{"id":32828,"date":"2025-05-09T16:16:17","date_gmt":"2025-05-09T16:16:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=32828"},"modified":"2025-05-10T12:45:55","modified_gmt":"2025-05-10T12:45:55","slug":"ginseng-roots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2025\/05\/09\/ginseng-roots\/","title":{"rendered":"Ginseng Roots"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nBy Craig Thompson<\/strong> (Faber)
\nISBN: 978-0-571-38661-1 (HB)<\/p>\n

This is one of those reviews where I try quite hard not to say too much about the content, because it\u2019s a sin and a form of theft to deprive readers of the joy of it unfolding just for them. You could and should just go buy this now and save time, but if I can\u2019t convince you of that here, please read on and think again… <\/em><\/p>\n

In no way a sequel to his landmark masterpiece Blankets<\/strong> but every inch and ounce as compelling, engaging and important, Ginseng Roots<\/strong> sees auteur Craig Thompson return to what you or I would deem an incredibly harsh – nigh-dystopian – childhood to craft another incredibly engaging paean of love and fond wonder to his home, his family and his extraordinary life.<\/p>\n

In a book encompassing biographical revelation, philosophical rumination and religious re-exploration we see the auteur share incredibly candid events from his profession and career. Wrapped up in a most engaging, amusing and occasionally distressing tutorial on the history and global cultural significance of Ginseng, we see Thompson return to Wisconsin. The Thompson kids were raised in a fundamentalist Christian household, with the Rapture anticipated any day now, but it wasn\u2019t all bad. They were loved, if ruled hard, and here we see how that panned out, as well as the transformative power of comics via a broad, deep and astonishingly informative yarn viewed through the ruminative lens of the Thompson family\u2019s recollections of being child labourers for local farmers growing American Ginseng in the 1980s.
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\nThe way it all worked is unpicked with remarkable even-handedness, as the man who became a major force in his field of graphic narrative expression revisits those formative days before embarking on a quest to learn all he can of the How and Why of it all. This involves returning home before ultimately crisscrossing the world with little brother Phil<\/em> to research a new graphic novel undertaken in the light of potentially losing all he could be to an inexorable physical decline: one destined to take away his self-defining ability to draw…<\/p>\n

When first released in July 2003, Blankets<\/strong> started slowly before achieving monumental international fame and near-unanimous critical approval from comics\u2019 Great & Good & Fabled. If you have a favourite author or artist they probably loved the book – and rightly so.<\/p>\n

Taking 3\u00bd years to create, Blankets<\/strong> won 3 Harvey Awards, 2 Eisners, 2 Ignatz Awards and a France\u2019s Prix de la Critique<\/em>. Translated into French, Italian, Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese, Greek, German, Norwegian, Danish, Dutch, Czech, Polish, Korean, Hungarian, Slovenian, Estonian, Serbian and Greek, it was latterly published in 17 foreign editions (so far) and kept on winning glittering prizes and acclaim. It\u2019s also won a YALSA Popular Paperback for Young Adults<\/em> prize: listed as one of Entertainment Weekly<\/strong>\u2019s Top Ten Graphic Novels of All Time. You can expect Ginseng Roots<\/strong> to do as well or better, even if young love and tragic foredoomed passions have been downplayed in favour of the inexorable march of time, unsatisfied injustices, midlife crises and failing faculties.<\/p>\n

Reading this, you will learn all about a wonder herb, global trade, Chinese medicine, Big Agriculture & pesticides, many flavours of immigrant workers, exploitation and corporate ruthlessness, the economic history of many nations, the narcotic tendencies of comic books of grade school kids, and so much about human nature, that you\u2019ll probably laugh, cry and get angry quite a lot…<\/p>\n

Originally released in serialised instalments by Uncivilized Book (between 2019 -2023, as Covid ravaged the US and the world) just as Craig Thompson was confronting presumed career burnout, impostor syndrome and the loss of his ability to draw, the fascinating pictorial discourse is divided into 12 chapters beginning with \u2018Real Ginseng Runs\u2019<\/em>, as Craig, Phil and their sister Sarah reunite at the parental homestead and trade tales of the old days. The reminiscences blend with flashback and flashforwards in \u2018Sister Species\u2019<\/em> as the story of Ginseng from America expands, with \u2018Broad Stripes\u2019 <\/em>covering the history of Wisconsin – especially the region around Marathon – and growth of Ginseng trading: its use by First Nations before colonisation, white\/French and Christian exploitation after that, and eventually an unshakeable connection to Asian nations that bought it from Wisconsin\u2019s farmers and entrenched rivalry with its clearly inferior Canadian competition…
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\nInterviews with old friends and former employers begins in \u2018Rock(s) & Roll(ie)\u2019<\/em>, augmented by modern convolutions in \u2018MAGGA\u2019<\/em> (Make American Ginseng Great Again!) and \u2018Good Seed Sinks\u2019<\/em>, before Craig\u2019s declining health is more extensively explored in \u2018No More Cartoons\u2019<\/em>. This leads to a vast expansion of purpose that culminates in fact finding missions all over \u201cthe orient\u201d and the undertaking of a major literary project as expanded upon in \u2018Father Abraham\u2019<\/em>, \u2018Dark Night of the Soil\u2019<\/em> and \u2018Insam Respects\u2019<\/em>, before all that global and historical interconnection is pulled together as one big \u2018Red Thread\u2019<\/em>, and laid to bed in grand \u2018Agricultural Appreciation\u2019<\/em>…
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\nSo much better read than read about, this marvellously moving memoir and ruminatory treatise is backed up with full contextual \u2018Notes\u2019<\/em>, genuinely evocative \u2018Acknowledgments\u2019<\/em> and bonus art from the little brother\/willing accomplice and henchman on a \u2018Phil(er) Page\u2019 <\/em>and closes with an extended cartoon ad for Craig\u2019s other books – debut tome Good-bye Chunky Rice<\/strong>, Blankets<\/strong>, Carnet de voyage<\/strong>, Habibi<\/strong> and Space Dumplins<\/strong>. You should sample them too and Faber has them all in print for just that purpose.<\/p>\n

Loving, informatively wistful and never angry or condemnatory, for such a weighty tome, Ginseng Roots<\/strong> is a remarkably quick and easy read, with Thompson\u2019s imaginative and ingenious marriage of text and images carrying one along in the way only comics can. Expect his cartoon avatar of the root to be pinched and copied by ad men for some time to come…<\/p>\n

Charming, engrossing and irresistible, this may well be Thompson\u2019s best and most enduring book, but if fate and Ginseng will it, not his last as it is another perfect story in pictures.
\nThis edition \u00a9 2025 by Craig Thompson. All rights reserved. Originally serialised by Uncivilized Books \u00a9 2019, 2021, 2021, 2022, 2023 by Craig Thompson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Craig Thompson (Faber) ISBN: 978-0-571-38661-1 (HB) This is one of those reviews where I try quite hard not to say too much about the content, because it\u2019s a sin and a form of theft to deprive readers of the joy of it unfolding just for them. You could and should just go buy this … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Ginseng Roots”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[262,239,104,348,122,125,216,170,343,230],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anthropomorphic","category-drama","category-graphic-autobiography","category-health-2","category-historical","category-humour","category-lifestyle","category-non-fiction","category-reportage","category-travelogue"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-8xu","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32828"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32837,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32828\/revisions\/32837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}