June 5, 2025 • 46 mins
Rewind Time! This week, we celebrate the graphic novel release of Ginseng Roots by Craig Thompson with a rewind of our chat with Craig in Season 3. Pick up the Ginseng Roots graphic novel in your local comic book store!
Why is the American agriculture story relevant to you (yes, you)? Is comic book a genre or a medium? Why should you care about where your food comes from? How does the story of an herbal root connect the US-China trade?
Kevin stumbled upon an issue in the series and got super curious - what could an American artist possibly say about Northeastern China and an herbal root best known in Chinese medicine? He ended up loving the entire series. Ginseng Roots explores class divide, agriculture, holistic healing, the 300-year-long trade relationship between China and North America, childhood labor, and the bond between two brothers.
Craig Thompson is a graphic novelist and author of Blankets; Good-bye, Chunky Rice; and Habibi. He grew up in a rural farming community in Marathon, Wisconsin, world capital of ginseng.
Follow us on Instagram & TikTok @LSPTPod
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome, Welcome to the Linen Suit and Plastic Tie podcast.
This is the podcast we want to unlock and analyze and
investigate the amazing, the epic, the awesome power of
storytelling and learn how to harness that power in our
everyday lives. I'm Goreth and I'm Kevin Kev.
I'm back home in Toronto in my childhood bedroom and I recently
(00:22):
was listening to you Armchair Expert with Adam Grant.
He did three amazing episodes. I'm listening to it as a trilogy
and he talked about this conceptof maximizer with satisfieser.
This term maximizer with satisfieser was originated by
Herbert Simon, a noble lawyer ineconomics and a cognitive
psychologist. He coined the term satisficing
in 1950s. So it's this idea that satisfies
(00:45):
A strive for good enough. Like what's going to get me to
tomorrow? What's going to keep me as much
money as I need next while maximizers look for the absolute
best. How do I make sure I go to the
best restaurant? How do I make sure I went to the
best school? So you can even hear as I speak
the anxiety in it. And it's funny because I
struggle so many maximizer tendencies and I think good
(01:07):
enough is really hard for me. You know, it's a story of what
does good enough mean, right? Good enough.
Almost feels like a cop out. And again, we are constantly
trying to build the world to maximize this, right?
That's what Google Maps reviews came from.
And some people are going to fake what's this best for me in
this moment? Some people are like, what's the
highest rated thing? I think both lifestyles are
(01:30):
pretty subjective points of view.
And to your point on what's goodenough, what is even good
sometimes, and sometimes our definition of good is also very
subjective, is a designed goal post or standard that are
defined that people buy in. And when you get enough people
(01:51):
to buy in on that story of, oh, this is good, That's how you can
build a foundation to say, what's better, what's the best,
what can I maximize? This is part of the reason I've
been reading Don Quixote as well.
You've been reading it for what?How long have you reading?
It Scott three years, three years the.
(02:13):
Mount trips, you've gone it withKevin has Don Quixote, and he's
sitting on a porch reading Don Quixote.
It's, it's reading this book as as long of a journey as the
story itself as what I have to say.
But you might remember that I said this to you once.
I really like the story because Don Quixote, he's just a man
(02:34):
trying to reach his goal. Because I think it really
depicts the story of everyone. Even though supposedly this is a
madman doing crazy things. But aren't we all chasing some
kind of fable? Is the maximization or the
(02:54):
satisfaction we're chasing objectively there or they're all
kind of made-up that our storieswe can buy into so.
It's all made-up and you know, just think about satisfies of us
maximize as well. No one is one thing, right.
Well, I think I have very extreme maximizing tendencies in
most things. There's stuff where I'm
satisfying. It's highly personal and it's a
(03:17):
spectrum, right? Sometimes you learn more this
way or that way. So it's extremely complex, but
by taking this lens and looking at these good enough,
satisfizing versus maximizing stories, you can ask yourself,
should I be maximizing this? Is it worth my time to be
maximizing? Or is good enough fine here for
(03:37):
me? I romanticize satisficing for
sure because I'm such a maximizer.
And I can see how it affects thestories I tell myself where
sometimes I have to be like, you're doing the best you can,
you're doing the best, and you're OK.
OK. My favorite once said to me,
Kevin, you know this. My favorite once said to me,
your mind sounds exhausting. And I'm like, yeah.
Yeah, I feel like you can. Besides your autobiography,
(04:01):
something else you can do authorship wise is a separate
quote books. That's just my therapist says.
My favorite says we love our quote books.
Here's a quote from Mayor Monroebefore we move on.
Never regret anything because atone time it was exactly what you
wanted. And Speaking of looking back,
(04:25):
Kev, we have something kind of interesting and special for
today. Yes, Gaurav, this is going to be
a special episode where we rewind on a great conversation
with the fascinating storytellerall the way back in season 3,
Craig Thompson, who is a comic book artist.
(04:49):
And if you are into comic books,you might have heard of Black
Kids. Blankets is in every comic book
story. It is one of the most iconic
graphic novels ever made, period.
It is something that explores the depth and the expansion of
what's possible in comic form. This is a unique medium.
There are stories you can tell in this medium that you can't
(05:11):
tell with books or movies or TV's.
Yeah, but how we got connected is actually a really interesting
story as well, because I actually discovered one of
Craig's new comic series, JensenRoots, back in 2022.
I want to say it's around the time when he started this comic
series almost as a sequel to hislife story in Plankets.
(05:36):
Jensen Roots is about Craig's upbringing, working in Wisconsin
doing the farm work as little boys with his brother.
And for me, born and raised in China, Jingseng is one of these
herbal plants that are very wellknown in Chinese medicine and I
stumbled upon his 11th issue at the time, which documented his
(06:00):
journey in northeastern China. It's also about the foundation
of the United States, the US, China, trade, relationship
between the two largest world economies, all tied to this
interesting story that you otherwise wouldn't have thought
much about. And a little earlier this year,
(06:20):
Craig has published Ginsen Rootsin the graphic novel format.
It is a beautiful design and it has all the amazing arts and the
entire series combined in here. And we're very lucky to have
received a few copies of this graphic novel.
(06:42):
And so we thought it was a greattime for us to revisit this
story, this conversation with Craig as well.
Yeah, and this is the first timeit's in video.
So yeah, if you've listened to this before, this is definitely
a fun time to revisit it becausewe are going back watching an
episode that we never intended to hit video.
(07:02):
Yep. So without further ado, let's
get back to two years ago with Craig.
Now here's Gore Ribbon Gavin. And to start off our
conversation, Craig, can you tell us a little bit about
(07:24):
yourself? What is your story?
All right, My name is Craig Thompson.
I'm a graphic novelist. I, I feel like that term is is
kind of universal Now people suddenly know what a graphic
novel is. But say 20 years ago that wasn't
pretty much a mainstream terminology.
People are very confused if you brought up that term.
But basically I do book length comic books.
(07:47):
Until recently I've only done like 304 hundred 700 page
graphic novels and more recentlyI'm doing a serialized comic
book for the first time. I grew up in middle of nowhere,
rural Midwest of America in Wisconsin and pretty isolated
upbringing. And really it's this career in
(08:09):
comics that's really extended mymy boundaries and my
relationship with the world and kind of got me out of that.
The trappings of a small town. I think you, you've built your
career in this kind of graphic, autobiographical genre of
graphic novels, right? It's a genre that people don't
often think about a media of comics because it's the medium
versus genre debate, right? When comic books is a medium,
(08:31):
it's an art form. It has so much room for so many
amazing genres like what you've worked in.
So tell us a little bit about why the autobiographical kind of
genre made sense for you. That's really hard in this space
because people like combo, that's for kids or combo, that's
superheroes, right? When I'm like, well, you just
saw a movie. How is Woods with art less like
(08:53):
intellectually stimulating that?But tell us about getting that
cook sold and the success. It had.
So with Blankets, that was a totally different era.
Again, that that came out 20 years ago and the graphic novels
really wasn't established as as a medium yet.
Of course, there had been Mouse,which to me by Arch Spiegelman
(09:14):
is still kind of the greatest graphic novel of all time.
But there was also Chris Ware's Jimmy Corrigan had come out in
the year 2000. That was three years before
Blankets, but that was serialized.
So there there wasn't this sort of thing of just all in one
swoop putting out a huge 500 page comic book.
But I was working with a really small publisher here in in
(09:36):
Portland, OR, which is where I'mliving now and I've lived most
of my career. And it was just two guys, small
company and they were doing indie comics, which is called
another niche within the niche of, of comics and and they
didn't have any money or anything.
My advance for blankets was about $300 to do a 500 page
(09:59):
book. So that's not what I was paying
the bills with. On the other hand, they didn't,
they weren't really controlling.They kind of gave me free rein
to do whatever I wanted. I knew that per my contract,
well, I just have to deliver a book and and they're going to
have to publish it. So I felt like a little, you
know, privileged to be like, well, OK, so it doesn't matter
if it's 100 page book or a 500 page book, they're going to have
(10:20):
to publish it. Blankets, of course, is huge.
It's been on all these lists. It's it's known in the industry.
I think you can pick it up and honestly, any comic books at
this point. What was that experience like
when it when you're like, oh, this is catching on and it's
something so deeply personal. What was that experience like
for you? It changed everything.
You know, I, I still don't thinkI've really recovered from that
(10:41):
whole experience. I was like a working class kid.
I hadn't gone to college, you know, I really didn't have any
real life experience. I was quite naive and sheltered.
I thought the book would never find an audience.
Like I, you know, I was like, well, even in the US, people
that grew up in urban centers going to relate to this super
(11:02):
isolated rural upbringing. People who grew up in secular
households, are they going to beable to relate to all these
religious themes? I felt like it, it was itself
very niche because it was about this very specific sheltered
childhood. But I think there ended up being
all these universal themes around first love, around
family, sibling dynamics, you know, faith and or falling from
(11:27):
faith. Those themes proved to be
universal around the world. I would say the number one
readership of blankets is probably India or maybe of my
books in general. And then after that, I mean,
after that it's a debate. But I've, I've had great success
traveling in the Middle East, South Korea, huge, huge blankets
(11:49):
like devoted fan base there. So yeah, those, those themes,
they, I guess what they say is like when you're specific, when
you try to make it as specific as possible, it becomes more
universal. You know, that's so important
too about the comic industry. I think this is one of the
things I love about this industry is I've read so many
cool niche stories. There's these stories that would
(12:12):
not have been made into movies, would not have been made into TV
shows because there's huge risks, right, to make movies, TV
shows with comic books, there's a lot less risk to get these
stories told. And that's how we had so much
amazing stuff in the non superhero genre.
Like image puts out so many coolthings, all these independent
creators. You mentioned Mouse, which is
one of the most iconic graphic novels of all time.
(12:34):
Your work. And it's one of the beautiful
things about this industry is that you can try things and you
can get niche and you can learn that.
Oh, people don't have to have gone through the exact same
experience or this doesn't have to be based on IP.
We've heard for the last 70 years for the to find an
audience and I think that's one of the most beautiful parts of
(12:54):
this industry. Yeah, and, and you mentioning
that and also the fact that the both both of you live in Los
Angeles reminds me of all the sort of Hollywood meetings I've
taken with multiple studios, really big names, directors,
producers and a thing that I hear a lot from those people.
Because I always feel very humbled in the presence of
someone who's made some epic movie.
(13:15):
And then they sort of flip it onits head and say like, no, we
have a lot of respect for you because what you did with as
just one person, you know, we'rejust part of a team of hundreds,
sometimes thousands of people. So we're not going to take the
credit for that movie because weknow we have a whole army of
people behind us. Whereas like what you do is like
one person very little resources, you know, I mean a
(13:38):
lot of time that's the main resource and and some hand pain.
Going back to blankets a little bit, because it's been 20 years
since the story came out and read around the world.
What's that experience like for you, knowing that the story has
been so popular for such a long time and looking back, are the
(13:59):
end of parts of the story where you will take a look at how you
told it back then and feel like you might have told it
differently now? Definitely.
I think every book is just sort of like a little bookmark in
that moment in my life. Like I couldn't write any one of
my books at a different time. It'd be very strange to write a
book like Blankets now as an almost 50 year old man.
(14:20):
It'd be almost creepy, I think, to be like looking back on a
high school romance and making abook about it.
But it wasn't. It was an appropriate thing to
be doing at age 23 when I was still sort of, my heart was
still caught up in some of thosethings.
Working on a project, I can onlysee the flaws.
(14:41):
The page I'm working on that dayis the page I hate the most.
Usually, like a week later I canlook at that page and be like,
it's OK, the flaws are OK. I don't.
It's out of my control now. And that experience increases as
time goes by. So once, once a book is in
print, it really feels like it'sbeen born.
It's its own entity. It's no longer a physical part
(15:01):
of me. And really it does have a life
of its own the way a child might.
You know, you don't, You don't necessarily blame a parent for
how well you do blame a parent for how the child turns out, but
certain elements that are outside of a parent's control.
And the blankets might be the little golden child in my
family, but it's it's different from me at this point.
(15:24):
You know, I'm a different person.
I couldn't couldn't write that book.
There are elements that I envy alot where I look back and I'm
like, oh, I had like a sort of creative purity at that age.
You know, it says 2325 S full oflike this creative energy and
youth. And I can see that in the pages.
So I'm grateful for that. So it sort of is a time stamp on
(15:44):
who I was as an author and person at that time.
And then there's other elements I'm sure are just completely
cringy to me. But are they cringy for the
right reason? Are they just cringy because I'm
more of a like a cynical adult at this point?
Who knows? Was there ever the temptation to
do spin offs or sequels or get into some of those side
(16:05):
characters? That's a great question because
there's been a lot of pressure over the years from publishers
and readers to do Blankets too. Basically the sequel.
Because, you know, honestly, thebooks that followed Blankets,
which are Carne de Voyage and Huppy B and Space Dumplings,
none of those books have had theimpact of Blankets.
(16:29):
So there was always this pressure to basically do a
sequel and I always resisted. I'm like, no, I don't want to
repeat myself. I don't want to exploit or ride
on the coattails of a previous success.
You know, that's I just want to reinvent myself with each
project. And this newest book, Ginseng
Roots, just sort of organically ended up being a form of a
(16:51):
sequel. And even that sort of happened
reluctantly. I wasn't going to lean into the
autobio in this new project, butas I got deeper into it, I
realized that that was the actual important story.
So I mean, maybe this is a perfect segue to talk about what
Ginseng Roots is. And previous to Ginseng Roots,
(17:12):
I've only done graphic novels, so I've only done book length
comics and I really wanted to break that cycle.
I just knew I didn't have the stamina for it.
Again, I'm like, I wanted to work in smaller bursts and get
feedback from readers much more soon.
(17:32):
Get that sort of validation maybe.
But also I wanted to reconnect with like what comic books were
to me as a kid. And as a kid they of course were
just these disposable newsstand pamphlets, you know, that came
out every month. I'm like, I want a chance to do
that. So with Ginseng Roots, yes,
write an entire script for the whole I had an outline for the
(17:55):
series and that's about it. And then I just took each issue
at a time, each chapter at a time, and released it.
The initial inspiration was to do a book about ginseng, which
is probably best known as a medicinal herb in Chinese
medicine. It's maybe wanted the plant and
(18:17):
the root itself to be the protagonist of the Ceres.
And I was going to use it as a springboard to explore a lot of
different topics. And one of those is global
trade, because ginseng is the origins of EU s s trade
relationship with China, which becomes more and more important,
you know, every year. So before this was ever a
nation, French Jesuit priests were exporting wild ginseng from
(18:41):
the New World back to China. They knew right away that this
was a lucrative herb. And then the same happened with
the American Revolution was basically funded by ginseng
sales. This newly minted country owe
this incredible debt to France. So one of the first things to
pay off that debt was shipping basically furs and ginseng to
(19:07):
China. And so origins of our country is
tied to this route. So I wanted to focus on the
route, but when I would tell people my elevator pitch, I
could see their eyes glaze over.Unless in fact, maybe they grew
up with Chinese medicine and they had more of an intimate
knowledge. But otherwise, there are people
like, oh, like ginger and I'm like, no ginseng.
And like people have this very like, I don't know, human
(19:31):
centric sort of narratives that they glom onto.
So I could tell people weren't that interested in the plant.
So then I would say, well, you know, I worked in ginseng as a
kid from ages 10 years old to 20.
I would work 40 hour weeks in mysummer working in ginseng fields
in rural Wisconsin. And then people's interest was
was piqued. They're like, wait, what?
(19:53):
Ginseng in Wisconsin and what, you were like 10 years old
working 40 hour weeks? So that's when I realized like,
oh, the personal story might be the even more important element
of this. And I started by focusing again
on my relationship with my brother because we're the ones
that did that work together. Then I learned actually from my
sister that she had a very complicated relationship with
(20:17):
the ginseng, like she got the most traumatized by ginseng of
all of us. And I must clarify that my
brother and I, I don't think we feel traumatized by ginseng.
We were very grateful for it because we were like poor
working class kids. And so working in the ginseng
gave us spending money of our own.
And I probably would not be working in comics if it wasn't
(20:38):
for that spending money. So we were getting paid a dollar
an hour to do this work. And that translated to 1 comic
book an hour for us. And so we were stoked.
You know, we saw it as oppressive as it kind of was the
last. It meant like we could buy comic
books and then later skateboardsand whatever else.
Yeah, I mean, this is a common theme we see throughout our show
(21:00):
and when we talk to storytellers, how important it
is to bring in that human element, finding a way to
connect with people. It's it's come up with so many
of our creators and our storytellers just explaining how
once they started writing, they realized, oh, we have to tell
this personal thing. It makes it more impactful.
It makes it more deep. I think it's really interesting
in your work too. Like you were talking about
(21:20):
doing a Seri Ice thing. That's a huge way of comments
started getting that immediate feedback, hearing my fans are
liking, building stuff around them, learning how they're
connecting. What was that experience like
creating this time with this book where you are getting this
immediate feedback? Tell us a little bit about
storytelling in that kind of realm versus what you've done in
the past. Like it was a little
disappointing, a little bit. It wasn't as much as I wanted
(21:43):
because along with reader feedback and and and say
critical feedback in general, I was also secretly hoping that
interview subjects would come out of the woodwork and experts
that someone might like chime inand be like, Oh, you got that
wrong. I'm actually a scientist that
does this sort of studies in this.
And then they could then end up being an element of the book
(22:08):
know if that happened. But as I say that out loud, I do
realize that some of the relationships that stemmed out
of this project, I mean, I nevercould have in my wildest dreams
thought they were going to happen.
It's interesting what sort of emerged organically through this
process. And it did help to have, like, a
couple of issues in print when Iwas going to, like, the ginseng
(22:30):
festival in my hometown and saying, this is what I'm working
on and a business card to help some people take me seriously.
Like, OK, I'll sit down with an interview with you.
Important parts of the book to me are in the middle and they're
the chapters that focus on Chua Vang, who's a Mong immigrant
farmer in my, I should clarify, his father was an immigrant and
(22:53):
he's a second generation, but he's comes from this like legacy
of first generation Mong immigrants growing ginseng.
And then also there's an issue focused on Will Sue who comes
from that with both of them a couple weeks ago.
I went back to Wisconsin two weeks ago and reconnected with
(23:16):
both Will and with Chua to just sort of like gather their
thoughts about the series as a whole.
And I talked with Will, who's one of the biggest growers in
the region. Like his family is a is a mega
grower by agricultural standards.
You'd say they were corporate farming, but they are still a
family farm. Did 2 1/2 days of interviews
(23:38):
with the other major grower in my hometown and I didn't end up
using any of that footage. And I sort of realized I had a
little bit of a bias because theother grower was was a white
farmer. And I don't think it was a
conscious thing, but somehow like the immigrant story just
(23:59):
emerged as being integral to what Ginseng Roots was.
You know, like I ended up as an author having a bias towards
that. I mean, I think Chu a Vang's
story, Will Sue's story, there was something really emotional
at the heart of their family stories.
And it was a very much a family story that I glommed onto.
But as much as it was that it was also about the immigrant
experience. So I don't know if I would have
(24:21):
predicted that that's what this book was going to be about.
I think you make a lot of great points right here and also
throughout your series, and thisconversation is a great example
of how this story is bringing people together in very
surprising ways. It just so happens that, you
know, we were in the comic book store when Issue 11 came out,
(24:43):
and that's an issue about China,about your journey there.
I didn't know what I was going to expect, but it's such
accurate depictions of what the country looked like in the vivid
details of people's lives there.And that's what intrigued me to
(25:04):
actually bind the rest of the series.
And as I read through it, there's just this consistent
feeling of surprise of your early life as a farmer.
And I think people have a perception of what America is
like as a country. What we talked about labels here
a lot on this podcast. When you think about America,
(25:25):
you think about New York or LA, Silicon Valley, advanced
technologies and all that stuff.What people don't realize
though, is America is one of theworld's top agricultural
producers. Agriculture is such a huge part
of this country and its economy,with depictions of the rural
life and farm activity in America in this very country has
(25:50):
been lacking, I think. So it's in very kind of
refreshing for me as I read through that and also finding
resonance and connections with my own cultural roots because
coming from China, you get very well educated on the
agricultural history and culture.
(26:13):
Even though I'm a city boy, I never really did far in myself.
Those are the stories I kind of resonate with because that's
what you get taught growing up. And it's very interesting for me
to see how these seemingly very distant people on opposite side
of the world can have such similar stories and, and values.
(26:35):
And I think that's really thanksto the stories you're depicting
here in Ginsen Roots. Thank you.
I mean, that's the best possiblefeedback.
I I, I could receive in and as you were talking about it, I
was, I was just thinking like, maybe I'm the only cartoonist
who grew up working in ginseng. I'm not sure.
Actually, I know I'm not the only because in in issue 7,
(26:57):
there's a an artist Dua Shaka her who also who's among
cartoonist in in the same town Igrew up in in Wisconsin that did
a story about working in ginsengas a kid too.
But we're probably the only two.But in Los Angeles, there must
be plenty of storytellers that came from small rural towns,
(27:18):
farming towns. And it it is weird that there
aren't more stories or depictions of farming life out
there. You associate it maybe with
country music and sort of right wing politics, But the first
thing that popped to mind was Minari that that that movie like
a Korean American family, that rural Midwest like Arkansas to
(27:40):
to start a farm. It reminds me a little bit of
Werner Herzog's Stroetzek. I don't know if I'm pronouncing
that properly, but famous Herzogfilm about this band of weirdos
from from Berlin or Austria. I can't remember who moves to
rural Wisconsin to pursue the American dream.
(28:03):
It'd be fun to watch those two movies back-to-back.
And I have a really hard time conjuring any movies or, or, or
great stories about farming right now.
It's weird that it's that it's, it's, it's not avoided.
It's also weird that again, it'sassociated with maybe right wing
politics and country music. Because if you look at, you
(28:25):
know, Democrats, you know, they're self-employed.
They're, you know, diverse population, you know, like
especially now, I mean, who doesfarm work?
It's immigrants as migrants, youknow, it's Mexican workers, you
know, but also the over the last100 years it's been like, you
know, Chinese workers and then, you know, Filipino and, you
know, like, so it's also the immigrant story.
(28:47):
I don't know, it is interesting that it's not a story that we
focus on more. Maybe it's not sexy enough for
cinema, but but I'd like to change that.
I think the example I've been using is Yellowstone.
That's probably the big example right now that's been really
taking up steam. It's still a little bit more
(29:07):
secessiony and mafia esque and alittle bit more fictionized, but
I think it's a huge part of the country that their story wasn't
being told. And by telling stories that
connect with them, you access this huge audience that's been
overlooked. And it's huge a storytelling.
You got to find that audience that's being underserved and
find a way to super serve. Them I agree completely.
I don't think I had that sort ofagenda though.
(29:29):
I, you know, I didn't deliberately try to figure out
in a sort of a mercenary way of like who's the untapped market
the way a Hollywood studio with would.
But. But yeah, I was feeling that
missing. And also, you write what you
know, right? I mean, I don't have a lot of
experiences, but I happen to have this very weird,
(29:52):
idiosyncratic childhood working in ginseng gardens.
I'm curious what your audience of the series has been looking
like. Did a lot of urban American
readers reach out to you? I wondered, you know, what the
urban population's reaction is to such a, you know, farming,
(30:13):
rural based story. Well, I think comic book readers
are probably primarily urban, you know, I think it's more
exciting to like get small town readers.
I've done a couple events back in near my hometown too, and I
have people who have never seen a comic book in their life and
working class people picking up a comic book because of like
(30:36):
what we were talking about earlier representation because
like, wow, this is this. We can respond, you know, like
we can relate to this. That's much more unique and
exciting to me. But I I, yeah, over over my
heart. A lot of white kids doing farm
labor in America. I was maybe the last generation,
but I think half of our agricultural labor done in
(30:58):
America is children. They just start, you know, the
children of Mexican migrants and, you know, other migrants.
So I, I think people have turneda blind eye.
Will Sue talks about it in issue9.
He's like, you know, people don't want to know where their
meat comes from. They just want to, they just
(31:19):
want that meat on their plate. Basically, we don't want to know
what happens on a farm. We don't want to know where our
food comes from. And, and that's part of the
major problem with the world toonow is like there's not a
acknowledgement of the labor andthe practices that go into the
things we consume. I mean.
(31:39):
It's and I do have a little story to tell there because I
know, yes, people tend to not beinterested in where their food
comes from. But if you're a kid growing up
in China, one of the earliest poems you get taught is actually
about where food comes from. It describes farmers, or in the
(32:01):
ancient times when they're harvesting at noon in a very hot
day. The condition is so harsh that
you have sweat literally dripping down into the soil.
And at the end of the poem, it'sa rhetorical question that asks,
do you know that every grain of rice in your meal is harvested
(32:23):
from extremely hard work? So I think, yeah, it's a very,
you know, fundamental, simple poem or, you know, almost kids
story that most if not every Chinese kid get told.
And I think that's one of the major cultural differences I
notice as I come to a different country and learn about this
(32:45):
different culture is that it's almost drilled into into your
head that you have a respect forthe farmers, the farming
population, that agriculture is such a foundation to so many of
the, you know, how how our worldis running because everybody
needs to eat. Yeah, it's super cool.
Please send me that poem like that.
(33:07):
Basically it articulates everything I've been working on
for the last few years better than I could do it.
I guess. That's profound.
Yeah. And I, I think your book is
doing that too, not just, you know, the story itself, but I
have, I've also been reading theletters at the end of its issue,
the way your story is able to, you know, connect and resonate
(33:30):
with farmers not only across theUnited States, but across the
world. I think you have letters from
the Netherlands, which you know,feels also unreal to me.
How what does that meant to you?I mean, to do these
autobiographical stories, to delve into your past, to really
think about it, to travel, to have these discussions.
(33:51):
How has that helped you deal with your past by kind of
creating an IoT out of it? Well, some.
Sometimes I refer to blankets assort of my coming out story, or
I've actually heard it describedthat way from queer readers,
that they identify with blanketsbecause for them it reflects
their own coming out story. For me, it was coming out as not
(34:16):
Christian to my very fundamentalist Christian
parents. And these autobio projects
really force me to have some awkward conversations, you know,
with family in real time, you know, that maybe I would avoid.
And it's not therapeutic. I can't say that making art is
(34:39):
necessary therapeutic therapy's therapeutic either.
There has to be some sort of long term benefit, you know,
certainly, certainly in terms of, I don't know, self-awareness
and self acceptance. Hopefully ultimately.
(35:01):
We've learned so many Great stories and insights from you
today, Craig, and to be mindful of your precious time, we have
this closing segment called Suspenders.
We ask you a fun random questionthat's unrelated to anything
whatsoever, and you can give us any answer you feel like.
OK. Question of the day is if you
(35:26):
could have a conversation with any non human species, which
species would you choose and why?
Total accident. It's.
Great. I mean, mushrooms is the first
thing that comes to mind, but I don't know if that's a generic
answer. I do think there is something to
(35:46):
to fungus being like, you know, and and the spores of fungus
maybe having to do with the origins of human consciousness.
You know, in that documentary Fantastic Fungi, there's a
theory that the sort of expansion of like the primate
brain happened from ingesting probably psychedelic mushrooms.
So I don't know. I think there probably is some
(36:07):
message that fungus is in dialogue with human
consciousness in some way. That's a pretty hippie answer
though. No, it's a great answer.
We, we love it. Thank you so much for joining
us. This was super special, super
insightful. We really appreciate you staying
(36:27):
extra time as we dealt with all the technical difficulties.
Really appreciate it. Of course, my pleasure has been
mutually like expansive for me. So thank you guys.
Welcome to Top Hat. This is the part of the episode
(36:47):
where we analyzed in the set some of the amazingly cool
storytelling lessons we got fromthis week's at Split
Storyteller. And this week we went back in
time to a previous season with aprevious guest, Craig Thompson.
Now welcome back to 2025. I hope you enjoyed watching that
episode for the first time in video.
(37:09):
You were never planning on releasing the video so even if
you listened to that episode when it came out, you just saw a
whole new lens of pre video LSPDpod.
Kev, what was it like for you? Before we get into it, going
back in time, what was it like for you watching our show from 2
years ago? Yeah, it's really special,
(37:29):
Gaurav and a lot of mixed feelings.
One, we have definitely gotten so much better at this hosting
thing. Just looking at that raw footage
back then, how we talked, how much we had to edit down versus
how we are the most recent season as host, we definitely
improved, which love to see that.
But even back then, as I re listened to the 1st edition of
(37:54):
this episode, I was surprised byhow much I learned from that
conversation all over again. And it's just this really
fulfilling feeling that when youknow you're creating something
that you yourself enjoy and believe in, it's hard to
compare. Yeah, You know, it's funny.
(38:15):
Every time we do this reflectionepisode, I'm reminded of how
much we grow every episode, right?
And I never send out our first few episodes because you can't
hear us. That's my common joke.
Like the audio is bad, the editing is bad.
We were going back and forth editing.
We were trying different mics. We've talked about how we're
recovering perfectionist, but we're doing nothing to recover,
(38:36):
right? It's going back to that thing we
were talking about where this show was a lot about
satisficing, right? This show was a lot about it's
good enough to get it out right,because if we if we maximize the
show, we would never got out thefirst episode.
But the more we did it, the better we got.
Obviously it's still a fight, but every single guest quality
(38:57):
is the same. So it's almost like we're
working hard to be worthy of thepeople we had in our first few
episodes. Yeah, absolutely.
So let's dive back into this rewind, you know, listening back
to our lessons from two years ago.
Grov, what are some of your takeaways?
You know, I'm gonna go back to something I said in the first
(39:17):
time we did this episode. Is that comic book as a medium,
right. This is so, so important to me
as a lifelong comic book reader.I mean, as I've gotten older, I
still read some of the stuff I did as a kid, but my tastes have
gotten older. I'm currently reading Saga,
which is definitely adult comic book series.
Last year I read all of the Invincible series, which is a
(39:38):
superhero thing. And this is the thing about
comic books is it is not a genre.
It is not a Kitty thing, it's not about superheroes.
It is a medium. It is just another form of
storytelling, like books are like movies are like TBR.
Yeah. And Craig's work are prime
examples to the complexity or the possibilities that the
(40:01):
medium of comic books can provide because as diverse the
fictional or superhero genres ofcomic books stories can get,
there is still a vibrant market of nonfiction, in Craig's case,
autobiography, memoir style, type of stories that are
delivered in this. Format.
(40:21):
I would think of the distinctionbetween comic books and books.
Like the distinction with film and TV 1 is not a not a subset
of the other. They bear similar elements in
the way they delivered the story, but as we said, it is a
vibrant medium that contain almost endless possibilities of
(40:44):
the types of story you can tell.And another really interesting
take away as I really listen to this conversation from Craig was
his own self doubt almost about even his most popular book
Blankets at the time. Is is this deeply personal,
(41:04):
deeply specific story that he had at the time going to connect
with a wider audience in the United States, which was vastly
different from his identity tiedto that story because it talked
about his very rural upbringing when the vast majority of comic
audience very urban. But people connected with
(41:27):
blankets nonetheless because they were still relatable themes
in his story about the coming ofage, about first love, family
relationship with faith and falling out of faith.
As he said, those are highly relatable.
And it's as Craig said, when yougo as specific as possible with
(41:47):
your story, it almost becomes universal again.
And it is through telling the deeply personal aspects of your
story, even with Jensen roots, those are the things that
connect with people, that attract the audience was
authentic and personal and true to you, which is obviously
(42:07):
something we've talked repeatedly on this show.
Yeah, I mean, again, it goes through this idea we talk about
a lot about how stories can educate, right, If there's some
obvious ways. Like, as a kid growing up in
Canada, I learned a lot about American government from The
West Wing, and a little bit moreas I got older.
From Hamilton, right? Romanticized a little bit, but.
(42:29):
Yeah, but that's how you start, right?
That's how you start to go deeper.
Exactly. And ginseng rings roots, you
learn things about trade, you learn things about the culture.
Like I'm not going to have the experience where I go to this
part of the world where ginseng is growing.
Not everyone gets that opportunity.
So through stories you learn about trade, you learn about
cultures, you learn about how this all works and even though
that's not the primary purpose, it helps people learn and that's
(42:52):
the beauty of storytelling. It's it's a way that builds
empathy with one another. And this is a deeply personal,
very specific story, but allows you to learn about all these
really big universal feelings because you can relate to that
story. You can apply it to yourself.
You can see the art, you can seethe emotions.
And we've seen this time and time again comes to mind is
(43:12):
Carrie Sun. We interviewed her since this
episode came out and Carrie Sun wrote this autobiography of her
journey through working at this big firm as an assistant.
And it's funny because we don't we don't read a lot of books
about the assistants point of view.
And she narrated herself. We listened to the audio book on
(43:33):
Spotify. I remember I was in New York a
lot for work listening to this as walking through the streets
of New York, I learned a little bit more about her story.
I was able to build more empathy.
And there's some universal elements of that that we can all
learn from. And this is the thing about
autobiographies that are so powerful.
And even if you're not going to write 1 to publish, you can look
(43:54):
back at your life as a story, asa story where you're the main
character, main character energy, and you can try to write
it to see, oh, that's why I had to go through that.
Or I'm so glad there was ups anddowns because it made my story
more interesting. And to be clear, it's really
hard to do. It requires you to sit down
right out. This is why I made this
(44:14):
decision. This is why this happened.
This is why I couldn't do this in the moment.
And that's really, really hard. But sometimes doing that, doing
that work, looking at your life as a story can help you see, oh,
that just made it more interesting.
Yeah. And even though not all of us
are going to be writers or comicartists, we are constantly
(44:35):
telling our own stories when we talk to other people and the
day-to-day conversations, big and small.
And it's important to remember that the stories you have
already are very interesting, that people will find
fascinating when you understand the value in your own story and
tell it in a compelling way. And we see this in Craig's
(45:00):
stories, in a lot of his own work.
And who knows, we might end up finding unexpected connections
with people because of the ways we connect with each other's
stories, the way we did with Craig this time.
For those of you who are deeply interested in this conversation,
(45:23):
make sure to check out Ginseng Roots Again, the graphic novel
is available wherever you can find a comic book store, so go
check it out. But.
Otherwise, Kevin. Kevin, how many did they send
us? There's actually quite a few and
there's only two of us there's. Only two of us, so I think they
sent us four. I think maybe we should give
(45:45):
away a couple. You know, let's send it out.
We're gonna give away 2 copies of Ginseng Roots to enter all
you have to do is leave a reviewand rating on Spotify and or
Apple Podcasts. You can get 2 entries if you
leave a review on both platforms.
All you have to do is once you leave the review, take a
screenshot, follow us on Instagram and send us a message.
(46:08):
So step one, leave a review on Apple Podcast and or Spotify.
Step 2 Follow us on Instagram and Step 3 send us a screenshot
and you will be entered to win. Yeah, it's a win, win, win offer
y'all. You get to enjoy amazing stories
like Craig's Jensen Roots. You help us score our show.
(46:29):
We obviously will benefit a lot from that.
And of course, we all help Craigspreading the words around about
the graphic novel. So make sure to follow us on
Instagram at LSPT Pod. Also TikTok, LinkedIn linen suit
and plastic tie. Leave a comment, leave a review
(46:49):
everywhere you listen. And subscribe on YouTube.
We're on YouTube this season. And we'll see you next time.
Thanks for listening and watching.
Welcome, Welcome to the Linen Suit and Plastic Tie podcast.
This is the podcast we want to unlock and analyze and
investigate the amazing, the epic, the awesome power of
storytelling and learn how to harness that power in our
everyday lives. I'm Goreth and I'm Kevin Kev.
I'm back home in Toronto in my childhood bedroom and I recently
(00:22):
was listening to you Armchair Expert with Adam Grant.
He did three amazing episodes. I'm listening to it as a trilogy
and he talked about this conceptof maximizer with satisfieser.
This term maximizer with satisfieser was originated by
Herbert Simon, a noble lawyer ineconomics and a cognitive
psychologist. He coined the term satisficing
in 1950s. So it's this idea that satisfies
(00:45):
A strive for good enough. Like what's going to get me to
tomorrow? What's going to keep me as much
money as I need next while maximizers look for the absolute
best. How do I make sure I go to the
best restaurant? How do I make sure I went to the
best school? So you can even hear as I speak
the anxiety in it. And it's funny because I
struggle so many maximizer tendencies and I think good
(01:07):
enough is really hard for me. You know, it's a story of what
does good enough mean, right? Good enough.
Almost feels like a cop out. And again, we are constantly
trying to build the world to maximize this, right?
That's what Google Maps reviews came from.
And some people are going to fake what's this best for me in
this moment? Some people are like, what's the
highest rated thing? I think both lifestyles are
(01:30):
pretty subjective points of view.
And to your point on what's goodenough, what is even good
sometimes, and sometimes our definition of good is also very
subjective, is a designed goal post or standard that are
defined that people buy in. And when you get enough people
(01:51):
to buy in on that story of, oh, this is good, That's how you can
build a foundation to say, what's better, what's the best,
what can I maximize? This is part of the reason I've
been reading Don Quixote as well.
You've been reading it for what?How long have you reading?
It Scott three years, three years the.
(02:13):
Mount trips, you've gone it withKevin has Don Quixote, and he's
sitting on a porch reading Don Quixote.
It's, it's reading this book as as long of a journey as the
story itself as what I have to say.
But you might remember that I said this to you once.
I really like the story because Don Quixote, he's just a man
(02:34):
trying to reach his goal. Because I think it really
depicts the story of everyone. Even though supposedly this is a
madman doing crazy things. But aren't we all chasing some
kind of fable? Is the maximization or the
(02:54):
satisfaction we're chasing objectively there or they're all
kind of made-up that our storieswe can buy into so.
It's all made-up and you know, just think about satisfies of us
maximize as well. No one is one thing, right.
Well, I think I have very extreme maximizing tendencies in
most things. There's stuff where I'm
satisfying. It's highly personal and it's a
(03:17):
spectrum, right? Sometimes you learn more this
way or that way. So it's extremely complex, but
by taking this lens and looking at these good enough,
satisfizing versus maximizing stories, you can ask yourself,
should I be maximizing this? Is it worth my time to be
maximizing? Or is good enough fine here for
(03:37):
me? I romanticize satisficing for
sure because I'm such a maximizer.
And I can see how it affects thestories I tell myself where
sometimes I have to be like, you're doing the best you can,
you're doing the best, and you're OK.
OK. My favorite once said to me,
Kevin, you know this. My favorite once said to me,
your mind sounds exhausting. And I'm like, yeah.
Yeah, I feel like you can. Besides your autobiography,
(04:01):
something else you can do authorship wise is a separate
quote books. That's just my therapist says.
My favorite says we love our quote books.
Here's a quote from Mayor Monroebefore we move on.
Never regret anything because atone time it was exactly what you
wanted. And Speaking of looking back,
(04:25):
Kev, we have something kind of interesting and special for
today. Yes, Gaurav, this is going to be
a special episode where we rewind on a great conversation
with the fascinating storytellerall the way back in season 3,
Craig Thompson, who is a comic book artist.
(04:49):
And if you are into comic books,you might have heard of Black
Kids. Blankets is in every comic book
story. It is one of the most iconic
graphic novels ever made, period.
It is something that explores the depth and the expansion of
what's possible in comic form. This is a unique medium.
There are stories you can tell in this medium that you can't
(05:11):
tell with books or movies or TV's.
Yeah, but how we got connected is actually a really interesting
story as well, because I actually discovered one of
Craig's new comic series, JensenRoots, back in 2022.
I want to say it's around the time when he started this comic
series almost as a sequel to hislife story in Plankets.
(05:36):
Jensen Roots is about Craig's upbringing, working in Wisconsin
doing the farm work as little boys with his brother.
And for me, born and raised in China, Jingseng is one of these
herbal plants that are very wellknown in Chinese medicine and I
stumbled upon his 11th issue at the time, which documented his
(06:00):
journey in northeastern China. It's also about the foundation
of the United States, the US, China, trade, relationship
between the two largest world economies, all tied to this
interesting story that you otherwise wouldn't have thought
much about. And a little earlier this year,
(06:20):
Craig has published Ginsen Rootsin the graphic novel format.
It is a beautiful design and it has all the amazing arts and the
entire series combined in here. And we're very lucky to have
received a few copies of this graphic novel.
(06:42):
And so we thought it was a greattime for us to revisit this
story, this conversation with Craig as well.
Yeah, and this is the first timeit's in video.
So yeah, if you've listened to this before, this is definitely
a fun time to revisit it becausewe are going back watching an
episode that we never intended to hit video.
(07:02):
Yep. So without further ado, let's
get back to two years ago with Craig.
Now here's Gore Ribbon Gavin. And to start off our
conversation, Craig, can you tell us a little bit about
(07:24):
yourself? What is your story?
All right, My name is Craig Thompson.
I'm a graphic novelist. I, I feel like that term is is
kind of universal Now people suddenly know what a graphic
novel is. But say 20 years ago that wasn't
pretty much a mainstream terminology.
People are very confused if you brought up that term.
But basically I do book length comic books.
(07:47):
Until recently I've only done like 304 hundred 700 page
graphic novels and more recentlyI'm doing a serialized comic
book for the first time. I grew up in middle of nowhere,
rural Midwest of America in Wisconsin and pretty isolated
upbringing. And really it's this career in
(08:09):
comics that's really extended mymy boundaries and my
relationship with the world and kind of got me out of that.
The trappings of a small town. I think you, you've built your
career in this kind of graphic, autobiographical genre of
graphic novels, right? It's a genre that people don't
often think about a media of comics because it's the medium
versus genre debate, right? When comic books is a medium,
(08:31):
it's an art form. It has so much room for so many
amazing genres like what you've worked in.
So tell us a little bit about why the autobiographical kind of
genre made sense for you. That's really hard in this space
because people like combo, that's for kids or combo, that's
superheroes, right? When I'm like, well, you just
saw a movie. How is Woods with art less like
(08:53):
intellectually stimulating that?But tell us about getting that
cook sold and the success. It had.
So with Blankets, that was a totally different era.
Again, that that came out 20 years ago and the graphic novels
really wasn't established as as a medium yet.
Of course, there had been Mouse,which to me by Arch Spiegelman
(09:14):
is still kind of the greatest graphic novel of all time.
But there was also Chris Ware's Jimmy Corrigan had come out in
the year 2000. That was three years before
Blankets, but that was serialized.
So there there wasn't this sort of thing of just all in one
swoop putting out a huge 500 page comic book.
But I was working with a really small publisher here in in
(09:36):
Portland, OR, which is where I'mliving now and I've lived most
of my career. And it was just two guys, small
company and they were doing indie comics, which is called
another niche within the niche of, of comics and and they
didn't have any money or anything.
My advance for blankets was about $300 to do a 500 page
(09:59):
book. So that's not what I was paying
the bills with. On the other hand, they didn't,
they weren't really controlling.They kind of gave me free rein
to do whatever I wanted. I knew that per my contract,
well, I just have to deliver a book and and they're going to
have to publish it. So I felt like a little, you
know, privileged to be like, well, OK, so it doesn't matter
if it's 100 page book or a 500 page book, they're going to have
(10:20):
to publish it. Blankets, of course, is huge.
It's been on all these lists. It's it's known in the industry.
I think you can pick it up and honestly, any comic books at
this point. What was that experience like
when it when you're like, oh, this is catching on and it's
something so deeply personal. What was that experience like
for you? It changed everything.
You know, I, I still don't thinkI've really recovered from that
(10:41):
whole experience. I was like a working class kid.
I hadn't gone to college, you know, I really didn't have any
real life experience. I was quite naive and sheltered.
I thought the book would never find an audience.
Like I, you know, I was like, well, even in the US, people
that grew up in urban centers going to relate to this super
(11:02):
isolated rural upbringing. People who grew up in secular
households, are they going to beable to relate to all these
religious themes? I felt like it, it was itself
very niche because it was about this very specific sheltered
childhood. But I think there ended up being
all these universal themes around first love, around
family, sibling dynamics, you know, faith and or falling from
(11:27):
faith. Those themes proved to be
universal around the world. I would say the number one
readership of blankets is probably India or maybe of my
books in general. And then after that, I mean,
after that it's a debate. But I've, I've had great success
traveling in the Middle East, South Korea, huge, huge blankets
(11:49):
like devoted fan base there. So yeah, those, those themes,
they, I guess what they say is like when you're specific, when
you try to make it as specific as possible, it becomes more
universal. You know, that's so important
too about the comic industry. I think this is one of the
things I love about this industry is I've read so many
cool niche stories. There's these stories that would
(12:12):
not have been made into movies, would not have been made into TV
shows because there's huge risks, right, to make movies, TV
shows with comic books, there's a lot less risk to get these
stories told. And that's how we had so much
amazing stuff in the non superhero genre.
Like image puts out so many coolthings, all these independent
creators. You mentioned Mouse, which is
one of the most iconic graphic novels of all time.
(12:34):
Your work. And it's one of the beautiful
things about this industry is that you can try things and you
can get niche and you can learn that.
Oh, people don't have to have gone through the exact same
experience or this doesn't have to be based on IP.
We've heard for the last 70 years for the to find an
audience and I think that's one of the most beautiful parts of
(12:54):
this industry. Yeah, and, and you mentioning
that and also the fact that the both both of you live in Los
Angeles reminds me of all the sort of Hollywood meetings I've
taken with multiple studios, really big names, directors,
producers and a thing that I hear a lot from those people.
Because I always feel very humbled in the presence of
someone who's made some epic movie.
(13:15):
And then they sort of flip it onits head and say like, no, we
have a lot of respect for you because what you did with as
just one person, you know, we'rejust part of a team of hundreds,
sometimes thousands of people. So we're not going to take the
credit for that movie because weknow we have a whole army of
people behind us. Whereas like what you do is like
one person very little resources, you know, I mean a
(13:38):
lot of time that's the main resource and and some hand pain.
Going back to blankets a little bit, because it's been 20 years
since the story came out and read around the world.
What's that experience like for you, knowing that the story has
been so popular for such a long time and looking back, are the
(13:59):
end of parts of the story where you will take a look at how you
told it back then and feel like you might have told it
differently now? Definitely.
I think every book is just sort of like a little bookmark in
that moment in my life. Like I couldn't write any one of
my books at a different time. It'd be very strange to write a
book like Blankets now as an almost 50 year old man.
(14:20):
It'd be almost creepy, I think, to be like looking back on a
high school romance and making abook about it.
But it wasn't. It was an appropriate thing to
be doing at age 23 when I was still sort of, my heart was
still caught up in some of thosethings.
Working on a project, I can onlysee the flaws.
(14:41):
The page I'm working on that dayis the page I hate the most.
Usually, like a week later I canlook at that page and be like,
it's OK, the flaws are OK. I don't.
It's out of my control now. And that experience increases as
time goes by. So once, once a book is in
print, it really feels like it'sbeen born.
It's its own entity. It's no longer a physical part
(15:01):
of me. And really it does have a life
of its own the way a child might.
You know, you don't, You don't necessarily blame a parent for
how well you do blame a parent for how the child turns out, but
certain elements that are outside of a parent's control.
And the blankets might be the little golden child in my
family, but it's it's different from me at this point.
(15:24):
You know, I'm a different person.
I couldn't couldn't write that book.
There are elements that I envy alot where I look back and I'm
like, oh, I had like a sort of creative purity at that age.
You know, it says 2325 S full oflike this creative energy and
youth. And I can see that in the pages.
So I'm grateful for that. So it sort of is a time stamp on
(15:44):
who I was as an author and person at that time.
And then there's other elements I'm sure are just completely
cringy to me. But are they cringy for the
right reason? Are they just cringy because I'm
more of a like a cynical adult at this point?
Who knows? Was there ever the temptation to
do spin offs or sequels or get into some of those side
(16:05):
characters? That's a great question because
there's been a lot of pressure over the years from publishers
and readers to do Blankets too. Basically the sequel.
Because, you know, honestly, thebooks that followed Blankets,
which are Carne de Voyage and Huppy B and Space Dumplings,
none of those books have had theimpact of Blankets.
(16:29):
So there was always this pressure to basically do a
sequel and I always resisted. I'm like, no, I don't want to
repeat myself. I don't want to exploit or ride
on the coattails of a previous success.
You know, that's I just want to reinvent myself with each
project. And this newest book, Ginseng
Roots, just sort of organically ended up being a form of a
(16:51):
sequel. And even that sort of happened
reluctantly. I wasn't going to lean into the
autobio in this new project, butas I got deeper into it, I
realized that that was the actual important story.
So I mean, maybe this is a perfect segue to talk about what
Ginseng Roots is. And previous to Ginseng Roots,
(17:12):
I've only done graphic novels, so I've only done book length
comics and I really wanted to break that cycle.
I just knew I didn't have the stamina for it.
Again, I'm like, I wanted to work in smaller bursts and get
feedback from readers much more soon.
(17:32):
Get that sort of validation maybe.
But also I wanted to reconnect with like what comic books were
to me as a kid. And as a kid they of course were
just these disposable newsstand pamphlets, you know, that came
out every month. I'm like, I want a chance to do
that. So with Ginseng Roots, yes,
write an entire script for the whole I had an outline for the
(17:55):
series and that's about it. And then I just took each issue
at a time, each chapter at a time, and released it.
The initial inspiration was to do a book about ginseng, which
is probably best known as a medicinal herb in Chinese
medicine. It's maybe wanted the plant and
(18:17):
the root itself to be the protagonist of the Ceres.
And I was going to use it as a springboard to explore a lot of
different topics. And one of those is global
trade, because ginseng is the origins of EU s s trade
relationship with China, which becomes more and more important,
you know, every year. So before this was ever a
nation, French Jesuit priests were exporting wild ginseng from
(18:41):
the New World back to China. They knew right away that this
was a lucrative herb. And then the same happened with
the American Revolution was basically funded by ginseng
sales. This newly minted country owe
this incredible debt to France. So one of the first things to
pay off that debt was shipping basically furs and ginseng to
(19:07):
China. And so origins of our country is
tied to this route. So I wanted to focus on the
route, but when I would tell people my elevator pitch, I
could see their eyes glaze over.Unless in fact, maybe they grew
up with Chinese medicine and they had more of an intimate
knowledge. But otherwise, there are people
like, oh, like ginger and I'm like, no ginseng.
And like people have this very like, I don't know, human
(19:31):
centric sort of narratives that they glom onto.
So I could tell people weren't that interested in the plant.
So then I would say, well, you know, I worked in ginseng as a
kid from ages 10 years old to 20.
I would work 40 hour weeks in mysummer working in ginseng fields
in rural Wisconsin. And then people's interest was
was piqued. They're like, wait, what?
(19:53):
Ginseng in Wisconsin and what, you were like 10 years old
working 40 hour weeks? So that's when I realized like,
oh, the personal story might be the even more important element
of this. And I started by focusing again
on my relationship with my brother because we're the ones
that did that work together. Then I learned actually from my
sister that she had a very complicated relationship with
(20:17):
the ginseng, like she got the most traumatized by ginseng of
all of us. And I must clarify that my
brother and I, I don't think we feel traumatized by ginseng.
We were very grateful for it because we were like poor
working class kids. And so working in the ginseng
gave us spending money of our own.
And I probably would not be working in comics if it wasn't
(20:38):
for that spending money. So we were getting paid a dollar
an hour to do this work. And that translated to 1 comic
book an hour for us. And so we were stoked.
You know, we saw it as oppressive as it kind of was the
last. It meant like we could buy comic
books and then later skateboardsand whatever else.
Yeah, I mean, this is a common theme we see throughout our show
(21:00):
and when we talk to storytellers, how important it
is to bring in that human element, finding a way to
connect with people. It's it's come up with so many
of our creators and our storytellers just explaining how
once they started writing, they realized, oh, we have to tell
this personal thing. It makes it more impactful.
It makes it more deep. I think it's really interesting
in your work too. Like you were talking about
(21:20):
doing a Seri Ice thing. That's a huge way of comments
started getting that immediate feedback, hearing my fans are
liking, building stuff around them, learning how they're
connecting. What was that experience like
creating this time with this book where you are getting this
immediate feedback? Tell us a little bit about
storytelling in that kind of realm versus what you've done in
the past. Like it was a little
disappointing, a little bit. It wasn't as much as I wanted
(21:43):
because along with reader feedback and and and say
critical feedback in general, I was also secretly hoping that
interview subjects would come out of the woodwork and experts
that someone might like chime inand be like, Oh, you got that
wrong. I'm actually a scientist that
does this sort of studies in this.
And then they could then end up being an element of the book
(22:08):
know if that happened. But as I say that out loud, I do
realize that some of the relationships that stemmed out
of this project, I mean, I nevercould have in my wildest dreams
thought they were going to happen.
It's interesting what sort of emerged organically through this
process. And it did help to have, like, a
couple of issues in print when Iwas going to, like, the ginseng
(22:30):
festival in my hometown and saying, this is what I'm working
on and a business card to help some people take me seriously.
Like, OK, I'll sit down with an interview with you.
Important parts of the book to me are in the middle and they're
the chapters that focus on Chua Vang, who's a Mong immigrant
farmer in my, I should clarify, his father was an immigrant and
(22:53):
he's a second generation, but he's comes from this like legacy
of first generation Mong immigrants growing ginseng.
And then also there's an issue focused on Will Sue who comes
from that with both of them a couple weeks ago.
I went back to Wisconsin two weeks ago and reconnected with
(23:16):
both Will and with Chua to just sort of like gather their
thoughts about the series as a whole.
And I talked with Will, who's one of the biggest growers in
the region. Like his family is a is a mega
grower by agricultural standards.
You'd say they were corporate farming, but they are still a
family farm. Did 2 1/2 days of interviews
(23:38):
with the other major grower in my hometown and I didn't end up
using any of that footage. And I sort of realized I had a
little bit of a bias because theother grower was was a white
farmer. And I don't think it was a
conscious thing, but somehow like the immigrant story just
(23:59):
emerged as being integral to what Ginseng Roots was.
You know, like I ended up as an author having a bias towards
that. I mean, I think Chu a Vang's
story, Will Sue's story, there was something really emotional
at the heart of their family stories.
And it was a very much a family story that I glommed onto.
But as much as it was that it was also about the immigrant
experience. So I don't know if I would have
(24:21):
predicted that that's what this book was going to be about.
I think you make a lot of great points right here and also
throughout your series, and thisconversation is a great example
of how this story is bringing people together in very
surprising ways. It just so happens that, you
know, we were in the comic book store when Issue 11 came out,
(24:43):
and that's an issue about China,about your journey there.
I didn't know what I was going to expect, but it's such
accurate depictions of what the country looked like in the vivid
details of people's lives there.And that's what intrigued me to
(25:04):
actually bind the rest of the series.
And as I read through it, there's just this consistent
feeling of surprise of your early life as a farmer.
And I think people have a perception of what America is
like as a country. What we talked about labels here
a lot on this podcast. When you think about America,
(25:25):
you think about New York or LA, Silicon Valley, advanced
technologies and all that stuff.What people don't realize
though, is America is one of theworld's top agricultural
producers. Agriculture is such a huge part
of this country and its economy,with depictions of the rural
life and farm activity in America in this very country has
(25:50):
been lacking, I think. So it's in very kind of
refreshing for me as I read through that and also finding
resonance and connections with my own cultural roots because
coming from China, you get very well educated on the
agricultural history and culture.
(26:13):
Even though I'm a city boy, I never really did far in myself.
Those are the stories I kind of resonate with because that's
what you get taught growing up. And it's very interesting for me
to see how these seemingly very distant people on opposite side
of the world can have such similar stories and, and values.
(26:35):
And I think that's really thanksto the stories you're depicting
here in Ginsen Roots. Thank you.
I mean, that's the best possiblefeedback.
I I, I could receive in and as you were talking about it, I
was, I was just thinking like, maybe I'm the only cartoonist
who grew up working in ginseng. I'm not sure.
Actually, I know I'm not the only because in in issue 7,
(26:57):
there's a an artist Dua Shaka her who also who's among
cartoonist in in the same town Igrew up in in Wisconsin that did
a story about working in ginsengas a kid too.
But we're probably the only two.But in Los Angeles, there must
be plenty of storytellers that came from small rural towns,
(27:18):
farming towns. And it it is weird that there
aren't more stories or depictions of farming life out
there. You associate it maybe with
country music and sort of right wing politics, But the first
thing that popped to mind was Minari that that that movie like
a Korean American family, that rural Midwest like Arkansas to
(27:40):
to start a farm. It reminds me a little bit of
Werner Herzog's Stroetzek. I don't know if I'm pronouncing
that properly, but famous Herzogfilm about this band of weirdos
from from Berlin or Austria. I can't remember who moves to
rural Wisconsin to pursue the American dream.
(28:03):
It'd be fun to watch those two movies back-to-back.
And I have a really hard time conjuring any movies or, or, or
great stories about farming right now.
It's weird that it's that it's, it's, it's not avoided.
It's also weird that again, it'sassociated with maybe right wing
politics and country music. Because if you look at, you
(28:25):
know, Democrats, you know, they're self-employed.
They're, you know, diverse population, you know, like
especially now, I mean, who doesfarm work?
It's immigrants as migrants, youknow, it's Mexican workers, you
know, but also the over the last100 years it's been like, you
know, Chinese workers and then, you know, Filipino and, you
know, like, so it's also the immigrant story.
(28:47):
I don't know, it is interesting that it's not a story that we
focus on more. Maybe it's not sexy enough for
cinema, but but I'd like to change that.
I think the example I've been using is Yellowstone.
That's probably the big example right now that's been really
taking up steam. It's still a little bit more
(29:07):
secessiony and mafia esque and alittle bit more fictionized, but
I think it's a huge part of the country that their story wasn't
being told. And by telling stories that
connect with them, you access this huge audience that's been
overlooked. And it's huge a storytelling.
You got to find that audience that's being underserved and
find a way to super serve. Them I agree completely.
I don't think I had that sort ofagenda though.
(29:29):
I, you know, I didn't deliberately try to figure out
in a sort of a mercenary way of like who's the untapped market
the way a Hollywood studio with would.
But. But yeah, I was feeling that
missing. And also, you write what you
know, right? I mean, I don't have a lot of
experiences, but I happen to have this very weird,
(29:52):
idiosyncratic childhood working in ginseng gardens.
I'm curious what your audience of the series has been looking
like. Did a lot of urban American
readers reach out to you? I wondered, you know, what the
urban population's reaction is to such a, you know, farming,
(30:13):
rural based story. Well, I think comic book readers
are probably primarily urban, you know, I think it's more
exciting to like get small town readers.
I've done a couple events back in near my hometown too, and I
have people who have never seen a comic book in their life and
working class people picking up a comic book because of like
(30:36):
what we were talking about earlier representation because
like, wow, this is this. We can respond, you know, like
we can relate to this. That's much more unique and
exciting to me. But I I, yeah, over over my
heart. A lot of white kids doing farm
labor in America. I was maybe the last generation,
but I think half of our agricultural labor done in
(30:58):
America is children. They just start, you know, the
children of Mexican migrants and, you know, other migrants.
So I, I think people have turneda blind eye.
Will Sue talks about it in issue9.
He's like, you know, people don't want to know where their
meat comes from. They just want to, they just
(31:19):
want that meat on their plate. Basically, we don't want to know
what happens on a farm. We don't want to know where our
food comes from. And, and that's part of the
major problem with the world toonow is like there's not a
acknowledgement of the labor andthe practices that go into the
things we consume. I mean.
(31:39):
It's and I do have a little story to tell there because I
know, yes, people tend to not beinterested in where their food
comes from. But if you're a kid growing up
in China, one of the earliest poems you get taught is actually
about where food comes from. It describes farmers, or in the
(32:01):
ancient times when they're harvesting at noon in a very hot
day. The condition is so harsh that
you have sweat literally dripping down into the soil.
And at the end of the poem, it'sa rhetorical question that asks,
do you know that every grain of rice in your meal is harvested
(32:23):
from extremely hard work? So I think, yeah, it's a very,
you know, fundamental, simple poem or, you know, almost kids
story that most if not every Chinese kid get told.
And I think that's one of the major cultural differences I
notice as I come to a different country and learn about this
(32:45):
different culture is that it's almost drilled into into your
head that you have a respect forthe farmers, the farming
population, that agriculture is such a foundation to so many of
the, you know, how how our worldis running because everybody
needs to eat. Yeah, it's super cool.
Please send me that poem like that.
(33:07):
Basically it articulates everything I've been working on
for the last few years better than I could do it.
I guess. That's profound.
Yeah. And I, I think your book is
doing that too, not just, you know, the story itself, but I
have, I've also been reading theletters at the end of its issue,
the way your story is able to, you know, connect and resonate
(33:30):
with farmers not only across theUnited States, but across the
world. I think you have letters from
the Netherlands, which you know,feels also unreal to me.
How what does that meant to you?I mean, to do these
autobiographical stories, to delve into your past, to really
think about it, to travel, to have these discussions.
(33:51):
How has that helped you deal with your past by kind of
creating an IoT out of it? Well, some.
Sometimes I refer to blankets assort of my coming out story, or
I've actually heard it describedthat way from queer readers,
that they identify with blanketsbecause for them it reflects
their own coming out story. For me, it was coming out as not
(34:16):
Christian to my very fundamentalist Christian
parents. And these autobio projects
really force me to have some awkward conversations, you know,
with family in real time, you know, that maybe I would avoid.
And it's not therapeutic. I can't say that making art is
(34:39):
necessary therapeutic therapy's therapeutic either.
There has to be some sort of long term benefit, you know,
certainly, certainly in terms of, I don't know, self-awareness
and self acceptance. Hopefully ultimately.
(35:01):
We've learned so many Great stories and insights from you
today, Craig, and to be mindful of your precious time, we have
this closing segment called Suspenders.
We ask you a fun random questionthat's unrelated to anything
whatsoever, and you can give us any answer you feel like.
OK. Question of the day is if you
(35:26):
could have a conversation with any non human species, which
species would you choose and why?
Total accident. It's.
Great. I mean, mushrooms is the first
thing that comes to mind, but I don't know if that's a generic
answer. I do think there is something to
(35:46):
to fungus being like, you know, and and the spores of fungus
maybe having to do with the origins of human consciousness.
You know, in that documentary Fantastic Fungi, there's a
theory that the sort of expansion of like the primate
brain happened from ingesting probably psychedelic mushrooms.
So I don't know. I think there probably is some
(36:07):
message that fungus is in dialogue with human
consciousness in some way. That's a pretty hippie answer
though. No, it's a great answer.
We, we love it. Thank you so much for joining
us. This was super special, super
insightful. We really appreciate you staying
(36:27):
extra time as we dealt with all the technical difficulties.
Really appreciate it. Of course, my pleasure has been
mutually like expansive for me. So thank you guys.
Welcome to Top Hat. This is the part of the episode
(36:47):
where we analyzed in the set some of the amazingly cool
storytelling lessons we got fromthis week's at Split
Storyteller. And this week we went back in
time to a previous season with aprevious guest, Craig Thompson.
Now welcome back to 2025. I hope you enjoyed watching that
episode for the first time in video.
(37:09):
You were never planning on releasing the video so even if
you listened to that episode when it came out, you just saw a
whole new lens of pre video LSPDpod.
Kev, what was it like for you? Before we get into it, going
back in time, what was it like for you watching our show from 2
years ago? Yeah, it's really special,
(37:29):
Gaurav and a lot of mixed feelings.
One, we have definitely gotten so much better at this hosting
thing. Just looking at that raw footage
back then, how we talked, how much we had to edit down versus
how we are the most recent season as host, we definitely
improved, which love to see that.
But even back then, as I re listened to the 1st edition of
(37:54):
this episode, I was surprised byhow much I learned from that
conversation all over again. And it's just this really
fulfilling feeling that when youknow you're creating something
that you yourself enjoy and believe in, it's hard to
compare. Yeah, You know, it's funny.
(38:15):
Every time we do this reflectionepisode, I'm reminded of how
much we grow every episode, right?
And I never send out our first few episodes because you can't
hear us. That's my common joke.
Like the audio is bad, the editing is bad.
We were going back and forth editing.
We were trying different mics. We've talked about how we're
recovering perfectionist, but we're doing nothing to recover,
(38:36):
right? It's going back to that thing we
were talking about where this show was a lot about
satisficing, right? This show was a lot about it's
good enough to get it out right,because if we if we maximize the
show, we would never got out thefirst episode.
But the more we did it, the better we got.
Obviously it's still a fight, but every single guest quality
(38:57):
is the same. So it's almost like we're
working hard to be worthy of thepeople we had in our first few
episodes. Yeah, absolutely.
So let's dive back into this rewind, you know, listening back
to our lessons from two years ago.
Grov, what are some of your takeaways?
You know, I'm gonna go back to something I said in the first
(39:17):
time we did this episode. Is that comic book as a medium,
right. This is so, so important to me
as a lifelong comic book reader.I mean, as I've gotten older, I
still read some of the stuff I did as a kid, but my tastes have
gotten older. I'm currently reading Saga,
which is definitely adult comic book series.
Last year I read all of the Invincible series, which is a
(39:38):
superhero thing. And this is the thing about
comic books is it is not a genre.
It is not a Kitty thing, it's not about superheroes.
It is a medium. It is just another form of
storytelling, like books are like movies are like TBR.
Yeah. And Craig's work are prime
examples to the complexity or the possibilities that the
(40:01):
medium of comic books can provide because as diverse the
fictional or superhero genres ofcomic books stories can get,
there is still a vibrant market of nonfiction, in Craig's case,
autobiography, memoir style, type of stories that are
delivered in this. Format.
(40:21):
I would think of the distinctionbetween comic books and books.
Like the distinction with film and TV 1 is not a not a subset
of the other. They bear similar elements in
the way they delivered the story, but as we said, it is a
vibrant medium that contain almost endless possibilities of
(40:44):
the types of story you can tell.And another really interesting
take away as I really listen to this conversation from Craig was
his own self doubt almost about even his most popular book
Blankets at the time. Is is this deeply personal,
(41:04):
deeply specific story that he had at the time going to connect
with a wider audience in the United States, which was vastly
different from his identity tiedto that story because it talked
about his very rural upbringing when the vast majority of comic
audience very urban. But people connected with
(41:27):
blankets nonetheless because they were still relatable themes
in his story about the coming ofage, about first love, family
relationship with faith and falling out of faith.
As he said, those are highly relatable.
And it's as Craig said, when yougo as specific as possible with
(41:47):
your story, it almost becomes universal again.
And it is through telling the deeply personal aspects of your
story, even with Jensen roots, those are the things that
connect with people, that attract the audience was
authentic and personal and true to you, which is obviously
(42:07):
something we've talked repeatedly on this show.
Yeah, I mean, again, it goes through this idea we talk about
a lot about how stories can educate, right, If there's some
obvious ways. Like, as a kid growing up in
Canada, I learned a lot about American government from The
West Wing, and a little bit moreas I got older.
From Hamilton, right? Romanticized a little bit, but.
(42:29):
Yeah, but that's how you start, right?
That's how you start to go deeper.
Exactly. And ginseng rings roots, you
learn things about trade, you learn things about the culture.
Like I'm not going to have the experience where I go to this
part of the world where ginseng is growing.
Not everyone gets that opportunity.
So through stories you learn about trade, you learn about
cultures, you learn about how this all works and even though
that's not the primary purpose, it helps people learn and that's
(42:52):
the beauty of storytelling. It's it's a way that builds
empathy with one another. And this is a deeply personal,
very specific story, but allows you to learn about all these
really big universal feelings because you can relate to that
story. You can apply it to yourself.
You can see the art, you can seethe emotions.
And we've seen this time and time again comes to mind is
(43:12):
Carrie Sun. We interviewed her since this
episode came out and Carrie Sun wrote this autobiography of her
journey through working at this big firm as an assistant.
And it's funny because we don't we don't read a lot of books
about the assistants point of view.
And she narrated herself. We listened to the audio book on
(43:33):
Spotify. I remember I was in New York a
lot for work listening to this as walking through the streets
of New York, I learned a little bit more about her story.
I was able to build more empathy.
And there's some universal elements of that that we can all
learn from. And this is the thing about
autobiographies that are so powerful.
And even if you're not going to write 1 to publish, you can look
(43:54):
back at your life as a story, asa story where you're the main
character, main character energy, and you can try to write
it to see, oh, that's why I had to go through that.
Or I'm so glad there was ups anddowns because it made my story
more interesting. And to be clear, it's really
hard to do. It requires you to sit down
right out. This is why I made this
(44:14):
decision. This is why this happened.
This is why I couldn't do this in the moment.
And that's really, really hard. But sometimes doing that, doing
that work, looking at your life as a story can help you see, oh,
that just made it more interesting.
Yeah. And even though not all of us
are going to be writers or comicartists, we are constantly
(44:35):
telling our own stories when we talk to other people and the
day-to-day conversations, big and small.
And it's important to remember that the stories you have
already are very interesting, that people will find
fascinating when you understand the value in your own story and
tell it in a compelling way. And we see this in Craig's
(45:00):
stories, in a lot of his own work.
And who knows, we might end up finding unexpected connections
with people because of the ways we connect with each other's
stories, the way we did with Craig this time.
For those of you who are deeply interested in this conversation,
(45:23):
make sure to check out Ginseng Roots Again, the graphic novel
is available wherever you can find a comic book store, so go
check it out. But.
Otherwise, Kevin. Kevin, how many did they send
us? There's actually quite a few and
there's only two of us there's. Only two of us, so I think they
sent us four. I think maybe we should give
(45:45):
away a couple. You know, let's send it out.
We're gonna give away 2 copies of Ginseng Roots to enter all
you have to do is leave a reviewand rating on Spotify and or
Apple Podcasts. You can get 2 entries if you
leave a review on both platforms.
All you have to do is once you leave the review, take a
screenshot, follow us on Instagram and send us a message.
(46:08):
So step one, leave a review on Apple Podcast and or Spotify.
Step 2 Follow us on Instagram and Step 3 send us a screenshot
and you will be entered to win. Yeah, it's a win, win, win offer
y'all. You get to enjoy amazing stories
like Craig's Jensen Roots. You help us score our show.
(46:29):
We obviously will benefit a lot from that.
And of course, we all help Craigspreading the words around about
the graphic novel. So make sure to follow us on
Instagram at LSPT Pod. Also TikTok, LinkedIn linen suit
and plastic tie. Leave a comment, leave a review
(46:49):
everywhere you listen. And subscribe on YouTube.
We're on YouTube this season. And we'll see you next time.
Thanks for listening and watching.
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