Habibi

• Illustration — Craig Thompson sketches Dodola in a copy of the book during an appearance at Midtown Comics in Manhattan, on September 20, 2011, its release date. Douglas Wolk of Time magazine called the book "as grand and sustained a performance as any cartoonist has published... and that every mark on the page can be a prayer". Lisa Shea of Elle magazine wrote, "Thompson is the Charles Dickens of the genre... [and] Habibi is a masterpiece that surely is one of a kind". Neel Mukherjee of Financial Times observed that the book was "executed with enormous empathy and something that in earlier times would have been called divine inspiration." Laura Miller of Salon stated, "a big, rousing, unabashedly tear-jerking Dumas novel, with fascinatingly intricate designs and fabulous tales on almost every page." Inbali Iserles of The Independent predicted that "The book is destined to become an instant classic, confirming the author's position among not only the most masterful of graphic novelists but our finest contemporary writers, regardless of medium." Glen Weldon of NPR commented, "Of all the books I've read this year, the mysterious, marvelous Habibi is the one I most look forward to meeting again." Jacob Lambert of The Millions called the book "The Greatest Story Ever Drawn." John Hogan of the Graphic Novel Reporter commented, "I don't usually look at books in-depth here in the introduction to the newsletter, but I have to make an exception in the case of Habibi", and proceeded to call Habibi "easily the best graphic novel of the year, and probably the decade...This is a work that truly changes the game and sets a new standard for all the graphic novels that follow it." Michel Faber of The Guardian praised Habibi as "an orgy of art for its own sake", and called Thompson an "obsessive sketcher" whose artwork he categorized with that of Joe Sacco and Will Eisner. Although Faber lauded the book's visuals and its message, he found its length wearisome and its treatment of sex to be problematic, in particular the repeated sexual cruelty visited upon Dodola, which Faber felt caused the story to fold in on itself. Natalie du P.C. Panno, writing for The Harvard Crimson, called Habibi "exquisite", seeing Thompson's use of Arabic calligraphy and geometric designs as a third dimension that, when added to the familiar graphic novel languages of image and text, broadened the possibilities for expression, perhaps more so for readers who do not know what it means, and must be guided in its interpretation. du P.C. Panno also praised the sensitivity with which Thompson executed his portrayal of Orientalist tropes, particular by the end of the book. Charles Hatfield of The Comics Journal conducted a round table discussion of the book featuring himself, Hayley Campbell, Chris Mautner, Tom Hart, Katie Haegele, and Joe McCulloch. Most of the panelists applauded Thompson's visual storytelling, calling it "gorgeous", "mind-altering", "lavish", and singling out elements such as Thompson's use of false light, and the "poignant" image of the wooden ship in the desert. More than one panelist compared Thompson's artwork positively to that of Will Eisner, in particular the fisherman from the story's final act. Also praised was the use of Arabic calligraphy and numerology, the intertwining of Biblical and Koranic vignettes as subplots with the main story, the scripting of Dodola's challenge to "turn water into gold", and the parallels between motifs such as chapter numbers and their content, and between the river and blood. Hatfield thought the book's range of themes, from environmentalism to anti-Islamophobia, to thinly veiled allegories about water rights, racism, pollution, slavery and rape made the book "way too big for elegance". By contrast, Mautner in particular thought Habibi was a smoother read than Blankets, which he felt featured too many subplots. Hart and McCullough agreed that Thompson's tendency to delineate every little detail with such obviousness left little to the reader's imagination or interpretation. The most recurrent complaint was with the book's bleak outlook on life and humanity, and the sexual cruelties inflicted upon the characters, which some of the reviewers thought was excessive, in particular Hatfield and Haegele, who felt that Thompson was condemning such atrocities while simultaneously luxuriating in them. Haegele did not care for the depiction of black characters in the book, finding them comparable to racial caricatures, and calling them "inappropriate" and "disgusting", and pointed to the "cornball" humor in these scenes in particular, and throughout the book in general. Both Hart and Haegele also pointed to palace slave African Hyacinth's use of black American vernacular as implausible. Campbell partially disagreed, saying that much of the humor was carefully used to defuse scenes of tension, singling out the flatulent palace dwarf and the fisherman, which others mentioned they enjoyed as well. Robyn Creswell of The New York Times called the book "a mess", and "a work of fantasy about being ashamed of one's fantasies", an anxiety that he attributed to American comics produced by white males in general, pointing to elements in Habibi that recall the work of R. Crumb in particular. Echoing some of the Comics Journal round table's complaints, Creswell found fault with the book's depictions of racism and sexism, and its apparent exoticization of the Muslim world without differentiating between fact and fantasy, saying, "It's often hard to tell whether Thompson is making fun of Orientalism or indulging in it...Thompson the illustrator is...apparently unable to think of Dodola without disrobing her...it is a conventional sort of virtuosity, in the service of a conventional exoticism." Nadim Damluji of The Hooded Utilitarian called the book "an imperfect attempt to humanize Arabs for an American audience", taking issue with Thompson's ignorance of the Arabic language, his depiction of Arab culture as "cultural appropriation", and the revelation in the later chapters of a modern, Westernized city in proximity to a primitive harem palace typified by sexual slavery. Though Damluji expressed awe of Thompson's technical skill, found his artwork "stunning", and the ideas derived from his research "fascinating", Damluji observed that Dodola and Zam are given depth by contrasting them against "a cast of extremely dehumanized Arabs" and summarized the work thus: "Habibi is a success on many levels, but it also contains elements that are strikingly problematic...The artistic playground [Thompson] chose of barbaric Arabs devoid of history but not savagery is a well-trod environment in Western literature....The problem in making something knowingly racist is that the final product can still be read as racist." On November 5, 2019, the BBC News included Habibi on its 100 most influential novels.