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Best Fantagraphics Comics & Graphic Novels

My Favorite Thing Is Monsters
When Karen’s investigation takes us back to Anka’s life in Nazi Germany, the reader discovers how the personal, the political, the past, and the present converge. Growing up in Chicago in the 1960s, 10-year-old Karen Reyes investigates the suspicious death of her glamorous neighbor and finds troubling clues lurking close to her own home. “This extraordinary book has instantly rocketed Ferris into the graphic novel elite alongside Art Spiegelman, Alison Bechdel and Chris Ware. “An ambitious, emotional, beautifully illustrated exploration of a 10-year-old girl’s experience growing up late ’60s Chicago, My Favorite Thing Is Monsters is an astounding debut, weaving an intricate web of plot threads that keeps the reader compelled from beginning to end.”. - The A.V. Ferris’s artwork bullies and commands the reader’s attention, each page bringing her to the brink of exhaustion because the struggle between art and words is so great, and the whole is so sensorially overwhelming.”. - The Los Angeles Review of Books.
Reviews
"But that difficulty heightens the reading experience--you really feel like you're INSIDE our MC Karen's head (this is formatted as her journal, of sorts). The lined pages in conjunction with the art style can make reading the text portions of this book more difficult at times, but it's completely worth it. We follow her in werewolf girl form as she investigates the apparent suicide of a woman in her apartment building, who she believes was actually murdered. I can't remember the last time I finished a book and IMMEDIATELY started rereading it, but My Favorite Thing is Monsters is just that good."
"Spectacular illustrations cover almost every inch of this huge volume, all printed on lined three-hole paper emulating the illustrated diary of the ten-year-old protagonist, a tough and beleaguered tomboy on the rough streets of 1960's Chicago. Ferris's illustrations also show an abiding love not just for horror movies (and particularly for our mutual Universal monster favorite, the Wolf Man) but for the great horror magazines of the 1960's from CREEPY and FAMOUS MONSTERS though the gory WEIRD and TERROR TALES varieties."
"Terrific graphic novel."
"Omygawd .... what a beautifully illustrated book."
"LOVE this book!!!"
"This book is absolutely incredible."
"The detail is amazing."
"I just started reading it, but love it already."
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The Complete Peanuts: 1999-2000 and Comics & Stories Gift Box Set (Vol. 25 & 26) (The Complete Peanuts)
This Peanuts box set collects volumes 25 and 26 of one of the world's most popular newspaper comic strips, complete with a slipcase and available at a bargain price. His destiny was foreshadowed when an uncle gave him, at the age of two days, the nickname Sparky (after the racehorse Spark Plug in the newspaper strip Barney Google).In his senior year in high school, his mother noticed an ad in a local newspaper for a correspondence school, Federal Schools (later called Art Instruction Schools). Between 1948 and 1950, he succeeded in selling 17 cartoons to the Saturday Evening Post―as well as, to the local St. Paul Pioneer Press, a weekly comic feature called Li'l Folks.
Reviews
"I've always loved Peanuts, and here is a collection that gives you every single number in one place for the years covered."
"I've been collecting the Complete Peanuts series since it first came out in 2004, and I am so happy to see the series complete."
"The strips often have a bittersweet tone and surrealistic or visual gags like Snoopy rounding up Schroeder's music notes and Spike (who I love) is often in wistful scenes with his cactus or walking a tumbleweed like a pet dog.The quality of the drawing is first class and though I love the drawing in all eras of Peanuts there is a particularly fluent use of line and the strips are a fraction busier than in its earliest days. One of the last strips is classic Schulz with Charlie Brown confessing that he wouldn't know what to do if he ever received a longed for love letter. The main volume is completed by a set of Li'l Folks cartoons from before Peanuts and these are good rather than great but they did set the scene and helped develop the themes Schulz used so brilliantly in Peanuts."
"Starting with 1999, the final full year of Peanuts, where the cast consists of Charlie Brown, Sally, Snoopy, Woodstock, Lucy, Linus, Rerun, Peppermint Patty, Marcie, Schroeder, Franklin, Spike, the unnamed girl in Rerun's kindergarten, and additional birds Conrad, Bill, and Olivier, a cameo by Pig-Pen (what else? The second half of the volume turns fully around to the very beginning, before the "Peanuts" strip itself, to Schulz's panel feature, "Li'l Folks", that appeared Sundays in the Women's section of the St. Paul Pioneer Press from 1947 to early 1950. For the record, it contains all 17 of Schulz's non-Peanuts, but mostly similar (akin to "Li'l Folks"), cartoons from the Saturday Evening Post from 1948 to 1950; and the rest Peanuts content that includes comic book sequences Schulz drew for Dell in the late '50s; illustrations for an instructional book for Kodak's Brownie camera from 1955; comics advertising the Ford Falcon from 1960 to 1964; single-panel ads for Butternut Bread from the mid-'60s; a "cold cereal recipe" and drawing from 1983; a twelve-panel "strip" sequence from the December 1958 issue of Better Homes and Gardens that was a lead-in to the regular Sunday strip of December 21, 1958 (also included, for reference) -- the beginning of Linus's troubles memorizing lines for Christmas plays; "Charlie Brown's Christmas Stocking" from the December 1963 Good Housekeeping; "A Christmas Story" from the December 1968 Woman's Day; drawings for the Program for the Bing Crosby Pro-Am golf tournament and other things golf-related from the 1960s onward; spot drawings featuring Snoopy; and the reproduced contents of the books "Snoopy and the Red Baron" (a bestseller from 1966), "Snoopy and His Sopwith Camel", "Snoopy and 'It was a Dark and Stormy Night'", "'I Never Promised You an Apple Orchard' The Collected Writings of Snoopy", "Things I Learned After It Was Too Late (And Other Minor Truths)", "Things I've Had to Learn Over and Over and Over (Plus a Few Minor Discoveries)", "Snoopy's Grand Slam" (non-strip-reprint portions), "Snoopy's Tennis Book" (ditto), and, though it isn't mentioned, likewise from "An Educated Slice", although it should be noted that its coverage for this title is incomplete -- it has 28 drawings from the book, but omits five others. The end portion of the volume is a 24-page memoir of Schulz by his widow, Jean, with illustrations of Charlie Brown (and one of Snoopy) from a "biographical" section from the beginning of the 1970 book "Charlie Brown & Charlie Schulz". The Dell comic book content starts with three 4-page stories Schulz created as a "support feature" for three issues of Dell's "Nancy" comic books, based on the comic strip by Ernie Bushmiller. After the "Nancy" material, we get to a comic book series known collectively as "Four Color", which rotated its featured content among many different titles from issue to issue, displaying the name of its content as the magazine's title. The series first featured "Peanuts" with issue #878 (and it was here, BTW that we have the origin of the "Peanuts" logo that has prominently re-emerged in recent years, as with "The Peanuts Movie"), but in that case, aside from the cover drawn by Schulz, all the rest of its content was by Jim Sasseville, Schulz's assistant on his second comic strip of that period, "It's Only a Game". It was Sasseville who had done most of the "Nancy" series Peanuts stories in that period (all but the three by Schulz). The space that remains after the three stories, on page 33, is filled in with Sasseville's page from the outside back cover, not a Schulz page. The volume cites Sasseville to affirm the Schulz content from "Four Color #969" and the earlier "Nancy" issues, but upon completion of Four Color #969, Schulz and Sasseville parted company, so he is not able to speak to anything that came later. As it happens, the third of the "Four Color" issues, #1015, also features content by Schulz himself, all missing from this volume. And it is HERE in "#1015" that we see Schulz's actual origin of the trope of Linus patting birds on the head, in the issue's first 8-page story, three years before Schulz incorporated it into the "strip proper" in 1962. One other note, concerning "Snoopy and 'It was a Dark and Stormy Night'", is that its included "cover" of the "novel" itself (page 154), in-story "by Lucy", is not by Schulz, but instead by Mark Knowland, whose acknowledgement they fail to include."
"The touching farewell of Schulz and the sweet manner of ending forever new stories from the master creator was so to speak a bitter end for us all."
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The Complete Peanuts 1950-1952 (Vol. 1) (The Complete Peanuts)
This first volume, covering the first two and a quarter years of the strip, will be of particular fascination to Peanuts aficionados worldwide: Although there have been literally hundreds of Peanuts books published, many of the strips from the series' first two or three years have never been collected before―in large part because they showed a young Schulz working out the kinks in his new strip and include some characterizations and designs that are quite different from the cast we're all familiar with. From the start, Schulz had some of the ground rules in place: the ensemble cast whose faces appeared only in profile or three-quarter views, the sophisticated language from the mouths of babes and the absence of visible adults from their world. All the characters show hints of the personalities they'll grow into, and Schulz's clean, magisterially expressive line falls into position by the end of the strip's second year.
Reviews
"People don't seem to know that the original comic strips looked pretty different from how we've come to know charlie brown and the gang. BOTTOM LINE: Charlie Brown and the gang were not always quite a wise in these first two years, but they're still spectacular."
"In addition to the first two years of the comic, there is some interesting supplemental material -- a biographical essay and an interview with Schulz, both of which help shed light on him and his amazing career."
"Before Charlie Brown developed into the lovable loser, and before Snoopy and Woodstock took over the strip, this collection of the first two years is an excellent compilation of PEANUTS."
"What's more, there is an excellent introduction by Garrison Keillor, a summary of Schulz's life by David Michaelis, who would go on to write the definitive Schulz biography, and a lengthy interview with the great cartoonist himself."
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Best Mystery Graphic Novels

Watchmen
This edition of WATCHMEN, the groundbreaking series from Alan Moore, the award-winning writer of V FOR VENDETTA and BATMAN: THE KILLING JOKE, and Dave Gibbons, the artist of GREEN LANTERN, features the high-quality, recolored pages found in WATCHMEN: THE ABSOLUTE EDITION with sketches, never-before-seen extra bonus materials and a new introduction by Dave Gibbons. He is also the mastermind behind the America's Best Comics line, through which he has created (along with many talented illustrators) THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN, PROMETHEA, TOM STRONG, TOMORROW STORIES and TOP TEN.
Reviews
"When I say this beautiful edition I knew I had to have it."
"On the other hand, this is the Watchmen."
"There are already many reviews of this book and mine will live in the forest, but this book is truly monumental."
"This is one of the most intense and surprising books that you can ever read."
"This book reveals a flaw of humans that appears over and over through out history, our capability to act amorally as long as it meets our own selfish plans."
"I'm too young to personally remember the effect Watchmen had on the comic genre, but my brother was in middle school at the time of its release, and when he saw me reading the book recently he said the reaction to it back then was, "Like, holy cow." Moore's V for Vendetta was certainly a great book, but this one is so far ahead of its predecessor in terms of complexity, detail, and psychological depth it makes V look like, well, a comic book. The book's overarching plot expertly exploits the fear and paranoia of the Cold War era, along with any society's ever-present tensions between order and liberty, as an apparent scheme to knock off former costumed crimefighters (The Watchmen of the book's title) intersects with escalating hostilities between the U.S. and the Soviet Union as the threat of nuclear holocaust hangs eternally overhead. Watchmen doesn't just show a guy sitting at a newsstand reading a chilling comic called The Black Freighter; it overlays passges from the book into the main narrative and throws in a biography of its creator for good measure."
"This is a graphic novel that everyone needs to read."
"My son absolutely LOVES this book and keeps trying to convince me (mom) to read it and if it wasn't for how small the font size is, I just might have."
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Best DC Comics & Graphic Novels

Watchmen
This edition of WATCHMEN, the groundbreaking series from Alan Moore, the award-winning writer of V FOR VENDETTA and BATMAN: THE KILLING JOKE, and Dave Gibbons, the artist of GREEN LANTERN, features the high-quality, recolored pages found in WATCHMEN: THE ABSOLUTE EDITION with sketches, never-before-seen extra bonus materials and a new introduction by Dave Gibbons. Possibly only Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns , but Watchmen remains the critics' favorite. Because Moore is a better writer, and Watchmen a more complex and dark and literate creation than Miller's fantastic, subversive take on the Batman myth. Moore, renowned for many other of the genre's finest creations ( Saga of the Swamp Thing , V for Vendetta , and From Hell , with Eddie Campbell) first put out Watchmen in 12 issues for DC in 1986-87. The artwork of Gibbons (best known for 2000AD's Rogue Trooper and DC's Green Lantern) is very fine too, echoing Moore's paranoid mood perfectly throughout. Packed with symbolism, some of the overlying themes (arms control, nuclear threat, vigilantes) have dated but the intelligent social and political commentary, the structure of the story itself, its intertextuality (chapters appended with excerpts from other "works" and "studies" on Moore's characters, or with excerpts from another comic book being read by a child within the story), the finepace of the writing and its humanity mean that Watchmen more than stands up--it keeps its crown as the best the genre has yet produced. So I redid the storyboards as three pages of comic on the nine-panel grid, also getting it coloured by John Higgins so it looked authentic. Q: In Watchmen: The Art of the Film , there are concept designs by other artists of their visions of your iconic characters. What was it like looking through this book at all the characters you had conceived years ago now being brought to life by actors? DG: It’s rather interesting; you know if you look at the Watching the Watchmen book you can see these characters as fairly sketchy rough conceptual versions. Then when you look at Clay’s book you can actually see them right down to counting the number of pores on the skin on the end of their noses! Q: Watchmen: The Film Companion features some stills from the animated version of The Black Freighter . DG: I was on the set of Watchmen for a couple of days and it really was surreal to walk through a door and then suddenly be in the presence of all these people in living breathing flesh!
Reviews
"In the early 90's, when the Wall came down, when it seemed like the West had won, had outlasted the Evil Empire - which collapsed from within due to the endemic rot deep within the Communist ideology. In early 2002, still stunned and disoriented by the cultural shock of Sept 11, I sensed the stirrings of illiberal mobacracy : first, behind closed doors, then, spilling out into the media (FOX News & MSNBC are little more than hateful mirror images of each other), next out into the open: mindless anti-war protests. "Blood for Oil" is so silly that it hardly justifies analysis of its nonsensical premise; likewise, the irrational hate spewed toward Muslims was a predictable demonization of the Other. Conversely, the "Resistance" is so blinded by the Emperor's crude antics that they miss the cultural rot beneath their feet."
"When I say this beautiful edition I knew I had to have it."
"On the other hand, this is the Watchmen."
"There are already many reviews of this book and mine will live in the forest, but this book is truly monumental."
"This is one of the most intense and surprising books that you can ever read."
"This book reveals a flaw of humans that appears over and over through out history, our capability to act amorally as long as it meets our own selfish plans."
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Best Image Comics & Graphic Novels

The Walking Dead: Compendium Three
Rick Grimes’ dream of rebuilding civilization is tested as the people of Alexandria come into contact with other communities that have developed their own methods of survival.
Reviews
"The artwork is phenomenal, and the inclusion of additional covers, sketches, and other drawings at the end is a welcomed finish."
"You can buy one compendium for much cheaper than it would cost to get the 50 individual issues that comprise it."
"The characters for the most part look and act very different from their television counterparts, and things move at a very fast pace. The pages are beautiful and glossy (remember: it's ALL in black and white), the artwork is nicely done, and it really keeps your attention. The show is great at turning these lively, fun and interesting caricatures into real people. The producers of the show have made it clear that they "switch things up" to keep viewers guessing, so reading this book does NOT mean you'll necessarily be spoiled."
"I was instantly engaged; I couldn't not reserve time to watch this very realistic post-apocalyptic show on AMC that I fell completely in love with either. Needless to say, I called Amazon and they were more than reluctant to help me :) to either refund me the price or send me a new Walking Dead Compendium, I ended up doing an exchange and I have no further complaints regarding this replacement copy!"
"Just gives another reason to buy another copy!"
"The Walking Dead, Vol 22, A New Beginning by Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard, Stefano Gaudiano, Cliff Rathburn – This is another interesting and gripping installment in this terrific graphic-novel series about human survivors struggling to live in a world of flesh-eaters."
"Now, quite a few of the reviews said that there was a problem with the ink in the middle of the book, but mine seems to be in perfect condition."
"I have always enjoyed the comic and will look forward to reading the other volumes."
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Best Marvel Comics & Graphic Novels

Hulk: Planet Hulk (Incredible Hulk (1999-2007))
Collecting Incredible Hulk Vol. Monsters and heroes... and the Incredible Hulk!
Reviews
"I picked this up actually thinking it was the future imperfect story line but quickly learned it was not."
"If you loved the cartoon this is worth a read!"
"After I finished I got World War Hulk because I wanted more."
"This e-comic anthology is complete including minor related stories."
"Fun read - collection of the Planet Hulk comics...no wonder he was "ticked" when he made it back to Earth."
"Great story line."
"This is a must read for those who like dark stories."
"I may have built the hype up in my mind before reading Planet Hulk and I was extremely disappointed in the story as a whole."
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Best Dark Horse Comics & Graphic Novels

The Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Historia
Look for the sequels to The Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Historia , with The Legend of Zelda: Art & Artifacts and the upcoming Legend of Zelda Encyclopedia due out April 24th 2018. He is the series producer and manager of The Legend of Zelda and won the Golden Joystick Awards’ Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016.
Reviews
"Here is a list of the main sections in the book, where I will explain what may be expected in each and review it: The Legend Begins: The World of Skyward Sword. This is the first major section in the book, where you will find a great deal of interesting concept art and also small notes on each character/location written by some of the game's creators, which are actually very insightful, and sometimes quite amusing. Yes, this section does take up a large part of the book, and rightfully so; this book was released as a celebration of the 25th Anniversary, and, by extent, the release of Skyward Sword, which was, at the time, the newest Zelda game. This may annoy some fans, but it should be kept in mind that Skyward Sword is not just another new Zelda game, but also the "origin story" of the Zelda universe. Naturally this wonderful game would get a lot of love and attention, and any true Zelda fan should be able to understand that to celebrate Skyward Sword is to celebrate the origin of the beloved series and every other game in it. The History of Hyrule: A Chronology. This is probably the thing that people purchasing the book will be the most interested in, as it is an actual list on the official chronological order of the different Zelda games, according to Hyrule's historical events. All of the core games in the series up until Skyward Sword are included here; however, all of the spin-offs (e.g., Link's Crossbow Training), the two Satellaview games, Soulcalibur 2, and, thankfully, the awful CDi games, are not listed here. Furthermore, it gives some details about the first legend of Zelda game and Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link that the original games could not provide, such as the story of what happened just before the game began that set Link on his adventures. As is stated by Akira Himekawa in the back of the Hyrule Historia book, this was also to celebrate the release of Skyward Sword and tell a story connected to the game that would complete the "very first Zelda tale" (Skyward Sword). If you are worried that this story may disappoint you, don't be; I am a huge Zelda fan and adore all of the core games in the series, but this story still holds an extremely special place in my heart, perhaps even slightly above any Zelda game I have ever played (and I've played them all); it's that good. The name Hyrule Historia is not intended to imply that the book is mostly about the development of past games, or the history of the series as it has evolved over the years, although it does provide some of that; the name refers to the chronological history of Hyrule that is shown in the book, with all of the events talked about and shown in Skyward Sword being at the beginning of that timeline."
"The opening letter from Shigeru Miyamoto sets a wonderful, celebratory tone for the rest of the book. The first third of the book, entitled "The Legend Begins: The World of Skyward Sword" is devoted to said title, the most recently released Zelda game we all played and loved. It's filled to the brim with the concept and official art that inspired Skyward's Sword brilliant aesthetic style. As one who views Skyward Sword as one of the most beautiful and brilliantly inspired video games ever made in terms of its art design and visuals, this is just fine with me. There's tons here, including a lot of really interesting ideas for characters that didn't make it into the game, like a floating Fi in a massive suit of armor or Zelda designs that are decidedly more elegant and fancy. There's also a good amount of location art that is simply gorgeous and really captures your imagination, just like the settings in the game did. What is even better about this section is the following 70 or so pages that actually chronicles, in great detail, the events of each timeline in chronological order. Sprinkled liberally through all of this are nice screenshots and art, as well as fascinating tidbits, like boxes that fully decipher the various Hylian/Hyrulean dialect text that appear in the games. This section closes with a very nice letter from Eiji Aonuma, arguably the second most important man behind the Legend of Zelda, after Shigeru Miyamoto of course. The lay-outs are nice, the printing quality is vibrantly beautiful and sharp as a tack, and the pages are crisp and clean. The binding is also high quality, which is important because this is a big book that would fall apart relatively quickly if it wasn't bound well. There are few games that capture the sense of beauty, imagination, and adventure like the Legend of Zelda effortlessly does with each and every release."
"The cover looks and feels very nice, and the book is much larger and heavier than I expected, which was a pleasant surprise. The book actually exceeded my expectations, and I was very, very pleased as a huge Zelda fan."
"As a Zelda fan it's wonderful to have a physical book of all game events (from 1986=2011), concept images and developer interviews."
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Best Viz Publisher Comics & Graphic Novels

Lum: Urusei Yatsura- Perfect Collection
Rumiko Takahashi's first serialized manga series, Urusei Yatsura, was originally published in Weekly Shonen Sunday in 1978.
Reviews
"This Manga was a very entertaining read!"
"I don't think that you can stress the importance of Rumiko Takahashi's Urusei Yatsura (which translates to Those Obnoxious Aliens)manga and its anime TV and film adaptations enough when talking about the history of the medium. The Urusei Yatsura manga was released in the very early 90's in two series, Lum and The Return of Lum, by Viz. The series didn't really take off, and Viz only translated a tiny fraction of the total Urusei Yatsura series, which originally ran in Japan for nearly a decade. This is some of Takahashi's earliest work on a long series, and the stories presented are really not the best Urusei Yatsura would have to offer, but the writing improves quickly and even by the middle of this collection, there is marked improvement over the first few chapters."
"Fans of Rumiko Takahashi's other titles will certainly see parallels between this and her later work; UY is a good introduction to Takahashi's manga in general and is a must-read for fans of her other series."
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Best Drawn & Quarterly Comic & Graphic Novels

Blankets
Craig Thompson's poignant graphic memoir plays out against the backdrop of a Midwestern winterscape: finely-hewn linework draws together a portrait of small town life, a rigorously fundamentalist Christian childhood, and a lonely, emotionally mixed-up adolescence. Thompson himself is the protagonist, and this is his tale of growing up, falling in love (and realizing the physical and moral complications that can imply), discovering the texture and limits of his faith, and arriving at a point from which he can look back at those experiences. The snowy Midwest, peopled by overweight parents, hairy youths, and lovingly depicted younger siblings-including a respectfully and realistically treated minor character with Down syndrome-is energetically realized in Thompson's expressive lines and inking.
Reviews
"The book is under the classification of graphic novel..and many of these books aren't novels at all they are nonfiction..memoirs really; like Blankets is."
"The story begins with Thompson's childhood in a family where literal and rigid justification for biblical tenets leads him to constant questioning and guilt."
"I love it when a book really captures the feel of childhood and the thoughts of those undergoing a transition to adulthood. But ultimately the truth would come in to focus and things would fall apart as the fairy tale bends at the seams. The illustrations are exquisitely drawn and fluidly blend with the narration to create something so much greater than the sum of the parts."
"For the most part, I feel as if graphic novels have done a good job of feeding into the stereotype of all nerds actually being incredibly sarcastic with tendencies to mouth off in front of any and all authority figures."
"Thompson's previous book, 1999's GOODBYE, CHUNKY RICE dealt with similar subjects, but on a much smaller scale and in a more allegorical, cartoony style. Actually, the 2000 Top Shelf Small Batch book, BIBLE DOODLES (now out of print, but well worth tracking down) had more of the swooping richness that defines BLANKETS. Where some cartoonists would use (and have used) sexual child abuse as the sole theme of a book, Thompson merely uses it (in only a handful of pages) as one of many defining elements of a complex adolescence. His lush brush strokes, swirling sense of design, masterful characterization and peerless pacing make BLANKETS a completely sensual experience."
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