Habibi

by Craig Thompson

No Médio Oriente, a jovem escrava Dodola escapa dos seus captores e resgata um bebé abandonado a que dá o nome Zam. Juntos vão viver num velho barco no deserto. À medida que crescem alternam o seu relacionamento de mãe e filho, de irmão e irmã e amantes. Dodola é forçada a prostituir-se para os comerciantes do deserto, enquanto Zam procura um meio alternativo de subsistência, até que ela é capturada pelo sultão.
Publicada originalmente nos Estados Unidos em 2011 pela Pantheon Books, a novela gráfica ‘Habibi’ apresenta um estilo gráfico inspirado na caligrafia árabe e nas narrativas islâmicas, numa edição de capa dura com 670 páginas a preto e branco.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Fiction, Graphic Novels Comics, Fantasy, Religion, Romance

672 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2011

About the author

Craig Ringwalt Thompson (b. September 21, 1975 in Traverse City, Michigan) is a graphic novelist best known for his 2003 work Blankets. Thompson has received four Harvey Awards, two Eisner Awards, and two Ignatz Awards. In 2007, his cover design for the Menomena album Friend and Foe received a Grammy nomination for Best Recording Package.

Reviews

[Madeline · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't usually read graphic novels, but on the recommendation of my roommate (and the fact that this is one beautiful-looking book) I started reading this. At first, I wasn't sure how to review it, because frankly I had a lot of conflicting feelings about it. Some parts I loved, some parts I hated, some parts I wonder if I just misunderstood. But it's okay, because that just means I was given an opportunity to write a review in what is, personally, my favorite reviewing style, which is:

THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY.

Aw yeah. Better use the bathroom and grab a snack, guys, we're gonna be here a while.

THE GOOD: first, this is a gorgeous graphic novel. Every page is filled with details that I probably didn’t even notice because I was whipping through the story so fast (despite being 700 pages, you can get through this in a couple days because of all the pictures), and it made me want to go back and just look at the pages without noticing the words. And the story is equally wonderful: Dodola and Zam, brought together as slave children, escape and spend several years living in the desert together. Dodola teaches Zam to read and tells him stories, which are interspersed throughout the novel. Then Dodola is kidnapped and sold to a harem and Zam is left to fend for himself, and they each have to learn to survive in their new circumstances while trying to find each other.

Zam and Dodola are fantastic characters, and I loved the Quaran stories – the best part is when Dodola tells stories that also appear in the Old Testament, and my personal favorite was seeing the differences between the two versions of Abraham sacrificing his son. The story is told in shifting timelines, which was confusing at first, but I figured it out after a few pages, and did I mention that the drawings are gorgeous? Everyone should take a moment and read this review, which includes pictures from the novel. See what I mean?

So despite what the next two sections are going to say, this is a really moving and beautiful story, and will stay with me for a long time. This is despite (or maybe because) of certain uncomfortable elements. Strap yourselves in and prepare for…

THE BAD: as other reviewers have pointed out, this book has a lot of uncomfortably Orientalist elements. For a while, everything is going well: Dodola is a strong, educated woman who tells Zam stories from the Quaran and teaches him calligraphy. But then she gets kidnapped and thrown in a harem, and it all goes to hell as we’re transported into one of those 19th century paintings made by European men who had never even seen a harem. Considering how thoughtful and generally un-stereotypical the rest of Thompson’s portrayal of the Middle East is, it was a real disappointment to read the harem sections of the story and find that he didn’t even try to subvert or disprove the stereotypes and misconceptions. Instead, he just goes all-out with the fetishism of the harem and all the ugly stereotypes that go with it: The luxurious palace is full of scheming eunuchs and kindly black slaves, and the harem women are catty bitches who fight each other for the attention of the fat, lecherous sultan. Thompson commits so whole-heartedly to portraying every myth and misconception about harems that I almost suspect he did it on purpose (he spent six years researching this book; I would assume that at some point he learned that the story of sultans choosing which girl to sleep with by throwing his handkerchief at her was almost certainly made up by white men), but if that’s the case, I don’t see how it benefits his story. If this is a tongue-in-cheek mockery of Orientalist stereotypes, it’s too subtle for me to grasp.

THE UGLY: This book is about a lot of things: love, religion, family, survival, freedom, courage, and sex. Really, it’s mostly about sex. The protagonist, Dodola, spends probably 60% of her story time having sex. Guess how many times that sex is consensual? ONE GODDAMN TIME IN 700 PAGES. Yeah.

There is a lot of rape in this book, starting with the first few pages when nine-year-old Dodola is deflowered by her adult husband, and it only gets worse from there. Over 700 pages, Dodola is coerced into sex, forced to trade sex in order to survive, and straight-up pinned to the ground and violently raped, and Thompson draws these scenes in so much detail that reading them started to feel voyeuristic at best. At worst, Thompson seems to be eroticizing rape. And of course, because this is essentially a book about sex, that means there’s going to be a lot of naked people. Or, more accurately…

TITS. TITS EVERYWHERE. TIT-SPLOSION. TIT-POCALYPSE. Tits knockers jugs ta-tas hooters boobies BREASTS ALL OVER THE DAMN PLACE. I would estimate that the page-to-tit ratio in this story is about 1:4. Just about every female character spends most of her time being topless, and Dodola herself is topless or just butt-ass naked for about 80% of the story. The good news is that with the sheer volume of bare breasts in this story, the book would make an absolutely stellar present for any 12-year-old boys you might know. Christmas is coming up, guys!

I don’t want to give the impression that I’m offended by nudity. Far from it. However, I support equal-opportunity nudity, which means that if I have to spend my reading time looking at boobs, there had better be some dicks to balance things out. And that’s where this book ventures into awkward territory.

On the rare occasions that penises make an appearance in the story, they’re drawn with about as much detail as that time in The Simpsons Movie when we see Bart’s junk for two seconds. (Female) pubic hair is shown exactly once, and every other time naked women appear they all seem to be freshly waxed, even if it makes no sense in the context of the story for them to be that way. So considering how some, shall we say, less-photogenic aspects of human sexuality are presented, it is staggering how much time Thompson spends drawing boobs. He won’t draw penises with anything close to anatomical accuracy and lets us see Dodola’s pubic hair only once, but he draws female characters' bare breasts so frequently, with so much loving detail and from every possible angle, that I could probably draw Dodola’s boobs from memory. But I can’t draw, so luckily we’re all spared that particular exercise.

What results is, ultimately, not a celebration of human sexuality or even female sexuality. This is a celebration of WOOHOO TITTAYS, which seriously distracts from the overall amazingness of the actual story.

So in conclusion: a beautiful, tragic story that is gorgeously drawn and very well-done, but ultimately there are too many problematic elements for me to be able to give this more than three stars. Should you read it anyway? Yes. But be prepared for some ugliness to come with the beautiful.

[digital · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's just too bad. This book is conceived in a truly spectacular way, and visually, it succeeds and succeeds and succeeds. Even at its most whimsical and farflung, the stories of the prophets and the references to mysticism thread elegantly through the narrative. Thompson has a knack for portraying themes through symbolism in an elaborate, poignant manner.

The book was at its best, actually, during these side-stories. The basic narrative is, rather literally, fucked. The theme of the story is commodification, consumption, exploitation, and Thompson undermines all of it through his depictions of women. Dodola is exploited and raped again and again and again in a particularly unsettling manner: you can see that the narrative is grappling with some serious problems through these events, but she's also positioned in repellingly titillating ways as it's happening. Women are given plenty of excuses to be naked (and their bodies are generally given the same idealized shape); men are stuffed into formless drapery; and nobody has any kind of meaningful sex until the end. The last point would not be an issue if Thompson's treatment of sex left it at a point of convincing redemption.

It's not that exploitation, as a topic, is off-limits (and believe me I have SO MUCH sympathy for the environmental parallels he draws); it's the fact that you shouldn't engage in a practice you're actively condemning!

For instance, the scene where Dodola, as a nine-year-old, has compassion for her much older husband's vulnerabilities is moving and brave. What is not moving and brave is the way Thompson depicts her during this panel - naked, approaching him sexually - and the fact that this compassion manifests as (it's implied) "tending to his needs."

And this isn't even to touch the flagrant Orientalism. For a book so meticulously researched you'd think he'd at least know to avoid all those harem cliches. For god's sake.

So, so disappointing to see someone so talented fail in such a fundamental way.

http://www.powells.com/biblio/2-97803...

[Seth T. · Rating 5 out of 5]

A couple weeks ago, I read and reviewed Chester Brown's Paying For It , a book singularly concerned with separating love from sex. Brown forwards the idea that fewer problems arise if we segregate sex as completely as we can from the relational sphere. He does this to such an extent that he proposes that sex is a pleasure best paid for and made entirely transactional. It's not spoiling anything to say that Brown, as he represents himself in the book, is more wholly concerned with sex than he is with relationship. Despite the author's protestations, readers will almost certainly feel some sorrow for him as he shows himself unable to enjoy the manifold blessing of romantic relationships. We watch his philosophy play itself out and wonder: is it enough?

Craig Thompson's latest work, Habibi, may function well as a companion piece to Paying For It, only emphasizing the inverse of Brown's work: love that excludes sex. Thompson balances several themes throughout Habibi's unfolded history of two runaway slaves but perhaps chief among these is an exploration of love, of true love—and how it can exist, flourish, and grow even in the absence of sexual fulfillment. Chester Brown focused on his women as pure objects, as receptacles for his sexuality to the exclusion of their ability to exist as full-orbed human persons with dreams, hopes, loves, or even (for the most part) personalities; Thompson, on the other hand, uses the objectification of his characters to craft them into noble persons deserving of dignity, of hope, of love.

Thompson walks a narratively perilous path, pushing envelopes with his characters that draw out the terror of the human spirit balancing against the redeeming power of a full-bodied and depth-defying love. His choices are dangerous because as his characters participate in choices that may seem abominable—and in some sense they are abominable choices, made so by their sheer necessity—Thompson risks the reader losing interest in the plight of these two characters. Still, the compassionate reader won't be able to help investment into their two stories, which are really just one story.



In Habibi, Thompson introduces us to his heroine, Dodola, as she is sold into marriage to a scribe who will teach her to read, to understand the power of stories. Dodola is nine and Thompson does not spare us the aftermath of her wedding night. What's worse is that the anguish of such a scene, such an experience, is small in comparison to the fate Dodola and her adopted son Zam will live out. Thompson makes a cruel god for his world and creations; yet it is in his cruelty that we see the beauty of Dodola and Zam spill out in Habibi's nearly seven hundred pages.



Habibi is a major work in comics literature and Thompson's first since the nearly-six-hundred-page Blankets . Comparisons will be obvious. Both works traffic deeply in religious language and colour their texts in displays of sacred ferocity. Both explore the boundaries and need for love and human contact. Both play with non-linearity in storytelling, skipping back and forth and only revealing the past in time to illuminate the future. These two creations are very much the work of the same author and it's a joy to see his voice maturing.



Still, for those hoping for another Blankets, Thompson has something very much different in store. In both tone and scope, Habibi is an entirely more ambitious work. We see Thompson redressing things that were focal points in Blankets. In the former book, Raina is depicted in such sacred light by Thompson that she becomes the ultimate example of female sexual objectification—all with the best intentions of course, but when young Craig deifies her, he makes her into little better than a graven image. In Habibi, however, when Dodola is depicted nude (which is often), she is wholly human. This is a triumph of Thompson's technique for in the midst of the narrative, she is being wholly objectified, yet these instances serve only to drive home her humanity. For the majority of those within Habibi's narrative landscape, Dodola exists much as Chester Brown's ideal woman—she is merely a receptacle for their sexual advances. Thompson, however, prevents the reader from seeing her in this way by refusing to give her the visual lyricism her bestowed upon Raina. Both are sacred and both are holy, but the one is made so by her sexuality while the other is made so by her personhood. It's a difficult line to draw and that Thompson illustrates it so well ably demonstrates why he is one the leading auteurs in the medium.


[Even odds that Thompson actually tried this out at some point in his life.]

Habibi is a book marked by rape, slavery, castration, forced marriages, the murder of children, harems, and love. While in its murk and depths, it may not seem possible that the last of these—love—should so completely over-power all else, but this is the case. Love is not always victorious, but it is always glorious. The love of these two for each other is simultaneously heart-rending and heart-warming. And it is for this reason that I won't soon forget that when Habibi asks of love without sex, Is it enough? the answer, though quiet in the face of the world's roar, is defiant: Yes, it is.

Note
One word about the art: it's manifestly evident why this book took Thompson six years to create. Beyond the research necessary to develop such a well-rounded story that borrows so heavily from the Qur'an, Habibi's art is a wonder. The intricacy with which Thompson approaches his pages staggers the imagination—especially when one recalls the stress-injury pain in his hand that he related in Carnet de Voyage. So many of the pages of Habibi feature delicate ornamentation pulled from Islamic culture, ornament that would take hours to complete. Here's an example:



These are corners from four different pages, showing the kind of decoration that Thompson wrapped around entire pages. At first I presumed that he drew this just the once and reproduced the designwork for subsequent pages. This photo though shows that each page's work was distinct. That Thompson took the care to patiently (or impatiently, it hardly matters) draw out these magnificent designs helps flesh out just how much effort was poured into this production. The six years shows and Thompson outdoes anything I'd seen from him previously.

[Review courtesy of Good Ok Bad]

[Deena Hypothesis · Rating 1 out of 5]

Yay for Orientalism!

"My beef with Thompson is about his staggering Orientalism, which I’ll get to shortly.

Themes of longing and survival permeate Habibi. The protagonists, Zam and Dodola, long for each other, likening this to a yearning for the Divine – Middle Eastern poets have done this for centuries. Zam and Dodola endure horrible events in the name of survival, perhaps tying in with Thompson’s conservationist theme by implying that our disregard for the earth is tantamount to rape and castration of the planet. These themes, however, are often drowned out—no matter how much Thompson underlines them—by the towering gaffes of his misrepresentation. The country of Wanatolia may be fiction, but the cultures it mimics and clumsily muddles together are real.

When one opens Habibi, one might assume that it takes place a long time ago, in a fictional, far-away land that happens to look and feel just like Disney’s Agrabah. But, lo! Wanatolia has steam punk-themed palace guards and high-rise condo construction that flies in the face of a village’s pollution and resulting poverty and famine. Is it to represent the “Global South,” as Thompson claims in a Guernica interview?

No. It’s simply an Orientalist reimaging of a modern Arabia—Thompson needs modern machinery to further his conservationist theme, but he still wants his pre-modern harems full of odalisques with no cell phones and his pre-modern camel caravans crossing a desert that his very same construction companies would build roads through.

Thompson admitted to Guernica that he drew inspiration for Habibi from the Orientalist art movement. Orientalist paintings are a primary example of Orientalism as a racist point of view because they are Western depictions of Arab lands based on preconceptions of the painters (who often had never been to the region they were depicting). Thompson traps himself by not realizing that his magical land full of djinns and harems is exactly the kind of fantastical interpretation that many Middle Eastern people and Muslims have had enough of.

And then we come to the other huge problem: its portrayal of women and the sexualizing of rape. The female protagonist, Dodola, is raped constantly: as a child, by her first husband; as a child and teen, by men in the caravans she tried to steal food from; by the sultan whose harem she lived in. Dodola’s history is a history of rape, also falling into the Orientalist trope of brutal male savages and their oppressed women. And once Zam (or Habibi, the male protagonist) witnesses one of these rapes, both his consciousness and his dreams are plagued by sensual reenactments of her rape. Do I really have to make the point here that sexualizing rape is dangerous and unacceptable?

Tasnim at Muslimah Media Watch highlights the tired savage men/oppressed women dichotomy that Thompson’s novel rehashes: “Dodola’s narrative in particular features an endless array of savage men victimizing sexualized women, with hardly a page passing without nudity or brutality.” Every other page, Dodola was naked for one reason or another: being raped, bathing, birthing. The way Thompson portrays the female form is little more than a screen on which to project his Orientalist, new-agey crap. And with the current lack of female representation in comic books and graphic novels, you’d think he’d try a little harder to make his female protagonist more than a naked body.

I genuinely appreciated Thompson’s attempt to include the Qur’an in a positive way, which is why I wanted to like this novel. G. Willow Wilson, who has a foot in both worlds because she is both Muslim and a graphic novelist, tried similarly, writing, “the sheer dearth of sympathetic Muslim characters in western literature (and the fiercely secular world of comics and graphic novels in particular) makes me want to forgive a few small sins of inauthenticity.” And the beautiful drawings almost sway me before I realize that just because it’s beautiful doesn’t mean it’s okay.

But mixing Middle Eastern fairy tales with Qur’anic passages, new-age-y alchemist references, and a constantly naked female protagonist-turned-odalisque makes it apparent that Habibi is Thompson’s attempt to write his own Arabian Nights."

http://www.racialicious.com/2011/11/0...

[Greta G · Rating 1 out of 5]

Damn you, Craig Thompson.
I’m so disappointed with your book Habibi.
Your book is absolutely awful, despite your fancy artwork.
You’ve totally lost my respect after I’ve read your book today. In fact, I couldn’t even finish it.
Your book is problematic in so many ways. It’s over the top racist and sexist and shallow.
I’ve never read a book before that glorifies and romanticizes sexual violence so much. On every other page, your female protagonist was raped, objectified or victimized. Every Arabic man in your book was a brutal, camel-riding rapist with no morality or redeeming qualities at all. The only reason Arabic men exist in your world is to abuse women, and the only reason Arabic women exist is to please men who can’t help being rapists.
Your quotes from the Quran in the midst of all the female nakedness and in between scenes of sexual violence, felt extremely offensive. And I’m not even religious!
These quotes added nothing substantial to your shallow story.
Reading your pretentious, offensive and ultimately pointless book was an extremely uncomfortable experience.

[Orsodimondo · Rating 2 out of 5]

WANATOLIA



Quando le aspettative sono alte si rischiano delusioni.
Le mie aspettative dopo ‘Blankets’ erano alte.
Probabilmente, esagerate.

Ma forse erano esagerate anche quelle dello stesso Craig Thompson.
O forse erano esagerate le sue ambizioni: essere all’altezza di quella sua magnifica opera precedente.
E forse così riesco a spiegarmi la delusione: Thompson ha esagerato, ha voluto a ogni costo stupire, impressionare.



Si è talmente sforzato in questa direzione che è andato a raccontare storia e storie che non sono sicuro conosca così bene.
O forse le conosce, ma sono cose che gli rimangono lontane, distanti.
Forse ha studiato e ricercato troppo, ma digerito poco, assimilato poco.
Da interviste ho appreso che Thompson non conosce l’arabo, ma ne conosce l’alfabeto, che non è mai stato in Medioriente, e di tutto il mondo arabo ha visitato il Marocco.
Ho pensato a qualcuno che dipinge usando come soggetto una cartolina, niente di vero, ma un’immagine altrui.



E lo sforzo post 9/11 è un po’ troppo palese: umanizzare il presunto nemico indicando similitudini e parallelismi tra la religione musulmana e quella cattolica, spingendosi a trovare più purezza nella prima che nella seconda, quasi che il Corano batta la Bibbia.
Non è che si edifica un’altra serie di stereotipi, semplicemente diversi dai primi, quelli islamofobici?

Purtroppo per me, e forse per Thompson, io ho un grosso problema con le religioni, la fede, il trascendente, ogni dio… Non mi interessano, corano o bibbia è la stessa cosa per me, entrambe contano poco.

Ma tornando a Thompson, belle le tavole dove gioca con l’iconografia araba, i motivi geometrici dell’Islam, i loro ricchi ornamenti, la calligrafia, dove le lettere diventano letteralmente disegni e prendono vita. Ma…



Ma rimangono un po’ esercizi di bravura, sfoggio di talento.
L’eccesso che domina il tutto mi ha raffreddato, e stancato. Pagine sovraccariche a cominciare dall’eccesso di lirismo, dall’eccesso nelle figure femminili, che non sono quelle dove Thompson esprime il meglio del suo talento.

Alla fine di questo corposo tomo mi sono chiesto se Thompson, che ha impiegato sette anni per quest’opera, sia in fondo riuscito ad andare oltre agli stilemi di certe immagini di orientalisti come questa qui sotto.

O anche solo oltre l’Aladdin della Walt Disney.

[Ferdy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Spoilers

Absolutely awful, one of the most rage inducing things I've ever read. I don't even know where to begin, there were that many fucked up things about it.

Random, rambly thoughts:

-Habibi was a ridiculously offensive graphic novel filled with nothing but racist, sexist, orientalist, misogynistic rubbish. Then there was the glorification of abuse and rape running throughout, the main character couldn't go at least a couple of pages without being naked, raped or victimised.

-The story itself was shallow, nonsensical, over the top, unrealistic, and a general mess. Habibi might have been set in a fictional country but it was more than clear that it was some warped, stereotypical, and exaggerated portrayal of the Middle East and Arabs/muslims (what with the clothing, the main religion being Islam, the use of Arabic language, the characters being mostly Arab, and the harems, the jinn, the myths and stories told within).

-Thompson's idea of Middle Eastern culture was: ALL men are either rapists or slaves, ALL women get raped and have no free will, fathers will happily sell their young daughters for a little bit of money, girls can only resort to prostitution to survive because apparently there's no job opportunities, pretty much all Middle Eastern people live in poor/desperate/unclean conditions, that Arabs believe in slavery and have a booming and very public slave trade, that NO Middle Eastern people have self-respect/morals/intelligence/kindness or compassion, and ALL middle aged/old men are pedophiles and rapists at heart and have no problem fucking young girls.
Not one Arab/muslim character was portrayed as anything other than horrid, vile, sex crazed or evil. Not one woman was portrayed as anything other than weak, vulnerable, oppressed, bitchy or heartless.
There's no doubt in my mind that Thompson has a worse than low opinion of Arabs, muslims, and other minorities.

-Summary of sorts: The story starts with a child (Dodola) being heartlessly sold into a forced marriage, her old-grotesque husband rapes her, then she's kidnapped from her rapist husband and sold into slavery, she manages to escape with a toddler (called Zam) and they live on a boat in the middle of a desert, she becomes a mother of sorts to Zam. In order for her and Zam to survive she prostitutes herself to passing caravans (and ALL the old men she meets are more than happy to fuck a child), she does that for years. Then she's separated from Zam when she's kidnapped (again), this time she's forced into a harem with hundreds of other women… Ugh, then there's more rape, WTFery, slavery, fucked up-evil men, bitchy women, prostitution, incest.
At no point in the story was there one sane person or person with morals. The Arab men were all slavers, greedy, violent, abusive, disgusting rapists who had no compassion or empathy or morals. The black characters were either slaves or submissive or happy to serve. The women were only ever portrayed as weak, and were constantly sexualised or brutalized. None of the characters had any depth or personality, they were worse than stereotypes.

-Dodola had no agency whatsoever, she was a constant victim and was pushed/pulled in every direction by those around her. She was also drawn and depicted in a disgusting way. No matter what she doing she was naked every other page… she was drawn like some sort of porn star. What did her being naked add to the story? Nothing. What was with all the sensual and loving drawings whenever she was being raped or attacked? Does Thompson think rape and abuse is sexy or romantic?

-Zam and Dodola's relationship made me sick… Dodola thought of Zam as her child (even though there was only a nine year age difference between them), they had a mother-son relationship for a decade or so before they were separated. Dodola used to bathe him as a toddler, change him, teach him things, and tell him stories before bed. How could they get together when they had a parent/child relationship?! Even when she got pregnant herself she still thought of Zam as her true child more so than her own biological child… So yea, for them to be together when they had parent/child feelings for each other was beyond vile.

-Dodola was only ever a sexual object, even when she was raped/being abused/giving birth she was drawn in a sickeningly sensual way. Her being naked every other page was not only gratuitous but also made her seem even more vulnerable and victim-like to everyone around her, even her pre-pubescent 'son' was constantly perving on her. She was ALWAYS the victim.

-Of course, Dodola was drawn as having no body hair despite her having no supplies and living in the middle of a desert. I very much doubt she prostituted herself for razors or wax when she was so desperate for food for her and Zam. I also find it highly unlikely that the caravans she 'traded' with would even stock those things.
She also managed to have the perfect body, even though she had little food/supplies — how did she manage to always look so good? In reality she would have looked hairy and malnourished with bad skin but that wouldn't have been sexy or 'exotic' enough for Thompson. The only time she was drawn as grotesque was when she was heavily pregnant (apparently pregnancy is the most disgusting thing ever because pregnant women are no longer just blow up dolls for men so that immediately makes them some sort of ugly, alien species). It was fucked up. Of course, Thompson didn't want to be realistic, he just wanted to draw his wet fantasy of Arab women.

-One of the worst parts was Thompson writing the rape apology towards the end where Dodola fondly reflected back on her old/middle aged husband — the man who forced himself on her when she was about eight years old. Yea, she excused his rape because apparently the poor guy just couldn't help himself… he just wanted her oh so badly, and it wasn't his fault he was so horny for his child bride that he had to force himself on her… the poor guy had no control over it. Ugh. Does Thompson think Arab women would actually think like that? Or women in general would fondly excuse the pedophile that raped them?! REALLY?! Ugh, the rape apology was beyond disturbing — it almost seemed like Thompson hoped/thought that's how women/little girls would/should view rape and rapists, as something that couldn't be helped because naturally, the guy was needy and couldn't help himself… Also, to ease the 'suffering' rapists and pedos experience, women/little girls should happily seduce and fuck them because that's their job and they secretly love it (the act itself and pleasing men), and they should understand rapists and pedos. Ugh, an absolutely awful portrayal of women, men, abuse, rape, and any non-white race.

-So first Dodola was a child bride to an old man, then she had to prostitute herself to countless men so the other guy in her life could survive, then she was forced into a harem and had a son, and then her other 'son' wanted her so to appease him she began a relationship with him. Everything Dodola did was either out of her hands or done for the sake of a man… Heaven forbid, a woman doing something for herself or for someone that wasn't male. What's with all these women in books/tv/movies whose only driving force is a man? Women can do things that having NOTHING to do with men.

-Another thing that pissed me off was that ALL the women in the harem hated Dodola because the sultan liked her most, they were so jealous of her that they wanted her dead. Apparently, all women envy other women who get more male attention than them to such a degree that they want them dead. Ridiculous.

-I guess the artwork was okay. There were parts that were beautiful but those parts weren't down to Thompson, all he did was use/copy the Arabic language/art/design… There was nothing original from him at all. He doesn't deserve credit for copying prominent Arabic art/language.

It's clear that Thompson wanted to base a novel on a foreign culture so his story could be 'exotic' and different. He didn't bother to actually learn or research the different facets and beauty of the culture. Nope, he just wanted to twist and exaggerate atrocities from its past so he could produce something shocking and hard hitting… Well, all he managed to produce was a racist, sexist, disgusting piece of unrealistic crap.
Yea, I won't read any of his other graphic novels.

[Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow.

I guarantee you've never read anything like this book.

[Huda m · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am just sad and very upset, ignorant and shallow orientalism go through this book from start to finish. The artwork is amazing, although I hate it when arabic calligraphy is misused as a decor and with random meaningless letters. The elaborate usage of religious stories that had nothing to do with the ideologies in the book and its storyline that were furthermore exploited sometimes by misinterpretations was just too much for me. Overall it's overwhelming and not in a good way, as a Muslim woman I feel very offended, and I know these cases did exist in the past but this has nothing to do with the middle east or Arabs or Islam for that matter, Every spoilt culture went through these phases, slavery, child marriages and rape.

This was to me very offensive and extremely racist.

[Mario the lone bookwolf · Rating 4 out of 5]

Child slave love between

First and third world, Christianity and Islam, and progressive democracy and conservative theism
It´s not just a criticism of culture, it´s quite brutal too, thereby combining elements that are hard to stomach for some readers, which is totally understandable, it´s just not their genre. The more complex criticism comes with

People who dislike it because of the stereotypes and superficial culture check problem
But this is a bit more complex than it might seem. The men and women are just acting stereotypically for emancipated, industrial state standards, in many other regions of the world this is just normal life. The more problematic thing is, what can be seen in reviews because I´m no expert too, that it seems to

Haven´t made its homework regarding the authenticity of Arabic culture
If this is true, it´s an avoidable deficit, if not, maybe just an element of criticism to stigmatize the work because it´s upsetting. Like many other great graphic novel works it does an amazing job by pointing the finger at the biggest grievances by contrasting different socioevolutionary stages of human development.

Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...

[Natalie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked up this mind-boggling graphic novel on a whim, and I'll forever be grateful for that. My head felt like a spaceship right after finishing. Prepare for this to change your perception and the way you think about... everything.

Habibi tells the tale of Dodola and Zam, refugee child slaves bound to each other by chance, by circumstance, and by the love that grows between them. We follow them as their lives unfold together and apart; as they struggle to make a place for themselves in a world (not unlike our own) fueled by fear, lust, and greed; and as they discover the extraordinary depth—and frailty—of their connection.

And can I just say that this was exactly what I was looking for in graphic novels: intellectual, emotional, philosophical, religious, existential feelings. Plus, not only was the dialogue written with haunting detail, but the illustrations... oh man, the illustrations were a whole new level of beautiful and vibrant.










I think the above is my all-time favorite piece of drawing from Habibi




The level of detail is remarkable.

I'm still reeling from everything that went down, but I do know this: I was left feeling both satisfied and craving for more of Dodola and Zam, particularly the lavishing stories she told him. There are a couple of them that keep haunting my mind wherever I go.

To conclude, Craig Thompson is a mastermind, and I can't wait to pick up more of his brilliant creations.

*Note: I'm an Amazon Affiliate. If you're interested in buying Habibi, just click on the image below to go through my link. I'll make a small commission!*



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[Nnedi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can’t recommend this book enough. This graphic novel is a testament to the fact that the physical book should never die. Habibi is a work of art full of Arabic calligraphy, bleeding pages and detailed imagery that is both Arab and African, modern and ancient. And equally as exquisite, compelling and daring is the book’s story of two slaves, one African and one Arab and how the world shapes, destroys, and evolves them. THE Best Book of 2011.

[K. F. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Habibi is a laboriously gorgeous comic, with beautiful drawings, inks and atmosphere. Ever since Craig Thompson announced it on his blog years ago, I had been really excited. I had loved Goodbye Chunky Rice, liked Blankets, and was sure that Thompson would craft a beautiful story with all the care that it would require.

It's a real shame that it's a hopelessly orientalist narrative with virtually every other *ism you can think of added in with bonus writing that really isn't that great. We spend 672 pages with Dodola and Zam (sometimes also known as Habibi, other times known as Cham*) but, at the end, I can really tell you very little about either character. Dodola likes stories! She considers Zam her true child! That's really it. With Zam, all I can tell you is that he is in love with Dodola. That really is all I could tell you about his character.

And perhaps that wouldn't be so bad, if Dodola and Zam weren't the only characters that are given even the briefest amount of depth. Basically, every man excepting one is out to covet and salivate over female flesh, and even that exception has a moment when first introduced where it's unclear whether or not he would have done something to Dodola were Zam not to claim her as his. The women (the very few there are) are all sexualized with absolutely no autonomy. No, not even Dodola.

On the topic of Dodola, where do I even start. As a child she is sold to be a middle-aged man's bride, who rapes her (but also teaches her to read!). When her husband is murdered in front of her, she is sold into slavery (but that's where she meets Zam!). She escapes with a child to live in the desert, where she sleeps with the men in traveling caravans in order to get food. When she is raped, it is to cause trauma for Zam, and promptly thereafter she is captured to be a part of the Sultan's harem.

Yes, that's right. Captured. To be a part of the Sultan's Harem.

There, she gets a few servants to wait on her (black, of course), she gets pregnant and frets over what Zam would think of her, she sleeps with the Sultan to keep him enticed, which works for a while until it doesn't. She then gets thrown into a polluted river with the expectation of drowning her (along with a large amount of women the sultan throws away because he is ~bored~), where Zam rescues her and nurses her back to health. Afterwards, she lets Zam have "what he's always wanted~" and they start a sexual relationship.

Dodola has no autonomy in Habibi. She is almost always sexualized, but never does it seem to be anything Dodola herself controls. She makes mention of not viewing her body as her own, as it has always belonged to other men, and how her attempt to start a romantic relationship with Zam was phrased is made me sick. It wasn't about her wants, or needs, beyond that she wanted to bear Zam's child and she wanted to make Zam happy. Dodola never says that she wants to sleep with him other than as a means to an end, and the reader has no reason to think that she would want to be with him. Even her dreams and fantasies involve her naked with her back arched to expose breast and ass. The rape scenes are an attempt for righteous indignation and criticism, but how they are rendered is as much about romanticizing the act and giving the viewer a free pass to indulge as it is about damning. At one point I decided to start counting how many pages Dodola appeared sexualized or naked, but I lost heart after I got to 85 pages.

There's more, including making a butchery of the Hijra (also known as the third gender) wherein Zam becomes one and later intends to kill himself for having "wrecked" his body in front of God and Dodola PLUS some inexplicable bigotry where Zam, who has been raised completely separate from society goes into town and screams at the Hijra going around that they are filthy and unnatural*, or how the romance came completely out of left field and didn't touch on the emotional incest at all, but frankly thinking about this book more is upsetting. There are some nice comic layouts that flow very well, and the art is gorgeous, which is the only reason this book has that second star. I would not recommend this book to anyone.


*there is no explanation for the shifting names that I can recall
*which makes zero sense that someone removed from society would come in and immediately show bigotry. Confusion I could have understood, but vitriol?

[Algernon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Habibi means Beloved in Arabic.



Which made me think of Toni Morrison when I first laid eyes on the graphic art album. By the end of the journey it turned out that my initial fancyful association was not so far-fetched and random as I expected. Because this is a story about pain and suffering among the dispossessed, the persecuted, the enslaved. It is also a story about strength and faith in the most cruel circumstances, about the things that unite us and help us make it through the night. Religion being part of the equation, here in its most enduring and compassionate form, true to its roots yet open to soul searching questions and to new ideas, religion as a healing wand and not as a facile tool for discrimination and intransigence and violence.



Because religion plays such an important role in the story, the album could be judged controversial by both Christians and Muslims, especially because it does not pick sides or rules one creed more right or more true than the other. On the contrary, it focuses on the common threads, on how Christianity and Islam issued forth from the same fountain of knowledge and experience, on how both have their roots in the same burning desert sands that punish the body mercilessly during the day, and turn the eyes towards the high heavens filled with stars during the night.



Dodola is a very young girl sold into marriage to an old scribe by her penniless parents. Against the customs of her people, she learns to read and to write and she learns to love the legends and the myths and the holy texts that her husband copies patiently in the intricate, flowing, dancing Arabic script. Her temporary haven is destroyed by bandits who take her to the market to be sold into slavery. Her sole comfort is taking care of another prisoner, an orphan boy she calls Cham or Zam.



Resourceful and quick witted, Dodola manages to escape her captivity, running into the desert with the boy, where they hide on a stranded fishing vessel, lost in a sea of sand. She and Cham survive by relying on each other, Dodola weaving a magic web of stories around the boy, stories that hide the ugliness she herself cannot escape from as she is forced to sell her body to passing caravan drovers in exchange for essential food.



I’ve resumed so far only the first book out of nine, and the story gets both better with every page, and more disturbing as the girl and the boy get separated and tried to the limits of their endurance in a hostile and merciless world. Many years will pass before they meet each other again, both yearning for a return to the purity and innocence of their first days in the desert.



Every book is structured with mathematical and geometrical precision, weaving together the religious texts, the ancient philosophers, alchemical and natural world research, calligraphy, Scheherezade’s Arabian Nights storytelling mixed with modern environmental devastation and social decadence. The story would have worked well enough for me as a novel filled with romance and adventure; as a graphic album I found it outstanding and original. Delicate arabesques of letters and human bodies and hypnotizing mandalas morph on the same page into brutal realism, explicit sex scenes and garbage filled sordid slums are followed by abstract patterns or by fairytale depictions of angels and prophets, elegant and monumental halls of the Sultan’s palace reside over refuse filled underground sewers. Black and white starkness serves better than colour in conveying the message of the story, especially when it comes to the many samples of Arabic script that dance across the pages – like a river, a snake, an equation, a holy word, an intricate flower of many petals.



Emotion and poetry are distilled and made universal through the language of mathematics, numbers that add up and divide with relentless precision into magic squares ruled by mystic meaning handed down by holy men trough the ages. So what role is reserved for free will in this predeterminate universe? Dodola and Zam struggle against their prescribed Fate, their unconditional love for each other like Ariadne’s thread guiding them through the labyrinth of despair and loss, until clean, pure water can flow again and wash away all the garbage and all the sins, all the past mistakes and misunderstandings. Symbols and hidden meaning wait to be revealed to the reader in a beautiful and unconventional finale.



What category should I ultimately assign to Habibi ? What literary shelf does it belong to?
- a love story?
- a religious treatise?
- an epic of the desert realms?
- an art album?
All of the above !

I do hope Craig Thomson will continue to be inspired and to produce such quality material.

[Calista · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow, this is a dark tale. It has a decent ending, but the characters go through hell on Earth to get there. I mean they are dragged through the muck and forced to live through childhood marriage, rape, prostitution, death, murder, disease, pollution, castration, thievery, I mean you name the horrible situation and most likely it's in here. This is a modern day story about Job with the twist being that Job is a woman in this tale.

It is 600+ pages of suffering, searching and horrors to go through. Yet, the artwork is so beautiful and gorgeous. I love the calligraphy and the stories told from the Qu'ran. It's interesting how some of the stories are similar or the same in the bible with maybe an additional character. I have never read the Qu'ran before and there were several passages and stories, I assume, are from it.

The setting is bizarre. I thought we were in the past in some Middle Eastern country and halfway through the story, you realize that all this is going on in the middle of the modern era. It's very confusing in some ways and a mess up of other things. I hope it's still not this way over there.

The story is powerful and pretty amazing and yet, I really didn't enjoy reading this. I was pulled through by good storytelling, but I found no joy in these pages, mostly, only suffering. There was hope at the end, but even with that hope there was still little joy.

The story makes me wonder if Craig Thompson has converted to Islam because he has put so much study into this book. I read his Blankets and that is one of the best stories I've read in this genre. This story is well told, beautifully illustrated and researched, but I don't feel much heart in this story. I feel like this story is about searching. Craig seems to be searching for something. I wonder what that is? It seems, family and love might be the thing, but this was a harsh story.

There was one scene with a fisherman in this polluted swamp in a city somewhere. The people live in this sewage waste and the water is poisonous. It's well told, but what a depressing place to be. I know there are places like that in the world and how sad.

I feel one needs a strong heart or a hard heart to read this book, otherwise, it is going to affect you. That is why I gave it 4 stars. The story makes you feel and think about a different life. It is what art is all about. Its done well, but again, something seemed to be missing for me. After the 600 page slough of sins of the world, there is only a few pages of hope and resolution. It's not equal. I'm glad I read this story and I'm glad to be done with it. Anyone looking for a challenging read, I would recommend this.

The artwork is in black and white and there is so much to learn about Islamic culture. I love the history of the Sudoku board. That was incredible. Here I thought this was a Japanese invention. What a work of art.

[Trish · Rating 5 out of 5]

In an interview Craig Thompson told his audience that artists must become vulnerable if their work is to mean anything. This dark and agonized work has a great deal of nakedness in it, both literally and figuratively, and a lot of staring directly at human experience and trying to make sense of it. It also looks with a colder, more dispassionate and assessing eye at the overlap in the religious teachings of Christianity and Islam.

This is Thompson’s fourth published work, and one glance inside gives some idea why it took six years to complete. The graphic work is fantastically detailed and patterned, which over more than six hundred pages becomes claustrophobic and oppressive with patterns repeated again and again in different combinations. This is partly due to the size of the pattern, which seems to become more and more compressed as the story progresses, and the more-black-than-white palette.

The patterns are beautiful, and may represent mathematical principles that sustain the progress upon which the world is built, but by the end I got the distinct impression Thompson was asking us to question even that progress: is it good? Who is it good for and how can it be modified to suit a different world with better outcomes? One is not accustomed to such weighty questions in the work of graphic artists.

Thompson is unique in many ways, but certainly the source of his questioning may come from his fundamentalist Christian upbringing in rural Wisconsin, an upbringing he explores in his second graphic novel and the first large-scale project of his career, Blankets. Thompson freely admits he still believes in God, but he is less sure now how best to worship him.

That his father was a plumber Thompson credits with the understanding that water is precious. This book is plumbed through with references to the primacy and importance of water in our world, our lives. This aspect of the book was another piece that elevated the story-telling to something essential.

Some discussion among reviewers condemns the sex, violence, and numerous representations of the naked human form depicted in this work as gratuitous. I will argue that is not the case. There is no question that the storyteller in this case is frightened by and ashamed of his powerful sexual feelings, but his arousal is well within the bounds of normal male sexuality and should, in fact, educate readers about the conflicted emotional trauma that can accompany the physical manifestations of desire.

In the years Thompson worked on this book, he learned to appreciate and to write some Arabic script, but never learned to speak. His translators and friends in the endeavor to understand Islam—its culture, science, and art—reviewed the story he created to check for realism and racism. In the end, any understanding readers take away about the religion or culture of the region belong to Thompson alone, but I suspect he feels confident in his depiction.

Simply sketched, the story is as follows: a light-skinned girl and a dark-skinned boy find themselves orphaned in the desert. They make a life and grow up together for a period of years before they are violently separated. They spend a long period of time hoping to find one another again and then one day, they do. The story has an impetus and emotion even without the later personality-defining moments of coercion and despair depicted with the same pitiless camera-eye that captured their earlier life.

If I say that there are many complications and observations along the way, it will give you scant warning for the deluge that is to come. This work is huge, covering enormous ground, picking up and putting down again many topics worthy of examination and discussion. It is overwhelming, as it undoubtedly was to write. I have never determined how an editor deals with slimming the opus of an auteur. The only thing I can think of is that cut pages or threads could be sold separately once the work has been published to acclaim.

Thompson’s willingness to look closely at who we are evinces in me admiration and gratitude, not censure. I look eagerly forward to what he decides to do next, whether it be drawing, writing, or something else of his choice. He is extraordinary in every way.

[Tawfek · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oh man you totally crushed my high expectations for this novel,
I mean you took a hold of my expectations and ripped them out of my chest and destroyed them with a sledgehammer repeatedly...
I hope you get the picture...
I read Blankets few years ago it was beautiful utterly and absolutely beautiful, soul searching journey like no other you will ever read.
And because of Blankets i planned on reading the rest of Craig Thompson graphic novels when ever i can.
When i started this i had such high hopes i am searching for myself and i find this i don't know who mislead him like that but lets just talk about what i didn't like.
First of all the time-line of this story is fucked up camels and deserts and harems and cars and motorcycles and Advanced Hydraulic dams and pizza hut and Kentucky and radio shack WTF really its totally misleading, mixing up past and present and bad things of the past with the changed present even if its not as changed as i would like it to be.
Second is the use of Islamic legends that even me as a former Muslim who read a lot have never heard about before mainly this ridiculous legend about the rooster that is in the heavens that the prophet met never heard of it before, I mean a fucking rooster in the heavens where did he get that from. (2024 update : i actually found a source for the rooster legend, and it's not even Islamic, It's Yazidi, the creation legend in their religion which is passed only via word of mouth, actually have a peacock in the sky, which was viewed as the creator or something, But Yazidi's and Islam have nothing in common but Adam and Eve, they might share an ancient source from the Mesopotamia civilization, but that's all there is to it)

Another Untrue legend is the buraq with the head of a woman, there is a legend of the buraq, it was just a flying horse or something, but it didn't have a head of a woman, i did find an old Persian painting that does present the buraq with a head of a woman.

I didn't really like the use of Hindu gods and presenting them in the middle of an Arabian themed novel because it might fuck up the perspective of the readers if they don't know better.

It shut me off badly now i will go search for another graphic novel that can help me soul searching.
But being the believer in Craig Thompson that i am i will read his other novels at least they will not happen in a culture that he was mislead to write about in a misleading way to the masses.

2018 Review.

[Richard Derus · Rating 1 out of 5]

I tried, really really hard I tried, but Habibi has defeated me. I simply cannot help myself, I put Richie Rich's face on the men and Veronica's on the women. Graphic novel remains, for me, a term of art without substantive affect on my vision. To me, they're comic books, and I didn't ever like comic books.

So sorry. I'll go now.


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a difficult book to rate. If I were rating on the artwork alone, I would give it four or five stars. Thompson's penwork is outstanding. He has grown as an artist over the course of his career, and he started at a pretty decent level too. Gorgeous design work, beautifully composed panels. Not Thompson's, but the hardcover edition is itself beautifully designed and a pleasure to hold.
Unfortunately, I don't think the story is quite equal to the art. It's very good, probably better than my three star rating suggests. I had two issues. One was a failure to believe in a major plot element. I loved Dodola and Zam's relationship on the boat, her stories and her protection. I thought the changing nature of his feelings for her were well done. Unfortunately, I didn't believe that her feelings for him would change from nurturing to romantic. My other issue was the author's obsession with the female form and absolute disgust with the male. Some of it made sense in the context, but as it seeped into the stories it felt like the injection of authorial opinion rather than a narrator's decision. Naked women at every turn, but the men were all discreetly hidden behind props, Austin Powers style. There's a delicate line at which the truth of the story can spill into salaciousness, and unfortunately Thompson crosses it.
Lastly, though this wasn't truly a detraction, I thought it was interesting that the book began in what felt like a timeless storybook landscape but gradually pinned itself down to a strange throwback kingdom within the modern world. I felt absolutely unmoored as the trucks and tanks and highrises appeared in what earlier had seemed like a period setting. In the end I mostly just loved the stories that Dodola told Zam; I can't truly get on board with a book with this much sexual violence. I can say it was beautiful, but not that I enjoyed it.

[সালমান হক · Rating 5 out of 5]

Habibi is an absolute work, perfectly cared for in all aspects. Its plot, although heartbreaking most of the time, introduces us to Dodola and Zam, a couple of orphans who escape captivity together as children and show us how difficult life can be.

But in order to survive, Dodola tells Zam countless stories from the Quran. The fusion between religion and reality is perfectly achieved, as there are many parallels in history, a lot of symbolism and a lot of background even in aspects of language such as words and geography. Thompson explains basic but very interesting aspects about Islam and the differences between the Catholic Bible and The Holy Quran.

The paths Craig Thompson chose to take Zam and Dodola down are tragic, but that is where they find their beauty. Tragedy tends to bring out the worst and the best in a human being and in Habibi there is a lot of that.

The research behind this story is mind boggling. It's clear from the beginning that the author did a lot of research to be able to make this story which took five years to be finished and to come to light. The most important aspect is art. Definitely more than one page will take your breath away; the amount of detail coupled with the magical and significant of the images shown is something that is not very commonly seen in comics. Thompson doesn't try to draw scenes, he manages to draw emotions. When you see an illustration of Habibi it is not about what you are seeing but what it makes you feel and how the characters feel. It really is a beauty and my words in no way do the art justice, you have to experience it.

We cannot rule out that this is a difficult story. It has very raw moments, and graphically portrays rape scenes that could upset some readers. My biggest recommendation is that although there are difficult parts to stay until the end, really the last two chapters are a revelation and an icon of modern graphic narrative. Brilliant mixture of fantasy and reality.

[Nicholas Karpuk · Rating 1 out of 5]

I couldn't review this book until I came up with a suitably convoluted metaphor:

This book is like being hit by a pillow shot by artillery at great range. There's a lot of noise on delivery, it takes forever to hit you, and when you do there's a lot of mixed feelings, but mostly just confusion, annoyance, and uncertainty about what exactly the point was.

In opposition to what Craig Thompson may or may not be discouraging you from doing (maybe?), I'm going to make a broad stereotype. A person raised in a very strict religious environment who then rebels against those tenants may be the most shrill sort of liberal imaginable.

If you're uncertain about what I mean, just think of that person who lectures you on how Christmas is on a pagan holiday not once, but every time the matter comes up. Or who suggests that the Bible is a series of made up things, as though that's useful observation at the grown-up table.

You can stop now. I saw you wincing.

Craig Thompson has made a great career with his head firmly shoved right up his ass. With his fine illustrations, he's captured every facet of his own cavities with sumptuous detail. All his previous works are deep, deep, (as said by James Early Jones) deeeeeply egocentric works of graphic fiction.

Roughly 6 or 7 years ago he decided to get some fresh air, and with a pop like a champagne cork he went on a long vacation to stretch his horizons. The travel book he wrote is actually a decent read, and reasonably earnest in its approach. The results, however, are not.

And let me tell you, bro, Muslims aren't that different from Christians. Lemme spend 600 pages tellin' you all about it.

Which he does, punching us with his doughy, midwestern, literary fists of obvious, shallow observations, served up with bungling use of religious symbols and sexual violence towards women. It's like a freshman philosophy major who spent his summer backpacking through the Middle East.

Let me save you some time spent reading a comic that ends up collapsing into an Alan-Moore-style series of words in panels (Dave Sim would also be apt) and sum up the morals herein:

1. Rape is bad.
2. Pollution is bad.
3. Christians are like Muslims, except when they're not.

It's a pretty book, but about as shallow as ink on paper gets.

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whereas Blankets is sort of sweet and simple and anguished, a story of a summer love and all its complications, religious and philosophical and aesthetic, Habibi takes place over decades, and deals with the relationship between Christianity and Islam, environmental disaster... and yes, love. What this arthritic genius had to do to learn and enact Arabic art and language.... to delve into deeper aspects of religion, so impressive. Sometimes I felt he was biting off more than he could chew, as I always feel when authors take on epic challenges... in other words, I prefer Blankets type stories to long epics, but this is genius, no question.

Additional comments months later, 1/17/14: I just saw a review of this that disliked the book and it led me to put it out and mute my views of it. It is visually breathtaking…. and confusing, overwrought, over ambitious visually and narratively… in terms of too many ideas and directions….. I also like smaller books typically more than epic tales… so how could I say this was awesome? I guess the ambition if it appealed to me, and the ethic… the intention to take ten years to try and reconcile Islam with Christianity, to find commonalities… I guess my friend Jamie's keying me onto the (typical) male obsession with the main character's nakedness (okay, she was in a harem, sure, but…. this chick is naked all the time…. so in spite of Thompson's sweet and thoughtful and love-and environment-focused purposes in the story, maybe he undermines these purposes with all the sexual stuff… I'm thinking more about that!

[João Barradas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Habibi é a palavra árabe para denominar “amigo”, uma das formas mais puras de expressar amor.
Nesta graphic novel, seguimos a história de dois jovens refugiados que, num país do médio oriente desconhecido, ousam fugir das amarras que os impedem de tomar as rédeas das suas vidas. O caminho seguido mostra não ser nenhum atalho e obriga a decisões difíceis mas necessárias para a sobrevivência. A força por viver adensa os sentimentos e baralha-os num caldeirão de emoções, confundido os protagonistas que se perdem nos papéis desempenhados.
Por entre os arabescos condutores e a caligrafia árabe tão bem desenhada, narram-se ainda histórias da cultura árabe numa evocação de alguns versos do Corão e das míticas narrativas clássicas, o que ao invés de confundir o leitor nas linhas complexas do tempo, cria uma malha fina que o apreende e ampara na queda livre induzida pelo enredo.
Levantando questões fracturantes da sociedade, como a escravidão, a dismorfia, prostituição e (muito) sexo, ousa a estabelecer pontes diferentes culturas e religiões. Apesar do criticado “anti-orientalismo”, no final, alcança-se uma mensagem positiva sobre um amor platónico e um poderoso lema da vida: a grande guerra que enfrentamos nesta vida não é contra ninguém além de nós mesmos.
Se é verdade que “uma imagem vale mais que mil palavras”, esta história em quadrinhos deixou-me sem palavras!

[Teresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a gorgeous book, from cover to cover and all the illustrations (and calligraphy) in between. I wasn't sure in the beginning that I would like it, but I quickly found I did, and then the pages turned quickly as well.

In the beginning, because of the age of one of the main characters at the start, I (naively?) thought the story was set in the past, but not too far into it, I realized the time is now. And because of that, the story is relevant, as regards the treatment of females, of those who are enslaved, and of the Earth itself -- in the latter case, especially, this is a cautionary tale for anyone, anywhere, that should be heeded now, as it's likely a future not too distant.

The religious aspect is prominent in this work, sort of becoming a primer on the Qur'an (at least for me), while also noting some similarities and differences as to what the "People of the Book" believe, and revealing the power of stories to one's survival.

The relationship at the center of the story is unique, and psychologically acute.

[Sam Quixote · Rating 5 out of 5]

Set in a fictional country in what seems to be the Middle East, a 6 year old girl called Dodola is sold by her poverty-stricken parents to a calligrapher to be his wife. The man is brutally murdered and the girl is stolen and sold into slavery. She saves an infant boy from certain death by claiming him as her own and then later escaping with him to live on an abandoned ship in the middle of the desert. She names him Habibi. The two of them manage to survive for a few years by Dodola prostituting herself to merchants travelling across the desert in exchange for food. Then one day she is stolen once again and taken to join the harem of the Sultan. Habibi does his best to survive but must take himself to the city in order to survive and from there the story begins, the two of them striving to meet one another again.

To say that the book is beautiful is an understatement and an insult to Craig Thompson; the book is sublime. Clearly an enormous amount of research has gone into the book and every page contains stunning details whether it's the designs of the rugs to the elaborate jewellery of the Sultan or the clothing of the guards to the swooping flights of mythology from Islam and Christianity. There's a two page splash drawing of a giant heap of garbage and it stops you in your tracks, it's so detailed. Thompson dives into the story never shying away from the hardship of drawing a crowd scene (and there are several scenes set in marketplaces) or drawing rivers of discarded human waste as well as bringing to life the wonderful characters of Dodola and Habibi.

There is a lot more to the book than I've let on in the brief summary at the top, after all it is a nearly 700 page book, but the epic scope of this love story is utterly compelling and the way Thompson weaves in aspects of religion and mythology into the contemporary story is flawless. He goes into etymology with the detail of a scholar and then he's talking about how the designs of clothing are influenced by old stories. He effortlessly describes an alien society (from the perspective of the West that is) with the confidence of a sociologist and not once does it seem inscrutable.

Having read his previous books, and if you haven't I highly recommend them, I can see aspects of "Good-bye, Chunky Rice" in the book in the way that Dodola and Habibi are separated, pine for each other, and strive to one day meet again. I see the way that the simple, innocent love between a man and a woman depicted in "Blankets" is transported to this book but elaborated upon and explored further. And even in his "Carnet de Voyage" which was essentially a sketch book of Thompson's travels in the Middle East, a lot of those designs and ideas are incorporated into this book, and this was nearly 8 years ago! In short, "Habibi" is the culmination of Thompson's career as a writer/artist thus far and as close to a masterpiece as can be in comics.

I utterly fell in love with this book. The love of storytelling and words that Thompson infuses into Dodola is infectious and if there were moments I felt that the book could have been edited into a shorter story, I would say that the pure joy found in the expression of art and literature triumphed over any such cynical thoughts. This is a book that transcends the comics genre and becomes a work of literature to be enjoyed by anyone who loves books. This is the not just one of the best comic books to come out this year but one of the best books, full stop, and shows that Craig Thompson has not just reached the same level as other masters of the genre like Will Eisner or Bryan Talbot, but has the potential to surpass them.

I highly recommend "Habibi" because as much as I've talked about the book, I haven't even begun to describe a tenth of what it contains - the wonder of which awaits the reader to discover themselves. Go and discover it.

[William Galaini · Rating 1 out of 5]

Habibi is perhaps the greatest example of beautifully executed trash. It is the Prometheus of graphic novels. Never have I seen such a detailed and intricately presented comic that appears to have been conceived and written over a matter of ten drunken, ethnocentric minutes. It is a delicious Swedish pastry with crumbly, honey drizzled walnuts on top... filled with dog-shit. Blacking out the lines of dialogue in this book would help it IMMENSELY.

Why? Well, here's why:

First off, the setting is a complete nonsensical wreck. It never has a sense of time period or specific region. We have total anachronisms with vehicles and advanced motors, yet in other areas the setting is approximately fourteenth century judging by technology and common worldly knowledge of characters. The setting flops about only to serve the purpose of either what this author wanted to illustrate or what setting they wanted for their conflict.

Secondly, the ethnocentrism. This is an astoundingly xenophobic and judgmental story. It is nothing short of scathing toward Southwest Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. Every single negative element of these cultures from the past thousand years come front and center with zealous fervor. The hyperbole behind these elements is so heavy handed and deliberate it honestly reads like Craig Thompson's world view is solely derived from fundamentalist chain emails and Facebook posts from Michele Bachmann's fan-page.

Thirdly, the misogyny. Misogyny is almost inescapable in many aspects of our daily lives, but rarely do we encounter it to be so endorsed and beloved than with Craig Thompson's work here. Every chance he can victimize his female protagonist sexually, he does so and he does so as enticingly as possible. Her various sexual encounters are the focus of this book more than anything, and she is always victim or object, never an actual woman. Any action she takes or avoids involves solely her sexual viability in one way or another. Invariably she is naked, or sexually presented, or raped in a glorified manner. I suspect purchasing this book as previously owned will result in several pages being stuck together.

I had initially given this book two stars up until this sentence in fact. The sentence "so why the two stars" almost came out of me when I realized my answer was going to be "but the artwork is so amazing that it earns a star and validates-"

Validates? No. No no no no no. Much like '13 Reasons Why' this book is fairly criminal. And when it comes down to it, no one who takes a bite out of a dog-shit filled Swedish pastry will say 'at least the walnuts on top were great.'

[Shuhan Rizwan · Rating 5 out of 5]

'হাবিবি' অর্থ প্রেমাস্পদ, আরবী ভাষায় লিখতে গেলে সেই শব্দটা নদীর স্রোতের মতো পুনরাবৃত্ত হতে পারে লেখকের কারসাজিতে।

সারাটা গল্প পুরাণের সাথে হাত ধরে হেঁটে, এই চিত্রোপন্যাস হাবিবি - শেষ পর্যন্ত হয়ে গেলো মানুষের ভালোবাসার গল্প।

কিন্তু এই বলে বোঝানো সম্ভব নয় সাদা-কালো ওই ছবিগুলো দিয়ে কী অদ্ভুত জগতে পাঠককে নিয়ে গেলেন ক্রেইগ থম্পসন। আব্রাহামিক ধর্মগুলোর পুরাণ, ক্যালিগ্রাফির যাদু, এমনকি পোস্টমডার্ন যুগের অ্যাপোক্যালিপ্টিক পরিবেশ বিপর্যয়; হাবিবি ছুঁয়ে ছুঁয়ে গেছে গল্পের অজস্র বুড়ি। চমৎকার একটা বই!

[Tori (InToriLex) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Find this and other Reviews at In Tori Lex

Content Warning: Rape, Drug Use, Poverty, Sexual Abuse, Genital Mutilation, Prostitution, Violence, Racist

This book broke my heart and stomped on the pieces multiple times. It was engaging and unique but also extremely problematic. Habibi means Beloved in Arabic, and the story follows Dodola and Zam through horrific hardships and pain. The journey is interspersed with stories from Christianity and Islam, using the commonalities between the two to create a hybrid story. The artwork was masterfully done but the portrayals of the people and culture of Wantolia included caricature and stereotypes of the Middle Eastern cultures this drew inspiration from. The author has acknowledged he was inspired by Orientalist artist who interpret the Middle East through a western lens which is often racist. I didn't know this book before reading it. I did enjoy the characters and story telling but wish I knew this before I decided to read it.

Dodola had to endure sexual violence over and over throughout her life. The portrayals of rape was sexualized at times and woman were usually powerless to the authority around them. The use of magical realism through images helped the author capture powerful feelings and inspire empathy. The religiously based stories bridge connections between Islam and Christianity highlighting their commonalities. However I was hoping that the stories would lead to a interconnected place. I found myself invested in the characters but was shocked by the extreme sexual violence and sterotypes that were portrayed. I did manage to finish the book and it did make me think deeply at times. But I wouldn't have read this book if I knew the author was inspired by racist views, and used inspiration from a culture to further degrade it to western readers. The only reason I gave it two stars is because I managed to finish it and enjoyed the characters.

Not Recommended for Readers who
- want to  learn about middle eastern culture
- enjoy feminists portrayals and themes
- want to support authors who approach serious topics thoughtfully

[Tatiana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gorgeously drawn, but the story itself is bloated, unfocused and occasionally melodramatic and exploitative.

[Mac · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can’t remember the last time my thoughts were divided so cleanly in half when considering a book I’d read. For every “so,” I had a “but” to countermand it. The synthesis of these opposing opinions, it seems, is a middling rating – but I wouldn’t say that it’s any sort of mediocre book.

So. The initial reaction I have, at a gut level (said gut having been conditioned by too much school and cultural theory), is to go running to find Edward Said’s ghost and show him what this guy did. How, really, is this book anything but an Arab-fetish, taking all of the most base clichés about Islam and the Middle East (and India, and Africa, etc.) and turning them into a violent, debauched narrative of gratuity and sanctimony? And how dare Craig Thompson, some kid from Wisconsin, think he could sit down and tell this story, which clearly doesn’t belong to him. The T.E. Lawrence of the graphic novel, it seems – cultural appropriation at its finest. As though a trip to Morocco and some library research makes him some kind of expert – perhaps in the same way that every preening college student comes back from his study-abroad trip with a “totally new understanding of the world, man,” but surely not enough to write a 700-page book about it. Right?

But. Why is it that we feel as though a culture can only be explored by writers who belong to that culture? Didn’t we get a little tired of only white people living in New York on “Friends” and “Seinfeld?” Aren’t we usually disappointed when a writer fails to explore the world beyond the tip of her nose? Do we need a lengthy biography every time a writer releases a book, just to make sure he or she is qualified to examine whatever it is he or she is examining? I’m not convinced this is so – can’t a writer, in good faith, create a character of a different race than herself, or a different socioeconomic background, or a different religious heritage? If, instead of Islam, this story took on Christian Gnosticism as its subject and treated its characters in largely the same way, would this internal conversation even be taking place? Isn’t it the political context of the books release date dictating much of this questioning? And is it fair to judge a work of art on anything other than its contents – particularly its author’s background and the time period in which she writes? A lot of rhetorical questions here.

So. On the other hand, it still feels a little icky. The simultaneous condemnation of and titillation by the harem, the implicit accusation of primitive simplicity in contemporary humans, the moony acceptance and nobility (noble savagery?) of the main characters as they dreamily confront their fates – it all feels contrived and dishonest: sentimental. The author is going to teach his audience something, he’s going to be the one to make us understand the way life works in a completely generalized, non-specific “Arab World.” I keep returning to the lack of authority here, but even from a Muslim writer this would feel pretty exoticized.

But. It’s a fairy tale. Fairy tales take place in exotic worlds, and this one doesn’t actually exist on a map. Plus, there’s no way a writer releases a book like this in 2011 and doesn’t have some of these things in mind – but should he? By creating this world as he has, Thompson is able to explore a great deal more than just religion – the economic tensions and contradictions at work here are obvious, and he can expose the real causes of the brutality and ugliness he describes. It’s not that he condemns Islam, he just uses a representation of its cultural and political existence to tell a story and make a point.

I think that might be the key – he uses it. This is a story about the exotic East, not of anywhere. It’s a mythological world without any specificity to it, and it’s based on myths and stereotypes that originated in the West, and therefore feels false and sentimental. I use that word again because I think it’s important: we don’t have honesty here, we have sentiment, and the lack of honesty is what makes us cringe when we see yet another sleaze in a turban or fez force himself on Dodola (the erotic renderings of these scenes don’t help). Thompson may be trying to humanize a religion, he may be trying to show the shared origins of Islam and Christianity to a world of suspicious xenophobes, but his attempts are weighed down by his insistence on sentiment and cliché, and it’s very difficult to find the honest human story that exists beneath it.

All of that is to ignore the successes of this work, which are real and impressive. The art, it goes without saying, is outstanding. The arabesques that decorate backgrounds, the visual puns and plays that he makes with the Arabic alphabet are all fascinating and beautiful. Some serious, painstaking work went into this book, and certainly a great deal of skill. I think it’s also worth commending Thompson for his ambition – while he’s playing a dangerous game, and potentially stepping on some toes, there’s ambition here that one doesn’t always find in graphic novels (I’ve read enough about twee hipsters being sad and lonely while riding buses and trains). Globalization, exploitation of all kinds, misogyny, religion: these are weighty topics, and exploring them should be encouraged. The book is well-meaning and fearless, and that’s to be commended, even if its honesty is hamstrung by cliché.

However, I can’t walk away in an entirely positive mood. In a way, Habibi has a very dark message. If we strip away the context and focus on the text, we have a story about people. And while Zam, Dodola, and a few others (Noah the fisherman, e.g.) are more or less real characters, the book is almost entirely populated by rapists, thieves, and sadists. In some ways this highlights the small kindnesses that spring up here and there – bright spots in a field of darkness, which make them all the more moving – but in a much more troubling way it sends an implicit message about the darkness itself. While Thompson’s interpretation of Koranic stories and the interweaving of them into the narrative does serve a kind of liberal-tolerant agenda of normalizing the religion that, in the early 21st century, seems to scare Americans the most, placing it against this background is a complicated move, with (what one would hope are) unintended consequences: The effect is to say, ultimately, that it is not Islam that is evil, the real problem is the people who practice it.