Media Release -- The Cartoon Art Museum welcomes award-winning cartoonist Craig Thompson for a special presentation celebrating the release of his greatly anticipated new graphic novel, Habibi. This event takes place at the Cartoon Art Museum on Wednesday, September 28, 2011. Tickets for this event cost $5, but that price will be refunded with purchase of Habibi at the Cartoon Art Museum bookstore. This event is free for Cartoon Art Museum members.
Seating for this event is limited. Tickets can be purchased through Guestlist Ticketing: http://guestli.st/69492
Wednesday, September 28, 2011, 7:00-9:00pm
$5 event admission; refunded with purchase of Habibi graphic novel
About Habibi
"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." –Lisa Shea, Elle Magazine
"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
"Eight years on, his next, even longer epic goes from the Midwest to the Middle East: Habibi is a fantastical love story of a harem girl and the slave boy she rescues, inspired by the Arabian Nights, ancient calligraphy, and modern environmental catastrophe."—Dan Kois, New York Magazine
"Habibi is an epic, love story set in a richly rendered, fictional Middle East, ancient yet modern, where his characters' misadventures are woven with tales from the Bible and Koran, as well as themes of imperial debauchery and environmental woe."—Michael Mechanic, Mother Jones Magazine
"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." –Publishers Weekly, starred review
"The exquisite beauty and deep magic of this Arabian Nights-style love story cannot be overstated." –Library Journal, starred review
"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 Fall Finds
"A graphic novel that is sure to attract attention…A mature glimpse into a world few Westerners are at home with, and Thompson is respectful."–Kirkus Reviews
"This is not just an epic that sprawls from desert to harem to modern urban waste…it's a look at how the first and third worlds are divided, Islam and Christianity united, and humanity too separated from the natural world.." –Library Journal PrePub
"A dense, swirling dervish of a tale…this will be the most talked about graphic novel of the fall." –Publisher Weekly Comics Week
Sprawling across an epic landscape of deserts, harems, and modern industrial clutter, HABIBI (Pantheon Books / September 20, 2011) tells the tale of Dodola and Zam, refugee child slaves bound to each other by chance, circumstance, and love. We follow them as their lives unfold together and apart; as they struggle to make a place for themselves in a world fueled by fear and greed.
At once contemporary and timeless, HABIBI gives us a love story of astounding resonance; a parable about our relationship to the natural world, the cultural divide between the first and third worlds, the common heritage of Christianity and Islam, and the magic of storytelling.
Craig Thompson was born in Michigan in 1975, and grew up in a rural farming community in central Wisconsin. His graphic novel Blankets won numerous industry awards and has been published in nearly twenty languages. Thompson lives in Portland, Oregon.
HABIBI
By Craig Thompson
Pantheon Books
September 20, 2011 / $35.00
978-0-375-42414-4
www.facebook.com/CraigThompsonAuthor
www.pantheonbooks.com
