Career
Thompson worked briefly at Dark Horse Comics, drawing ads, logos, and toy packaging for the company while working on personal projects at night. After developing tendinitis, Thompson left Dark Horse and devoted his time to his own work.
His debut graphic novel was the semi-autobiographical Good-bye, Chunky Rice (1999), which was inspired by his move to Portland and "cute cartoony stuff" from his childhood such as the work of Jim Henson, Dr. Seuss, and Tim Burton. As a result of Chunky Rice, Thompson won a 2000 Harvey Award for Best New Talent and received a 2000 Ignatz Award nomination for Outstanding Artist. Thompson followed Chunky Rice with the mini-comics Bible Doodles (2000) and Doot Doot Garden (2001).
In late 1999, Thompson began work on a 600-page autobiographical graphic novel Blankets, which was published three and a half years later in 2003 to critical acclaim. Time magazine named Blankets its #1 graphic novel for 2003, and Thompson won two 2004 Eisner Awards, for Best Graphic Album-New and Best Writer/Artist, three Harvey Awards, for Best Artist, Best Cartoonist, and Best Graphic Album of Original Work, and two Ignatz Awards, for Outstanding Graphic Novel or Collection and Outstanding Artist.
Thompson said that he believes Blankets was a success because he was "reacting against all of the over-the-top, explosive action genre I also didn’t want to do anything cynical and nihilistic, which is the standard for a lot of alternative comics." As a result of Blankets, he rose quickly to the top ranks of American cartoonists in both popularity and critical esteem. Pulitzer Prize-winning comic artist Art Spiegelman sent him a long letter of praise for Blankets, and in mock-jealousy, Eddie Campbell expressed a temptation to break Thompson's fingers. Despite the praise, the book, which was Thompson's way of coming out to his parents about no longer being a Christian, resulted in tension between him and his parents for a couple of years after they read it.
Thompson followed Blankets with 2004's travelogue Carnet de Voyage, which received Ignatz Award nominations for Outstanding Graphic Novel and Outstanding Artist. He also contributed numerous short works to Nickelodeon Magazine, as "Craigory Thompson."
In 2007, Thompson created the artwork for the Menomena album Friend and Foe, which was released on January 23 from Barsuk Records. Thompson's design received a Grammy nomination for Best Recording Package, to which he responded, "I wanna get it! I think it would be very funny to be a cartoonist with a Grammy...if nothing else it helps bring attention to the band."
In late 2004, Thompson began working on Habibi, a graphic novel published by Pantheon Books, in September 2011. The book is influenced by Arabic calligraphy and Islamic mythology: "I'm playing with Islam in the same way I was playing with Christianity in Blankets," as he said in a 2005 interview. The book was praised by Time magazine, Elle magazine, Financial Times, Salon, The Independent, NPR, The Millions, Graphic Novel Reporter, and The Harvard Crimson. Other reviewers, such as Michael Faber of The Guardian, and a six-person roundtable discussion of the book conducted by Charles Hatfield of The Comics Journal, while lauding the quality of Thompson's visuals and his use of various Eastern motifs, narrative parallels and intertwining plots and subplots, had negative reactions to the book's length, or the degree of sexual cruelty inflicted upon the main characters.
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