Contract With God and Blankets

Eisner's graphic novel Contract with God, is about the life of a Jewish man who had a relationship with god through a "contract" written on a rock, and because of that, devoted his life to doing good. When his daughter passed, however, the character believed that God did not follow up with the contract, and eventually the character threw the contract away in an alley. The character grows up, and after throwing the contract away, become a cold and brutal person. He eventually tries to form another contact with God, but gets a heart attack and dies.
Thompson's graphic novel Blankets, takes us through the life of two brothers and the difficulty of childhood.

Both Eisner and Thompson develop their characters thoroughly through developing the story for the character, and allowing the reader to see their past experiences. In Contract with God, the readers follow the main character as he grows up from a child, to an adult. We see that as a child, everyone would say that God would reward him and that he was chosen by God. We develop an impression of the character before the main plot hits. Thompson does something similar as well. Before we get the main story, we learn a little bit about the character in the beginning. In Blankets, we first learn about the characters through a bed scene and them arguing. After that, we are taken back to experiences the older brother experiences, and we gain an impression of that character through him growing up.