Craig Thompson’s ‘Habibi’ Strikes A Paul Gauguin Pose

Paul Gauguin loved keeping the women in his paintings mysterious, and Craig Thompson has taken a similar approach to "Habibi," his famously anticipated graphic novel follow-up to "Blankets." 2010 is supposed to be the year that he finally wraps his new project for Pantheon Books, though, and the tale inspired by Islamic lore and Arabic calligraphy will have at least one panel descended from Gauguin's late 19th Century painting "Manao Tupapau."

"Paul Gauguin's influenced some of my drawing lately," Thompson wrote in a post on his blog at Doot Doot Garden. His examples also included a pin-up of Mike Allred characters that "Madman" and "X-Statix" fans should be able to appreciate.

Gauguin's original painting featured a young, nude Maori girl, according to The British Museum. She's framed with a dark figure in the back who probably wants to usher her into the afterlife. It's not hard to see why Thompson plucked some inspiration from the work, given his brief line of text in the "Habibi" panel. In the meantime, this tiny peek at what's said to be a 600-page bookshelf resident shows that Thompson's illustrative magic is still intact. This book's going to be on a lot of reading lists when it finally ships.

Check out a comparison of the images to their inspirations after the jump.