GINSENG ROOTS (2019)
Four years in the making, the exact duration required to bring the prized crop to harvest, Ginseng Roots reaches its finale. Craig drives across the country for his parents' 50th wedding anniversary and wrestles with the ghosts of his childhood. His mother dreams of the Christian Rapture, his father sleeps in a barn with Mexican migrants, Phil imbibes ginseng moonshine, and farmers leave the ginseng industry to grow marijuana instead. This double-length issue sprawls across rural Wisconsin, reflecting on aging parents, changing America, and where to find a sense of belonging.
Phil joins Craig during a book tour in South Korea, through Seoul and Bucheon, then extending to a research journey in rural Geumsan, the epicenter of Korean ginseng cultivation. Geumsan is the sister city to Marathon, the brothers' tiny American town, but with a deep thousand-year history of art, mythology, and cuisine surrounding the medicinal root. While there, the brothers sort out how Craig's paralyzing writer's block and Phil's marital strain are tangled up in their working-class childhood.
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Artist
Craig ThompsonAll Issues
Reading Order
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Ginseng Roots #1
"From ages 10 to 20, Craig Thompson (the author of Blankets) and his little brother Phil, toiled in Wisconsin farms. ...
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Ginseng Roots #2
"Craig Thompson returns home, into the heart of rural Wisconsin, to the former global capital of ginseng cultivation....
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Ginseng Roots #3
"Ginseng Roots unearths the earliest recorded knowledge of ginseng and its healing properties. From the mythic figure...
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Ginseng Roots #4
"Craig unearths the geological origins of the Ginseng-friendly Wisconsin soil, gets a grimy, back-breaking, and lucra...
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Ginseng Roots #5
"The fifth issue flows along the 'crimson creek' of America's history with ginseng: from the Native people's uses of ...
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Ginseng Roots #6
"The stratification, planting, and growth cycles of the ginseng seed parallel the seasons of childhood. Ginseng berri...
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Ginseng Roots #7
"The seventh issue of Craig Thompson's Ginseng Roots follows the story of a family of Hmong immigrants that may have ...
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Ginseng Roots #8
A young Hmong boy sacrifices his childhood, his education, and his future dreams to help out in the family ginseng ga...
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Ginseng Roots #9
Phil joins Craig during a book tour in South Korea, through Seoul and Bucheon, then extending to a research journey i...
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Ginseng Roots #10
Phil joins Craig during a book tour in South Korea, through Seoul and Bucheon, then extending to a research journey i...
- Ginseng Roots #11 (Of 12)
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Ginseng Roots #12 (Of 12)
Four years in the making, the exact duration required to bring the prized crop to harvest, Ginseng Roots reaches its ...
Publication Timeline
October 09, 2019
Issue #1 in the GINSENG ROOTS (2019) run.
November 13, 2019
Issue #2 in the GINSENG ROOTS (2019) run.
January 29, 2020
Issue #3 in the GINSENG ROOTS (2019) run.
June 10, 2020
Issue #4 in the GINSENG ROOTS (2019) run.
July 08, 2020
Issue #5 in the GINSENG ROOTS (2019) run.
August 26, 2020
Issue #6 in the GINSENG ROOTS (2019) run.
November 18, 2020
Issue #7 in the GINSENG ROOTS (2019) run.
February 10, 2021
Issue #8 in the GINSENG ROOTS (2019) run.
November 10, 2021
Issue #9 in the GINSENG ROOTS (2019) run.
August 24, 2022
Issue #10 in the GINSENG ROOTS (2019) run.
December 21, 2022
Issue #11 in the GINSENG ROOTS (2019) run.
October 11, 2023
Issue #12 in the GINSENG ROOTS (2019) run.