habibi reminds one of nothing so much as the work of
novelist John Barth, with its clear love of patterns, narrative,
and beauty...incredibly compelling and readable on many levels."
-Paste Magazine "Utterly engrossing...Dodola's and Zam's
stories are interwoven with the stories they learned as children,
the underpinnings of Islam. This lends not only beauty and texture
but also meaning and redemption to their suffering, and Thompson's
handling of the religious elements--something that might have been
awkward or controversial--is restrained and graceful. His
black-and-white drawings, often incorporating Arabic script, are at
times floaty and feverish but always perfectly clear. He breaks up
dreamy exposition with tightly structured action sequences, and the
pages couldn't be prettier. As always, his economical writing is
deeply moving. Habibi is a book not to be missed."
-Bookpage "A fairy tale that's by turns tender and bawdy and
brutally dark...Habibi is a stunningly beautiful art object: 672
painstakingly intricate pages that astonish with their sheer level
of detail, the way a ship made out of toothpicks, or the Eiffel
Tower up close, astonishes." -East Bay Express
"Well-researched (Thompson reportedly worked on this project for
more than a decade), this dark and mature adventure tale melds the
modern Middle Eastern world with its rich mythology from the Quran,
and is detailed with its mix of the area's landscape, people,
symbology and particularly the Arabic calligraphy in all its
ornamentation...a page-turner that might be best consumed in
smaller bits to better appreciate the depth and breadth of the
story." -Honolulu Star-Advertiser "These are real people
living on the page in ink, and Thompson has sculpted characters
that are perfectly imperfect... Habibi stands as a new
masterwork in American comics, and a graphic novel seriously worthy
of sharing shelf space with Salman Rushdie and Umberto Eco."
-Bleeding Cool
"With Habibi, Craig Thompson elevates the graphic novel form
to even higher levels." -GraphicNovelReporter.com "Part adventure
epic, part exploration of Middle Eastern folklore, Habibi is
a work of tremendous scope and jaw-dropping ambition...
Habibi looks to be Thompson's next great book." -Critical
Mob "A massive masterpiece...Habibi's pages are rich with
ornamentation." -Willamette Weekly "Habibi is a visual banquet, a
veritable feast of brushstrokes and intricate detail. Thompson uses
eastern design and the beautiful Arabic script to weave the story
together in a soft, organic flow that floats along from panel to
panel, page to page in rich, breathtaking beauty...a truly
magnificent book, one that is compelling, thoughtful, emotional and
visually Beautiful." -Comic Book Movie "A fascinating look at the
thinking, tinkering, and creative process behind the making of the
iconic comic...MetaMaus offers a rare glimpse inside the mind of a
genius storyteller, using Spiegelman's celebrated visual eloquence
to illuminate the deeper psychological and sociocultural elements
that underpin his thoughtful, provocative, masterful classic."
-The Atlantic "In addition to fine storytelling, Thompson's
artwork rose to higher level with Habibi. Still operating in
black and white, every panel aches with the amount of detail
present. Sprawling two-page layouts throughout the book just bleed
style and substance...the story is expertly told and drawn."
-Tennessee Tech Oracle "Richly detailed... Habibi
fits in the grand literary tradition of stories about stories and
the effect they have on us." -National Post
"The year's most critically acclaimed graphic novel." -Wausau
Daily Herald "Part fable and part history, Habibi is all
novel: In the end, you care profoundly for Thompson's
protagonists." -Time Out New York
"The magic here is twofold: Dodola's love for Zam, which transcends
all other loves, and the wise stories...And what images! Thompson's
brushstrokes give us villains with weight, smoke that wriggles,
architecture that positively grows from the page." -San
Francisco Chronicle "Impeccably researched and beautiful...a
fount of delight for the attentive reader; a work of staggering
ambition...Habibi was not just written or drawn; it reads
like it was practically birthed in a tremendous effort of will."
-WSJ "Live Mint" blog "Thompson is a masterful comic book artist
with the ability to fill pages with life: the amount of detail he
includes in some of his drawings is incredible and astounding, as
is the sheer scope of the work...there's no denying that Habibi is
a work of art." -Wired Magazine, Geek Dad blog "Thompson took the
literary establishment by its starched lapels and made the case for
graphic novels as capital "A" Art." -Flavorpill.com "A highly
anticipated heavy hitter who did deliver was Craig Thompson with
Habibi, one of Phil Guie's choices for best of the year.
Massive in scale and ambition, Habibi is essentially a love
story of two slaves told through a brilliant integration of classic
storytelling and religious iconography." -Critical Mob, Critical
Books of 2011
"Set in a never-named country of the Middle East (or North Africa),
Craig Thompson's dystopian Habibi is an epic love story, a primer
on the Koran, and a cautionary tale about human greed and
squandered natural resources, all in one exquisitely rendered
volume." -Straight.com's best graphic novels of 2011 "A gorgeously
drawn fairy tale...That it's a book that supports debate marks it
as the most interesting comic of the year. That every one of its
655 pages is tremendously engaging and astonishingly beautiful
marks it as the best comic of the year." -NPR best graphic novels
of 2011 "Incredibly gorgeous. Expect Habibi to join
Maus on college syllabuses soon." -Comic Book Day: Top 5
Comics of 2011 "Exotic and lush, yet heartbreaking at times,
Thompson's book is an exploration of the Islamic culture by one of
comics' most deft craftsmen." -NewsOK blog "Staggering in scope and
ambition, this massive book (700 pages) delivers page after page of
art that your eyes can get lost in...Thompson carries you to
someplace new and different, asking for your trust in his pen and
ink, and if you give it to him, the rewards are grand." -Comics
Waiting Room.com "A beautifully told and drawn story, as complex in
its narrative as in its drawings." -OnMilwaukee.com
|
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
