Virtual Memories Show 636:
Craig Thompson
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“I’m not that interested in what I can just see or know; I’m much more obsessed with the mysterious and the things that I don’t know how to communicate or understand.”
Artist Craig Thompson joins the show at long last to celebrate his new book, GINSENG ROOTS: A Memoir (Pantheon). We talk about how he spent 10 summers of his childhood helping farm ginseng, how that herb connects rural Wisconsin with China and South Korea, how he balanced history, journalism, economics, and memoir in the pages of his book, and why he chose to make Ginseng Roots as a serial comic rather than a standalone book and how that affected his creative process. We get into how the book serves as a sort of midlife revision of his breakthrough book, Blankets, how the last chapter of the book had to happen in near-real-time, how a degenerative condition in his hands became a unifying theme to the book while almost derailing it, how he found the design language of the book and obsessed over a two-color process (to amazing results), and whether this is his swansong for comics (spoiler: it’s not!). We also discuss what home means to him, 8 months into being on the road, what it was like discovering that he had a global audience, his ongoing relationship with his evangelical Christian upbringing, his editor’s concerns that Ginseng Roots could open him up to accusations of cultural insensitivity (and how he got over it), all while geeking out over our fave cartoonists from the ’90s indy period (go, Dylan Horrocks!), and more. Give it a listen! And go read GINSENG ROOTS!
“There were moments in the flow of the book where I didn’t know wha the next issue would be, so it took time to figure it out.”
“I miss the days when you’d walk into a comic shop with 20 bucks and come out with 6 books.”
“My parents are the children of their parents, who are the children of their parents, and you start to see this long, long thread of how trauma manifested in them, and how it manifested in you.”
“After this book tour, I’ll have to face the question of where I’m supposed to live, and I don’t have a clue right now. I’ll take suggestions.”
Enjoy the conversation! Then check out the archives for more great episodes!
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About our Guest
Craig Thompson is a cartoonist and the author of the award-winning books Blankets, Carnet de Voyage, Good-bye Chunky Rice, and Habibi. He was born in Michigan in 1975 and grew up in a rural farming community in central Wisconsin. His graphic novel Blankets has won numerous awards, including the Eisner, Harvey and Ignatz Awards, and has been published in nearly twenty languages. His new book is Ginseng Roots: A Memoir.
Follow Craig on Instagram.
Credits: This episode’s music is Fella by Hal Mayforth, used with permission from the artist. The conversation was recorded at a friend’s NYC apartment on a pair of Blue enCORE 200 microphones feeding into a Zoom PodTrak P4 digital recorder & interface. I recorded the intro and outro on a Heil PR-40 Dynamic Studio Recording Microphone feeding into a Zoom PodTrak P4. All processing and editing done in Adobe Audition CC. Photo of Craig by Adam Arnold, who designed the jacket; 1st selfie by me, 2nd by Craig. It’s on my instagram.