Craig Matthew Thompson (born September 21, 1975) is an American graphic novelist best known for his books Good-bye, Chunky Rice (1999), Blankets (2003), Carnet de Voyage (2004), Habibi (2011), Space Dumplins (2015), and Ginseng Roots (2025). Thompson has received four Harvey Awards, three Eisner Awards, and two Ignatz Awards. In 2007, his cover design for the Menomena album Friend and Foe received a Grammy nomination for Best Recording Package.

Early life

Craig Thompson was born in Traverse City, Michigan in 1975. He, his younger brother "Phil" and his sister grew up in rural Marathon, Wisconsin, in a fundamentalist Christian family. His father was a plumber, and his mother alternated between working as a stay-at-home mom and a visiting-nurse assistant for the disabled. Media such as films and television shows were screened or altogether censored by their parents, and the only music allowed was Christian music. Thompson's only access to the arts were the Sunday funnies and comics, since they were assumed to be for children, to which Thompson attributes his early affinity for the medium. Thompson and his brother were particularly enamored of black and white independent comics in the 1980s, such as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and the do-it-yourself ethic that they embodied.

In high school Thompson entertained dreams of becoming either a small-town artist or a film animator. He attended the University of Wisconsin–Marathon County for three semesters, during which he began writing a comic strip for the college newspaper and "just kind of fell in love with [comics], suddenly. It filled all my needs -- I was able to draw cartoons, to tell a story; but I also had total control, and I wasn't just a cog in some machine somewhere." After spending a semester at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design, Thompson left his hometown in 1997 and settled in Portland, Oregon.

Career

thumb|Craig Thompson sketches Raina in a copy of [[Blankets (comics)|Blankets at a September 20, 2011, book signing at Midtown Comics in Manhattan.]]

Thompson worked briefly at Dark Horse Comics, drawing ads, logos, and toy packaging for the company while working on personal projects at night. After developing tendinitis, Thompson left Dark Horse and devoted his time to his own work. Time magazine named Blankets its #1 graphic novel for 2003, three Harvey Awards, for Best Artist, Best Cartoonist, and Best Graphic Album of Original Work, and two Ignatz Awards, for Outstanding Graphic Novel or Collection and Outstanding Artist.

Thompson said that he believes Blankets was a success because he was "reacting against all of the over-the-top, explosive action genre [in alternative comics, and] I also didn't want to do anything cynical and nihilistic, which is the standard for a lot of alternative comics." Despite the praise, the book, which was Thompson's way of coming out to his parents about no longer being a Christian, resulted in tension between him and his parents for a couple of years after they read it.

In late 2004, Thompson began working on Habibi, a graphic novel published by Pantheon Books, in September 2011. The book is influenced by Arabic calligraphy and Islamic mythology: "I'm playing with Islam in the same way I was playing with Christianity in Blankets", as he said in a 2005 interview. The book was praised by Time magazine, Elle magazine, Financial Times, Salon, The Independent, NPR, The Millions, Graphic Novel Reporter, and The Harvard Crimson. Other reviewers, such as Michael Faber of The Guardian, and a six-person roundtable discussion of the book conducted by Charles Hatfield of The Comics Journal, while lauding the quality of Thompson's visuals and his use of various Eastern motifs, narrative parallels and intertwining plots and subplots, had negative reactions to the book's length, or the degree of sexual cruelty inflicted upon the main characters.

From 2019 to 2024 Craig Thompson worked on a serialized comic, Ginseng Roots. The series is a "recherche du temps perdu" that tells the story of ginseng in parallel with Craig's childhood, among Christian fundamentalist parents, hard work to grow ginseng, and comics. The 12th and last comic book of the series was published by Uncivilized Books in February 2024. The series was published as a book by Penguin Random House in April 2025. Ginseng farmer Will Hsu likened waiting for the comic book installments to what it's like to grow ginseng: "It teaches you the patience of ginseng,” Hsu explained. “You know, you read a comic book and now you’ve got to wait months for the next installment. Well, you plant ginseng seeds, you’ve got to wait years until you harvest something.”

Style and influences

thumb|left|Thompson at his drawing table in 2009

Thompson has acknowledged the influence of graphic artists Taro Yashima, Daniel Clowes, Chris Ware, and Joe Sacco.

  • 2004 Eisner Award for Best Graphic Album for Blankets
  • 2004 Eisner Award for Best Writer/Artist for Blankets
  • 2004 Ignatz Award for Outstanding Graphic Novel or Collection for Blankets
  • 2012 Eisner Award for Best Writer/Artist for Habibi
  • 2016 Rudolph-Dirks-Award for Best SciFi / Alternate History for Space Dumplins

Nominations

  • 1999 Harvey Award for Best New Talent for Top Shelf, Doot Doot Garden, et al.
  • 2000 Ignatz Award for Outstanding Artist for Good-bye, Chunky Rice
  • 2000 Ignatz Award for Outstanding Artist for Carnet de Voyage
  • 2000 Ignatz Award for Outstanding Graphic Novel for Carnet de Voyage
  • 2021 Eisner Award Nomination for Best Writer/Artist for Ginseng Roots