Doot Doot Garden by Craig Thompson

Doot Doot Garden by Craig Thompson was a pretty weird read for me. It amazes me that he made this entire comic in only 24 hours. The drawings don’t look like they were drawn that quickly. Thompson used line width to illustrate different moods and emotions throughout the comic. Thompson cut the book up into four different stories. The first story, Salty Yellow Rain, is about a character diving into a blank piece of paper and entering a disturbing world filled with human excrement. In this mini story Thompson used a combination of thin, controlled lines and a deluge of thick, slashing lines during more dramatic moments. The panels were made in a very organic way. The lines that separate the panels are wavy and resemble plant vines. Another short story in the book has an entirely different feel; both because of the story and the way it was drawn. Chunky Rice the Turtle Moves Away was a cute little story, about, well, a turtle moving away. He gets on a boat and sits next to an annoying redneck that talks to him for the rest of the story. The drawing style and panels are much different in this story. Most of the panels are small squares and rectangles that line up perfectly and are separated by thick, black lines. The story has a calmer and more solemn feel to it, so Thompson probably didn’t feel the need to use crazy lines and weird shaped panels. Overall, Thompson’s story telling is very random. He writes these funny little stories that end very unpredictably. To me, it seems like he ends all his stories at what should be the middle of the story. The last story in the graphic narrative is An Insect Invention. The story is about a boy who’s shown an invention by his friend. His friend runs out of candle money so he invents a way to take the juice from fireflies and use it to make a super powerful light. The story randomly ends with the firefly light burning out and the little boy having to walk home in the dark. So I guess what I’m trying to say is that the ends of Thompson’s stories are kind of a let down, but in a way it makes them some what funny.