The "idea" of Blankets

In Writing for Comics, Alan Moore defines what he calls “the idea” that of a graphic narrative as follows:

The idea is what the story is about; not the plot of the story, or the unfolding of events within that story, but what the story is essentially about. As an example from my own work. I would cite issue #40 of Swamp Thing, “The Curse”. This story was about the difficulties endured by women in masculine societies, using the common taboo of menstruation as the central motif. This was not the plot of the story—the plot concerned a young married woman moving into a new home built upon the site of an old Indian lodge and finding herself possessed by the dominating spirit that still resided there, turning her into a form of werewolf. . . . Most comic books have plots in which the sole concern is the struggle between two or more antagonists. The resolution of the struggle, usually involving some deux machine display of a superpower, is the resolution of the plot as well. Beyond the most vague and pointless banality like “Good will always triumph over evil” there is not real central idea in the majority of comics, other than the idea of conflict as interesting in itself.
    
Naturally, the idea needn’t always be a deep, meaningful and significant one. There are lots of different kinds of ideas, ranging from the “What if. . . ?" ideas that lie behind most science-fiction writing to the idea of everyday life as seen in the work of Harvey Pekar or Eddie Campbell. “What if . . ." ideas are the basis for most short science-fiction stories of the “future shock” variety, examples from my own work being short five-page items like “The Reversible Man” (What if people perceived time as running the opposite way?), “A Place in the Sun” (What if it were possible for human beings to live on the sun?”) or “Grawks Bearing Gifts” (What if a group of coarse and vulgar aliens did to our society what our society did to the Red Indians and other aboriginal tribes?). The nature of the idea isn’t really important, what is important is simply that there is an idea in there somewhere. It can be silly and frivolous, perhaps just a single gag idea, or it can be complex and profound. The only thing that the idea should definitely be is interesting on some level or another – whether as a brief entertainment designed to hold the attention for five minutes or a lengthier and more thoughtful work intended to engage the mind long after the comic has been put down. (7)

By the start of class on Tuesday, please read pp. 1–9 of Moore’s Writing for Comics (on Blackboard, in the Content folder), finish reading Blankets, and then share with me via Google Drive a 300–500-word response to the following: What do you believe is the main idea of Blankets? Be sure to support your claim be analyzing a panel, page, or 2-page spread from chapters VII–IX, using the terms and concepts we’ve been discussing in class.