![]() ![]() ![]() He’s also mighty good at, and mighty fond of, drawing nubile naked young women, but we’ll get to that later. ![]() To the extent that the book succeeds, it succeeds largely because of Thompson’s skills as a draftsman. Thompson is one of those artists who can pretty much draw whatever he wants, and his subjects here-whether human forms, Arabic calligraphy or abstract geometric patterns-achieve a wonderful balance. The book is beautiful, from its faux-leather hard covers to its compellingly rendered black-and-white drawings. Instead, it’s just another footnote in the long and dreary history of Western portrayals of the non-Western world. In many ways it succeeds admirably, and it ought to be a landmark in the development of the graphic novel as a serious form that tackles heavyweight subjects, alongside Art Spiegelman’s Maus, Joe Sacco’s Palestine and Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis. Thompson is a skilled storyteller and a terrific artist, and this volume, which clocks in at over 600 pages, is a massively ambitious undertaking. Craig Thompson’s Habibi is a tough book to review, because on some levels it’s a remarkable achievement, while on others it’s an undiluted disaster. ![]()
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