Graphic novelist Craig Thompson talks about hippie Jesus, the Quran, mean evangelicals, and family strife in this great Mother Jones interview, I recommend even if you think comic books and graphic novels just aren't your "thing."

Thompson's new book, Habibi is 672 pages and out this week. It sounds fantastic:

"... a richly rendered love story set in a fictional Middle-East that's simultaneously modern and medieval. The author weaves the adventures of his slave-child protagonists with tales from the Bible and the Koran, numerology, and themes of imperial debauchery and environmental degradation. "I wanted to do a book that was bigger than myself, either something sort of fantastical and epic like Lord of the Rings or something with political relevance, like Joe Sacco's documentary work," says Thompson, who is now 36 and living in Portland, Oregon. "So I think those two modes met somewhere in the middle: a social-political fairy tale."