Best Comic of the Week:
Ginseng Roots #8 – Since Craig Thompson started this series, which explores his childhood helping farm ginseng, but also stretches like the fine tendrils of a root, into all sorts of other things, I’ve been impressed with this book. This issue is particularly touching, as Thompson gives it over to Chua, the Hmong farmer we met in the last issue, and his story. Last time, we saw how Chua’s childhood contrasted with Craig’s, and now we see what adulthood has been like for him, as he followed his father into the industry. Chua’s father passed about five years ago, and the loss has been huge for Chua and the local Hmong community. Parallel to this is the continued shrinking of ginseng in the region, as farming it becomes ever more difficult and expensive at the same time that it becomes ever harder to find people willing to put in the long hard hours the root requires. There’s an elegiac quality to this whole series, but especially to this issue, which comes out at a time when so many are adjusting to loss on a global scale. I love this series for the love that Thompson brings to it.