"Contract with God" and "Blankets"

Will Eisner's "Contract with God", Eisner explores the lives of several Jewish Americans and their daily lives in the run down New York City. These subjects deal with heavy themes such as death, loss, disillusionment, under the guise of God's reward. Eisner uses extremely monologue heavy text to almost tell a story that is accompanied by sequential imagery. The text makes up over half of the page usually, and each page usually incorporates only one to two panels. Eisner presents more of an anthology of biographical short stories that all revolve around the same time period and the same group of people, as as a result, they are all connected in story by culture. All of the characters undergo trauma that they either survive or don't, all working under the words uttered "God will reward you." 

In Thompson's "Blankets", they vaguely resemble each other in basic core structure. They both feel like a type of anthology of stories. While Eisner's revolve around the culture of the Jewish New York City, exploring different paths of life within the confines of the city. "Blankets" revolves more heavily on the autobiographical aspect of Thompson's personal life as a coming of age story. They are both very text heavy, resembling more of a written story accompanied by imagery. Thompson also presents a very natural flow of stream of consciousness through the dialogue and the structure of the panels, such as when the dialogue bubbles skip over each other in the chorus of multiple church camp boys trying to talk over each other. It brings a very natural personal feeling to the graphic novel, as if to bring me into the pages sitting on the bunk beds, being a part of this conversation with Thompson. This method becomes a much more personal story than it already is, providing both an outlet to tell, and also show.