Habibi: By Craig Thompson

Where do I start when reviewing this work? Firstly I should state that I havent read Craig Thompsons' highly praised graphic novel Blankets. Although I have looked at it many times and seriously considered buying it, there have always been other options at the time. So this is my first, proper, introduction to Thompson. What an introduction this is! Habibi tells the story of two child slaves Dodola and Zam brought together by fate who take us through some of lifes most important lessons as we read their continuing stories in a fictitious Arabian landscape. This book must have been painstakingly researched by the author as its scope and breadth of storytelling is just breathtaking. It was almost too much for me, and I read lots of comics and graphic novels. Encompassing quotes from the Koran and the Bible we see the similarities of the faiths, beautiful drawings of Arabic calligraphy, chemistry, biology, philosophy and all encompassing unconditional love. Indeed it is this which keeps you coming back for more as at its core this is surely a story of love between two people(s) A beautiful 670 page hardback book it is stunningly designed and drawn from front cover to back cover. It reminds me somewhat of the manga Buddha by Osamu Tezuka which is also a work of incredible scope. Beware though, the book does not shy away from adult themes and therefore is probably not for everyone. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Craig Thompson writes a good love story. Even to a jaded old curmudgeon like myself, both Blankets and Habibi spoke with an authentically tender and caring voice. Habibi is a joy to hold and to look at. Once you've read the story there are so many insanely detailed pages of Arabic lettering and Moorish decoration that one's eye can get lost in. The story itself spans many years and is held together by the thread of the relationship between Zam and Dodola. The story has themes of progress, of pollution and the environment, of race, gender, and of sex, but primarily and supremely it is about the supremacy of love. My only potentially negative comment is Thompson's portrayal of women. This for me is a little conflicted, in his story is a beautiful young woman who is exploited sexually but who turns that sexual exploitation to her advantage. I think Thompson walks a fine line between a joyful celebration of the female form and an uneasy obsession of the same type that fuels his leering male characters throughout the story. Thompson acknowledges this himself through the character Zam who struggles with his own male feelings towards Dodola, recognising in himself the same desire that was the cause of such pain for her. However, I like that this is held in tension in the story and causes the reader to come to his or her own conclusion. I would like to read a review by a woman though to see what she thought. Overall I think this book deserves a place amongst the absolute classic graphic novels. Certainly the artwork and the thematic scope of the book is broad enough, and in my opinion I think Thompson pulls it off.

A magical, expansive, informative and visually stunning book covering: (to name but a few things) anarcho-capitalism to a love story / sweeping scenes of desert life to linguistic analysis / religion, self-realisation and poverty. I think also this graphic novel got a hard time in the press - for one thing the supposed 'problem' of numerous and repetitive comparisons being draw by the narrator between her story and religious texts has to be seen in the context of much of the story being written from the perspective of a child trying to make sense of a relentlessly hostile world - it is repetitive because it is a successful survival strategy for the character. The best 10 quid you will ever spend!

I had this idea that this book is a sort of Arabic thousand nights type adventure comic but it is more of a book about going through some real hardships which turns it from an adventure into a sort of drama and quite frankly I think it makes one be gripped even more. The story touches on the topics of hardship, living as an outcast, overcoming the struggle, class struggle, staying strong as well as portrayals of love, sex and violence which will make it unsuitable and likely somewhat boring if one was looking to buy a cool comic for your child etc. The quality of inking is superb and it is obvious this book took a loooooong time to draw and it shows in everything from characters to the architecture to the beautiful geometrical arabic designs and mosaics.

Habibi is a beautiful, beautiful work of art. It is absolutely stunning. But it is also disconcerting. Set in a fictitious Arab sultanate, this is the story of a young girl/woman and the toddler/boy/teenager/man she adopts. Our heroine is sold into marriage, then abducted by slavers, put in a slave market, where she adopts a black toddler. She escapes with the child, and forms a small family unit in the desert, never quite sure whether she acts as a mother or a sister to the growing boy. She tells the growing boy stories from the Qu'ran and other myths / fairy tales. But their life in the desert is not meant to last forever... The graphic novel is perhaps the most beautifully illustrated thing I've ever read / beheld. It is clearly deeply in love with its aesthetic, and its aesthetic is mesmerisingly beautiful. In terms of the story, I was never bored reading this book. But there are some things that are troubling. This book shows the Middle East through a Western prism. We get Middle Eastern aesthetic, beautiful Arabic script, myths from Arabian Nights and the Qu'ran, but we also get sultans, harems, slavery, eunuchs, beheadings, intermixed with mobile phones, dams, electricity and the modern world. The first two thirds of the book could be set in the 1800s and could have been written by a Victorian pornographer. The last third, with its hints of Dubai about it, feels like a somewhat uncomfortable add-on. As I just mentioned the word "pornographer", it's perhaps worth talking about that, too. Our heroine spends an awful lot of time being naked, and there is a lot of sex in this book (indeed, sexuality is one of the major themes). The book is in love with the sensual aesthetic of harems and silken veils, but not really the modern focus on modesty that Islam tries to stand for. This Middle East is not the Middle East of our 2012; it is the Middle East that James Bond or Lara Croft or Indiana Jones might travel through: an aesthetic, a sensual oasis of lust. It is a comic book, pulp fiction Middle East. So perhaps it is forgiveable that almost all characters are disgusting scoundrels (if male), or envious and bitchy (if female) or both (if eunuchs). Perhaps it is forgiveable that our heroine oozes sex appeal in every single picture, even the ones where she is a child (with a woman's curves, a woman's legs, and full lips and hair) or about to be raped. Except, the subtext of the book seems quite judgemental: all (Arab) men are potential rapists, all the oppressed are collaborators with their own oppression, there is no kindness without a demand for something in return. Perhaps I should some it up like this: rape is not an erotic act. Drawing rape so it looks sexy is, in my opinion, wrong. This is a story about abuse, but by choosing to draw all the abuse in the sexiest possible way, it puts the reader in the abuser's shoes, which is uncomfortable. It's a bit as if someone had taken a Todd Solondz movie script, added lots of Neil Gaiman-esque love of mythology, hired Oscar-winning arts directors to create the aesthetic, but given the result to Michael Bay to direct and cast. It's art, it's entertainment, it's rich, it's beautiful, and it's also crass, oversexed, perhaps even misogynistic.

At first I was curious about this book which was in a local bookstore because of the design of the cover and how thick the book was, which resembled a Quran. After taking a little peek at the book's contents, I was very much attracted to the style of the comic and how the characters are beautifully and individually drawn. After receiving this book, it's safe to say that it's very much worth the money and the read! Absolutely loved the details and how the story progresses; it even made me tear up a little at the end. Truly an amazing book!

A beautifully drawn piece of poetry mixing time, character and a mystical sense of the human experience of life and faith and love. Violent and distressing in part and hugely uplifting by equal measure it made me want to study Arabic writing and language. That religion and the religious diverge is unsurprising but that through it all faith and love can still burn brightly is perhaps romantic but no less beautiful or true for it. So glad that I encountered this book - I feel enriched by the experience.

I was drawn to this book in my local library, even though it was hard to figure out what the theme was from a perfunctory perusal. Was it a middle eastern religious tale, for example? Once I started to read it, I was fascinated by the interweaving of patterns from mathematical history, cultural wisdom tales, and a very engaging main story, that held much of relevance to our modern world, its many relationships and risky world experiences. I have very happy to have this graphic novel in my library and I look foreward to rereading it, as it has a depth that requires frequent dives to reach.

Estoy muy contenta con la compra. Hacía tiempo que quería tener un ejemplar de esta novela gráfica. Compré la versión en inglés, porque la diferencia de precio con la versión española es verdaderamente significativa. El papel es sencillo, pero está bien encuadernado en tapa dura. Hay muchos comentarios aquí que expresan su descontento con la dramática historia de la protagonista. A mi modo de ver, la historia se merece las cinco estrellas. "Habibi" nos muestra la cruda realidad a la que se siguen enfrentando aún hoy muchas mujeres (y niñas) en determinados lugares del planeta. Es dramática sin duda. Pero a pesar de todo, hay un hilo de amor, amistad y compromiso que atraviesa todo el libro. Además, los dibujos de Craig Thompson son, como siempre, exquisitos. Inspirándose en la decoración tradicional y la escritura árabe, el artista creó, en mi opinión, una obra maestra.

Don’t worry, I wont mention anything about the plot, but the art in the book is the draw that holds everything together: lavish page designs, confident linework, and panels that feel hand-carved. The Arabic calligraphy is the book’s most striking feature, not just ornament but structure—words that become patterns, patterns that become meaning. Thompson in this book has definitely treated calligraphy as ‘music for the eyes.’

Storia emozionante disegni trascinanti

La edición es impresionante, los dibujos son trazos maestros.

While _Habibi_ IS a graphic novel, it is NOT a "comic book" for young readers. The themes, images and plot deal with and address very adult issues: sexuality, gender poliitcs, sex (both consensual and not), human trafficking, ecological destruction. But it is also a complex story of love, hope and redemption. It also underscores the numerous similarities between Islam and Judiamsim and Christianity. There were several things that struck me about the story. First, the artwork: it is detailed, intricate, and stunning. The background patterns, the minutae in the setting and the layout are all dizzyingly beautiful. The incorporation of Arabic (both calligraphy as well as symbols and geometric patterns) is magnificent, and all add to the magical, otherworldly sense of the story. The McGuffin is the "magic square" - a box with nine squares, each square with a numerical value and a corresponding letter. These letters in turn correspond to the nine chapters of the book, each letter relating to a word, each word in turn connecting to the events of the chapter. I thought it very clever. Another strength of the book is its relation to Islamic culture - passages from the Qur'an are sprinkled throughout the book, but also phrases by the poets Rumi and Badr Shakir al-Sayyab, Rabi'a Al-Adwiyya, Saadi Shirazi, mathematical treatises by Nasir ad-Din at-Tusi, Avicenna, and calligraphy from a number of artists, as well as mythical beasts like the djinn, buraq, angels and demons and oblique references to Sheherezade. There are also elements of the mysogyny common in rural parts of the Near East and Central Asia - Dodula, our protagonist, suffers horribly the result of this. The storytelling is clever - using the Arabic letters of the "magic square" as a foundation, stories from the Qur'an with the Torah and Tanakh/Old Testament are woven together with the story of Dodula and Zam (the "Habibi" - "sweetheart") as they struggle to survive, face hardship and tragedy, separation and eventually come to some sort of redemption and happiness. But it is a painful and visually graphic (both literally and figuratively). And for some readers, this may be problematic. (In reading the negative reviews, it seems these are the elements that were most troubling.) There is nudity, and there is sex (although not explicitly shown, it is an element of the story), there is rape - which is shown as a brutal act and is not sugar-coated, but it serves to drive the plot. There are transgendered characters, and a character who is clearly mad, castration (drawing from historical context), and a harem (also drawn from historical context). None of these events or characters are created for their own sake, but all have a place in telling the story - and in showing the great diversity of humanity in all its goodness and evilness and complexity. _Habibi_ is a sprawling epic of a story, over 650 pages in length. (I can't imagine the length of time it must've taken to create such detailed images.) But as Thompson writes at the conclusion, "God's followers worship not out of hope for reward nor fear of punishment, but but out of love." _Habibi_, is, in other words, a love story.