Cartoonist Craig Thompson joins the show to chat about his comics career and life before diving into his upcoming graphic novel, Ginseng Roots. Thompson discusses his journeys as a creator, the people he meets, his comics connection, his lean towards black and white, his relationship with Blankets, how memoir work changes relationships, the Space Dumplins experience, how projects affect one another, the roots of Ginseng Roots, figuring out what to include in memoir work, the story’s serialization, comic rhythms, how he thinks of comics, the color and challenges of the book, the physical act of making comics, how making comics has changed how he sees the world, and more.

You can find Thompson’s work in the upcoming Ginseng Roots from Pantheon Books.

You can download the episode directly here on Libsyn.

Big thanks to Deanna Chapman for editing this episode, as per usual.

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Thanks to the sponsor of this week’s podcast: Zoop! Launching this month on Zoop are campaigns from Ron Marz with the late, great Lee Moder, for a deluxe edition of their Image comic, Shinku, as well as another special edition of “Haunted Girl” by Ethan Sacks and others! And there is still time to support campaigns by Stephane Roux, Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez and more. And for those who are fans of Zenescope Comics, Zoop GAMES and Zenescope have a live campaign for “Grimm Fairy Tales: Unbound,” the deckbuilding game over on Kickstarter. For fans of trading cards, deckbuilding games, and more, there are tons of exclusives for this campaign that you won’t want to miss. Zoop would like to thank all the creators who have recently submitted projects, and urge all creators to submit your project to Zoop! Click the “Submit Your Project” link at Zoop.gg, as they are providing services to even more creators than ever before!

Thanks to the show’s other sponsor, Oni Press! Oni Press presents a monstrous new milestone in the immortal legacy of the one and only EC Comics with Blood Type #1 this June! Crawling out of the pages of EC’s best-selling anthology Epitaphs from the Abyss, Hugo Award-nominated writer Corinna Bechko and superstar artist Andrea Sorrentino are biting deep for EC’s first-ever standalone horror series! Meet Ada, an immortal vampire who has just washed ashore on a tropical island paradise teeming with wealthy tourists and superstitious locals – the perfect getaway for a cunning bloodsucker with nothing left to lose. But as Ada stalks the boundaries of her new hunting ground, she’ll soon become embroiled in a deadly game of cat and mouse by moonlight . . . as an older, wiser, and entirely different kind of monster reveals that this island is already spoken for. Who will survive when this brand-new kind of BLOOD TYPE decides a vampire is the perfect prey? Pre-order with your local comics retailer by May 19th – and look for BLOOD TYPE #1 in comic shops everywhere June 11th, only from Oni Press and EC Comics.

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Have a question for Off Panel? You can reach David by email or Bluesky.

Header photo is from Thompson’s cover to Ginseng Roots. Off Panel’s opening theme music is Vulfpeck’s “Outro,” used with permission from the band (and thanks from me for them doing so!), with the rest of the music being an original track by custom music agency Upright T-Rex Music, written and performed specifically for the podcast. A huge thanks to Ross and Cody from Upright T-Rex Music for putting the track together!