When Blankets first published in 2003, Craig Thompson's seminal memoir about first love and faith lost in rural Wisconsin debuted to rapturous acclaim. The winner of two Eisner and three Harvey Awards, it is to this day considered one of the all-time great works of graphic storytelling. Now, in Craig's long-awaited return to the autobiographical form, comes the story that Blankets left out.

Ginseng Roots follows Craig and his siblings, who spent the summers of their youth weeding and harvesting rows of coveted American ginseng on rural Wisconsin farms for one dollar an hour. In his trademark breathtaking pen-and-ink work, Craig interweaves this lost youth with the 300-year-old history of the global ginseng trade and the many lives it has tied together—from ginseng hunters in ancient China, to industrial farmers and migrant harvesters in the American Midwest, to his own family still grappling with the aftershocks of the bitter past.

Stretching from Marathon, Wisconsin, to Northeast China, Ginseng Roots charts the rise of industrial agriculture, the decline of American labor, and the search for a sense of home in a rapidly changing world.

This book covers topics from Cherokee chiefs to womanless weddings. The follow-up to the critically acclaimed collection ""Southern Manhood: Perspectives on Masculinity in the Old South"" (Georgia, 2004), ""Southern Masculinity"" explores the contours of southern male identity from Reconstruction to the present. Twelve case studies document the changing definitions of southern masculine identity as understood in conjunction with identities based on race, gender, age, sexuality, and geography.After the Civil War, southern men crafted notions of manhood in opposition to northern ideals of masculinity and as counterpoint to southern womanhood. At the same time, manliness in the South - as understood by individuals and within communities - retained and transformed antebellum conceptions of honor and mastery. This collection examines masculinity with respect to Reconstruction, the New South, racism, southern womanhood, the Sunbelt, gay rights, and the rise of the Christian Right. Familiar figures such as Arthur Ashe are investigated from fresh angles, while other essays plumb new areas such as the womanless wedding and Cherokee masculinity.

Blankets is the story of a young man coming of age and finding the confidence to express his creative voice. Craig Thompson's poignant graphic memoir plays out against the backdrop of a Midwestern winterscape: finely-hewn linework draws together a portrait of small town life, a rigorously fundamentalist Christian childhood, and a lonely, emotionally mixed-up adolescence. Under an engulfing blanket of snow, Craig and Raina fall in love at winter church camp, revealing to one another their struggles with faith and their dreams of escape. Over time though, their personal demons resurface and their relationship falls apart. It's a universal story, and Thompson's vibrant brushstrokes and unique page designs make the familiar heartbreaking all over again. This groundbreaking graphic novel, winner of two Eisner and three Harvey Awards, is an eloquent portrait of adolescent yearning; first love (and first heartache); faith in crisis; and the process of moving beyond all of that. Beautifully rendered in pen and ink, Thompson has created a timeless love story.

From the internationally acclaimed author of "Blankets "("A triumph for the genre.""--""Library Journal"), a highly anticipated new graphic novel.
Sprawling across an epic landscape of deserts, harems, and modern industrial clutter, "Habibi" tells the tale of Dodola and Zam, refugee child slaves bound to each other by chance, by circumstance, and by the love that grows between them. We follow them as their lives unfold together and apart; as they struggle to make a place for themselves in a world (not unlike our own) fueled by fear, lust, and greed; and as they discover the extraordinary depth--and frailty--of their connection.
At once contemporary and timeless, "Habibi "gives us a love story of astounding resonance: a parable about our relationship to the natural world, the cultural divide between the first and third worlds, the common heritage of Christianity and Islam, and, most potently, the magic of storytelling.

Touted as an American Eden, Kentucky provides one of the most dramatic social histories of early America. In this collection, ten contributors trace the evolution of Kentucky from First West to Early Republic. The authors tell the stories of the state's remarkable settlers and inhabitants: Indians, African Americans, working-class men and women, wealthy planters and struggling farmers. Eager settlers built defensive forts across the countryside, while women and slaves used revivalism to create new opportunities for themselves in a white, patriarchal society. The world that this diverse group of people made was both a society uniquely Kentuckian and a microcosm of the unfolding American pageant. In the mid-1700s, the trans-Appalachian region gained a reputation for its openness, innocence, and rusticity- fertile ground for an agrarian republic founded on the virtue of the yeoman ideal. By the nineteenth century, writers of history would characterize the state as a breeding ground for an American culture of distinctly Anglo-Saxon origin. Modern historians, however, now emphasize exploring the entire human experience, rather than simply the political history, of the region. An unusual blend of social, economic, political, cultural, and religious history, this volume goes a long way toward answering the question posed by a Virginia clergyman in 1775: ""What a buzzel is this amongst people about Kentuck?""

In 2004, on the back of the international success of Blankets, Craig Thompson set out on a tour across Europe and Morocco, promoting foreign editions of his book and researching his next project.

Carnet de Voyage is the gorgeous sketchbook diary of these travels. From wandering around Paris and Barcelona between events, to navigating markets in Fez and fleeing tourist traps in Marrakesh, we see glimpses of each place, rendered in Thompson's exquisite ink line.

While desert landscapes and crowded street scenes flow, the sketchbook is packed first and foremost with people - other travelers passing through, friends and lovers he meets along the way and old friends and other cartoonists that weave in and out of Thompson's life.

Carnet de Voyage is a casual yet intimate portrait of a celebrated cartoonist at a moment between his two seminal works - Blankets and Habibi.

This rich collection of original essays illuminates the causes and consequences of the South's defining experiences with death. Employing a wide range of perspectives, while concentrating on discrete episodes in the region's past, the authors explore topics from the seventeenth century to the present, from the death traps that emerged during colonization to the bloody backlash against emancipation and civil rights to recent canny efforts to commemorate - and capitalize on - the region's deadly past. Some authors capture their subjects in the most intimate of moments: killing and dying, grieving and remembering, and believing and despairing. Others uncover the intentional efforts of Southerners to publicly commemorate their losses through death rituals and memorialization campaigns. Together, these poignantly told Southern stories reveal profound truths about the past of a region marked by death and unable, perhaps unwilling, to escape the ghosts of its history.

Habibi, based on a Middle Eastern fable, tells the story of Dodola, who escapes being sold into slavery and rescues an abandoned baby she names Zam. They live in isolation in an old boat in the desert. As they age their relationship shifts from mother and son, to brother and sister and eventually lovers. In the meantime however Dodola is forced to prostitute herself to desert traders in order to provide for Zam. When he seeks an alternative means of income Dodola is captured by the Sultan and Zam is forced into a quest to try and rescue her. At heart Habibi is, like Blankets, a profound love story, but it also functions as a parable about the environment and the state of the world. Set in the place where Christianity and Islam began, it explores the fundamental connection between these religions, and also the relationship between the first and the third world and the increasingly important battle for the earth's resources. Ambitious, but always deeply felt, Habibi is a beautifully drawn and moving graphic novel that will get a huge amount of attention.

This rich collection of original essays illuminates the causes and consequences of the South's defining experiences with death. Employing a wide range of perspectives, while concentrating on discrete episodes in the region's past, the authors explore topics from the seventeenth century to the present, from the death traps that emerged during colonization to the bloody backlash against emancipation and civil rights to recent canny efforts to commemorate - and capitalize on - the region's deadly past. Some authors capture their subjects in the most intimate of moments: killing and dying, grieving and remembering, and believing and despairing. Others uncover the intentional efforts of Southerners to publicly commemorate their losses through death rituals and memorialization campaigns. Together, these poignantly told Southern stories reveal profound truths about the past of a region marked by death and unable, perhaps unwilling, to escape the ghosts of its history.

'Like the twisted lovechild of Jack Kirby and Dr Seuss, Craig Thompson has created a new genre: the Adorable Epic.' JOSS WHEDON From the Eisner award winning, New York Times bestselling author of Habibi and Blankets, comes this year's most exciting adventure. For Violet, family is the most important thing in the whole galaxy. So when her father goes missing while on a hazardous job, she can't just sit around and do nothing. Throwing caution to the stars, she sets out with a group of misfit friends on a quest to find him. But space is a big and dangerous place for a young girl, and when she discovers that her dad has been swallowed into the belly of a giant planet-eating whale, the odds looked stacked against them... Visionary graphic novel creator Craig Thompson brings all of his wit, warmth, and humour to create a brilliantly drawn story for all ages. Set in a distant yet familiar future, Space Dumplins weaves themes of family, friendship, and loyalty into a grand space adventure filled with quirky aliens, awesome space-ships, and sharp commentary on our environmentally challenged world.

This here be the first ever "graphical novel book" by Craig Thompson. It was winnning a Harvey Award, no less. It documentates the once upon a time in our fishing village town and a short turtle lad name of Chunky, last name Rice.
Mister Chunky Rice be living in the same rooming house likewise myself, only that boy be restless. Looking for something. And he puts hisself on my brother Chuck's ship and boats out to sea to find it. Only he be departin' from his bestest of all friends, his deer mouse, I mean, mouse deer chum Dandel.
Now why in a whirl would someone leave beyond a buddy? Just what be that turtle lad searchings for? I said you best read the book to find out. Merle said, "Doot doot."

A sweeping historiographical collection, Reinterpreting Southern Histories updates and expands upon the iconic volumes Writing Southern History and Interpreting Southern History, both published by Louisiana State University Press. With nineteen original essays co-written by some of the most prominent historians working in southern history today, this volume boldly explores the current state, methods, innovations, and prospects of the richly diverse and transforming field of southern history. Two scholars at different stages of their careers coauthor each essay, working collaboratively to provide broad knowledge of the most recent historiography and an expansive vision for historiographical contexts. This innovative approach provides an intellectual connection with the earlier volumes while reflecting cutting-edge scholarship in the field. Underlying each essay is the cultural turn of the 1980s and 1990s, which introduced the use of language and cultural symbols and the influence of gender studies, postcolonial studies, and memory studies. The essays also rely less on framing the South as a distinct region and more on contextualizing it within national and global conversations. Reinterpreting Southern Histories, like the two classic volumes that preceded it, serves as both a comprehensive analysis of the current historiography of the South and a reinterpretation of that history, reaching new conclusions for enduring questions and establishing the parameters of future debates.

Before the National Road and the Erie Canal, another transportation revolution was underway in the United States. Beginning in the 1770s, the Maysville Road—a sixty-five-mile dirt trail that stretched from the Ohio River to the Bluegrass region of Kentucky—served as a stage upon which people wrestled with issues of power, identities, and worldviews. For six decades, the road provided a conduit through which political, economic, social, and cultural ideas circulated into and within the early American West. Andrew Jackson brought the trail to national attention when he vetoed Henry Clay’s Maysville Road Bill in 1830. As an important migration route and the center of an early urban corridor, however, the Maysville Road had already made its mark on American history, offering a focal point for the cultural reconfiguration of the Early American Republic. Some of the era’s most important events rumbled along its length as the road witnessed the rise of republicanism, democracy, urban development, refinement, an awakening middle class, revivalism, racial slavery, and nationalism. Along the Maysville Road details the life of the trail from its beginnings as a buffalo trace, through its role in populating and transforming an early American West, to its decline in regional and national affairs. This biography of a road thus serves as a microhistory of social and cultural change in the Early American Republic. Integral to this story are the people and groups who traveled and settled along the road: backcountry pioneers, refined Virginia gentry, poor and middling farmers, artisans and merchants from eastern cities, and of course the women and slaves who arrived with them. While these groups imported differing worldviews into the new American West, the merchant class’s commitment to commercial development, material acquisition, and individual achievement prophesied the triumph of a liberal economic order throughout nineteenth-century America. Alongside this individualistic impulse arose increasing pressure to abandon older identities based on regional origins and ethnic backgrounds and to accept a collective historical memory for the growing nation. Throughout the Early Republic, the call of the open road facilitated what it means to be “American.”