Page 45 Review by Stephen
Autobiographical excellence!
I'm already a third of the way in, spellbound by its craft, its narrative and its history, both personal - very revealing - and geographical, agricultural.
Every single page is thrillingly thoughtfully yet organically composed from cleverly integrated, often floating panels, all coloured to perfection in several shades of earthy ginseng! Oh my god, the landscapes!
THIS is my idea of autobiographical comics heaven: not repetitive, boxed panel after nigh-identical panel, plodding along from A to C at a pedestrian pace, but living, breathing arrangements, juggled on the page to enchanting, musical, mesmerising effects entirely apposite to each specific extended annecdote, flashback or fascinating parenthetical aside.
(Some are brought alive by the odd additional, comical aside of an anthropomorphised ginseng root. Which again is perfect, for have we not anthropomorphised this specific 'man-herb' for millenia? We have!)
Too many comics constrain themselves to the rules of prose (this sentence follows that), thoughtlessly, needlessly, when panels can instead be held aloft, integrated artfully, rise like fountains, tumble like waves or roll like contours in the countryside.
In this sweeping autobiographical work I have already learned loads about Craig Thompson's childhood - and so many like his - plus his comics career (creation, reception and disruption which make the very existence of this book a minor miracle), but also the waxing and waning of commercial markets (not just ginseng's), vertical integration or diversification, and changing attitudes to manual labour which has been headline news for a decade.
The publisher writes:
'Beautiful.' ROLLING STONE
'A masterpiece.' JOE SACCO
"From the celebrated author of Blankets and Habibi comes a long-awaited new graphic memoir. Ginseng Roots follows Craig and his siblings, who spent the summers of their youth weeding and harvesting rows of coveted American ginseng on rural Wisconsin farms. Following an injury, Craig rediscovers this herb, central to Chinese medicine, and embarks on an extraordinary journey from his midwestern roots to north-east China.
Suffused in a vibrant earthy palette, Ginseng Roots masterfully blends memoir, travelogue and cultural history to explore and illuminate ideas of creativity, doubt, healing and family."
