I’m excited about comics as a medium again. It’s still going to be a graphic novel but I want to use the constraint as the structure. As I was struggling with how to structure this new book, I realized that I want to do it as a comic book. We live in this era over-saturated with media and images and there’s something really pure about the 24-32 page comic book to me now. Now I’m sick of graphic novels and the pretension around them and the prohibitive cost and space they consume. When I did Blankets I was really pushing against comic book store culture and collector mentality and serial comics. I haven’t signed a contract yet, but the plan is to serialize it as a comic book. I am still secretive about it, but I’ll probably be ready to announce it this fall. You mentioned those two books you’re at some stage with, but what are you working on now? In an interview with Alex Dueben for The Comics Journal earlier this year, Thompson spoke about why he wanted to shift away from graphic novels for this project:

Comics in turn, allowed us to escape our rural, working class trappings.”

“Weeding and harvesting GINSENG-an exotic medicinal herb that fetched huge profits in China-funded our youthful obsession with comic books. “For a decade of our childhood, Phil and I toiled in Wisconsin farms,” Thompson wrote on his blog. But now the creator is turning his attention to “the form of the medium that imprinted itself on me and my little brother, Phil, as children.”Ĭoming next spring from Uncivilized Books is Ginseng Roots, a bi-monthly comic book about the creator and his brother growing up in Wisconsin. Craig Thompson is best known for his long-form graphic novels, including Blankets, Habibi and other titles that regularly appear on year-end “best of” lists.

Craig thompson books