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It's 1933 in Charon, Mississippi, and young Lee Wagstaff lives with her father on a small plot of land. She knows the bayou is dangerous, but she'll soon find that out first hand.

This comprises the first four chapters of the free online comic. It's a slight volume that's mostly set up for the rest of the story, and the titular character isn't even introduced until near the end. Still, you get enough to appreciate the gorgeous art (colors by Patrick Morgan), and there's already enough story to pique my interest.

Lee is an awesome protagonist. She's smart and brave but still thoroughly a little girl, and Love seems to be very good so far at sketching out characters, from Lee's playmate Lily, whom I want to slap, to her uncle and aunt and, of course, her father and Bayou. I also love the fantasy elements in the story, particularly the savage Jim Crows, and I'm looking forward to seeing even more of that as Lee and Bayou journey deeper into the bayou.

The art is lovely. In some of the panels, you can see Love's sketched guidelines or bits of pencil that haven't been edited out; it might feel unfinished for some people, but I enjoyed having those rough bits. The colors are gorgeous. I'm also glad that Love doesn't try to fit too much in a page. I'm so used to manga now, and when I read non-manga comics, I frequently end up feeling as though the art is too crowded, with too many panels and too many speech bubbles and too many words everywhere. Love gives the art room to breathe.

I'm still trying to decide if I should read ahead online: I love having the physical version and I already spend too much time on the computer as is (oh my eyes), but I want to know what happens!

So far, a great beginning and highly recommended.

Comment | Read Comments () | Link

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Steinberger is a geek girl: gamer, cosplayer, shoujo manga fan, Volks doll fan. Ever since she got into the Volks doll scene, she's been dying to visit the Volks store in Tokyo. One day, she writes to Volks and gets an enthusiastic reply; they actually know of her through her doll articles in the US! So she and two friends head off to Japan. Their plan: dress as geisha, go see Takarazuka performances, dress up in Tokyo, eat, and go see dolls!

This is more of a sketchbook rather than a comic; there's some sequential art involved, given that it's a trip, but most of the art is not in the form of panels. It's also incredibly fun to read. Steinberger's art is extremely friendly and round and happy, and she notices odd things that I enjoy. One of the slightly unfortunate things is that she can't read or write Japanese—I'm not sure if other people will care, but I really wanted to know what the Japanese on particular drawings was.

I am still not sure what to think of dressing up as a geisha. On the one hand, it is something I would love to do. Also, there's the factor that it's being done in Japan, probably making money for the Japanese people running the business, in a context in which people know a lot more about who and what geisha are. On the other hand, I do not know.

Some other parts of the book occasionally hit my "please do not make fun of Engrish" button, from the making fun of Engrish to Steinberger getting annoyed at being stared at. For the latter, I completely don't begrudge her getting annoyed at being stared at; it's probably annoying as hell. However, I still have a kneejerk reaction of "Yeah, welcome to my world!" inherited from homestay in Japan with two tall white guys who were all "We stick out! We miss American food!" after I had gone through a year of depression and lost a lot of weight thanks to a combination of culture shock, homesickness for Taiwan, and literally not being able to eat all the non-Chinese food. But I digress! Although I spend a lot of space here writing this reaction up, I didn't really hit it that often. Much of this is because you can tell Steinberger loves it there, and the overall feeling I got from her excitement wasn't "OMG this is so exotic and foreign!" but "OMG I have heard about this for forever and FINALLY I AM HERE!"

Instead, I had a lot of fun through most of the book. It made me remember being in Japan and exploring Harajuku and Shibuya and Akihabara, it made me miss the food and the public transportation, it made me wish I had had enough money when I was there to buy awesome clothes at Harajuku and the like. It also interestingly made me incredibly homesick for Taiwan. A lot of the things in Japan are different, of course, but a lot of things have either been imported to Taiwan or are shared characteristics, from the squatting toilets of DOOM and ladies on the street handing out advertisements on tissue packets to sock stores to the food. I miss the food so much!

Most of all, I loved all the geeking out, from cosplaying and Takarazuka and dolls (not my areas of geekdom) to assorted manga and anime references. I laughed so hard when they visited Tokyo Tower thanks to CLAMP, although they went because of Magic Knight Rayearth and my friends and I went because of X (sadly fortunately, when we went, no necrocuddling was involved). I am also extremely jealous that she got to see Takarazuka! Some day...

Also, if you read this, check out the omake as well! Actually, check out the omake even if you haven't read it; it's a pretty good preview of what the book itself is like. Cute and fun.

This entry was originally posted at http://oyceter.dreamwidth.org/847898.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

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Kimberly Keiko Cameron, also known as "Skim," is currently trying to negotiate her place at school. She and her best friend are starting to drift apart, she has a crush on her English teacher Ms. Archer, and the suicide of one of the popular girls' boyfriends is affecting everyone.

The story here isn't new, although the specifics of it are—the teacher crush, the student suicide. What makes Skim feel different is the execution of the plot, from the fallout of Skim's crush to how she has to negotiate friendships and alliances in high school. I especially liked the portrayal of Katie, the popular girl whose boyfriend committed suicide right after he dumped her; she was much more real than I had expected, and I appreciated that.

The art is also beautiful. Jillian Tamaki's style is somewhat like other indie comics, except certain panels, which look like Japanese paintings. I can't tell if it's me stereotyping the art based on ethnicity, as it's only occasionally, and usually only when she paints Skim. Here's a sample, although you can't really see the effect I'm talking about until page 19 or so. It's the small fuzzy high eyebrows and the roundness of the lower face, along with the curve of the nose, that work together to remind me of paintings of Heian court ladies.

I liked this much better than Mariko Tamaki's Emiko Superstar and hope she does another project with her cousin.

Links:
- minnow1212's review

This entry was originally posted at http://oyceter.dreamwidth.org/846939.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

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(Courtney Crumrin and the Night Things, Courtney Crumrin and the Coven of Mystics, and Courtney Crumrin in the Twilight Kingdom)

Courtney Crumrin is a young girl (I'm guessing late elementary or middle school) who's forced to move to a new town when her parents decide they can't afford their place and take up her great-uncle Aloysius on his offer to let them stay at his house. Unfortunately, the town is full of plastic rich people (which Courtney's parents like), the house is full of strange creaky things, and the woods are full of goblins.

I've always loved things like The Nightmare Before Christmas—creepy and goth but not so much that it scares the living daylights out of me (in contrast, I do very poorly with horror that isn't for YA). The Courtney Crumrin series is right up this alley, and I think people who enjoy Tim Burton and Nightmare and Corpse Bride and Coraline (book and movie) will love this. The visual style in particular reminds me of those movies, and I love Naifeh's stark black and whites. Sometimes they can be a little overwhelming because there's so much contrast jammed into the multiple tiny panels—Naifeh in particular doesn't use white space quite as well as CLAMP does in xxxHolic—but the claustrophobic effect is very fitting for the series.

Courtney herself is very much not a spunky heroine. She's mean and antisocial and really doesn't like people, and quite often, her morals are rather disturbing. I found this rather refreshing in a YA book. The first book consists of unrelated shorts, and while it's fun and cements the relationship between Courtney and her uncle, I wanted a little more. You get that in the second book, which has a storyline that was very affecting and Courtney growing up, and not always in a good way. The ending in particular was great. The third book tries to integrate Courtney a little more with other kids her own age, and while I don't fully buy it, I still like it enough to read more.

Also, Uncle Aloysius kicks ass. I love him.

The series suffers a little from the Lone Girl syndrome, but at least a female mentor comes in during volume 2, even if she's not as influential as Aloysius. Race-wise, I am not sure; the stark black-and-whites make it very hard to do gradations in skin tone. Still, I think Courtney's friend in the beginning of volume 3 is black, and while I liked having POC, I thought the way Naifeh dealt with it was very stereotypical and annoying. Thankfully, it is only in one chapter, but still.

I also thought I was sick of Faerie, but I like Naifeh's version. And one of my favorite things about the books are that they really deal with the fact that the heroine doesn't like people much and is antisocial. I don't think it's something she will get over, and I very much like watching how she is not necessarily learning to love people, but how she is learning responsibility toward them, even if she doesn't like them. I feel like I haven't seen that many YA books go that way, which made this particularly enjoyable.

Fun and spooky and rather twisted. I want more now! Thanks to yeloson for the rec!


P.S. Have just read Naifeh's Polly and the Pirates (like) and read the first volume of Gloomcookie years and years ago. I remember Gloomcookie as having awesome art and a completely incoherent plot. I also see Naifeh has illustrated some other stories he hasn't written. Are any of those recommended, or should I just stick to the ones he writes?

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Emiko is an ordinary girl going through an ordinary summer, complete with baby-sitting job, until one day, a chance encounter at the mall leads her to performance artists at The Factory. Eventually, Emi becomes one of the performance artists.

I feel this comic falls into the genre of "ordinary person discovers avant garde stuff and it changes her life, even though the avant garde crowd eventually falls apart." It may be a cousin to the genre of "ordinary guy meets artsy and free girl, and horizons are expanded, though the artsy and free girl is not meant for this world," albeit with a heroine instead of a hero. I am, as you may be able to tell, not a fan of either of these genres. I dislike the portrayal of the radical or avant garde as only able to illuminate "ordinary" people's lives and to not be self-sustaining. I'm also tired of the idea that artsy is good, but only in limited amounts.

On the plus side, I loved having a multiracial heroine in a comic not about her multiracialness. I also liked that the art gives the women in the comic different body shapes.

There's a side plot about a suburban housewife wanting to escape that I wanted to like, but it felt too rote, much like most of the comic for me. Well-intentioned, but ultimately not interesting.

This entry was originally posted at http://oyceter.dreamwidth.org/832240.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

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After her father dies in a car accident, Emily, her mom, and her younger brother Navin move to their great-grandfather's house in a quiet neighborhood. The house itself is creaky and needs a lot of work, and while they're cleaning, Emily discovers an amulet. Soon, her mom is kidnapped by a tentacly monster thing, and she and Navin head to the world underneath the house to rescue their mother.

I read this about a month ago, and sadly, I do not remember much of what happens. yeloson already noted how Emily is the one leaping into action and jumping into things, while her little brother is the more cautious one, which is a nice change from assigning the female characters the more practical yet unengaged with plot action bits. While Kibuishi does complicate the role of the amulet and how strangely insistent it is on some things, I felt like I left the world wanting more, be it plot or characterization or themes or anything.

Instead, the series so far feels like a kind of cool but still fairly standard character-discovers-magic-world-is-savior type book. Still, it'll be interesting to see if Kibuishi does anything more with it in the second volume.

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This is a collection of shorts that Kim previously published online; although I think some have recurring characters, others feel very random. Also, I read it over a week ago and already returned it to the library, so my memory of this is very sketchy. (Oh hey, it's available online! Check out the right column in Lowbright to find links to the other shorts in the book.)

I felt like this volume has much of the American indie comic sensibility—crowded art, neurotic characters, big focus on failed love lives—which is sad, as there's a reason why I don't read many American indie comics (I know, I stereotype). I didn't feel for either of the characters in the main story, particularly with the way one talks about a blind character ("Her eyes were so giant and sparkling and gorgeous, like she could see things we couldn't!"). I do like that the blind girl shows up later and acts like a normal person, but when the other two characters were talking to each other, all I could think was that I so didn't feel for them feeling awkward about saying things like "As you can see" or whatnot.

I also hated the plotline revolving around Nancy sending a letter back to someone who seemed to be stalking his girlfriend. There's acknowledgement that what Nancy does is mean-spirited, but not enough for me, and the ending portraying the letter-sending guy as sad also annoyed me, given that he was the one sending creepy, stalker-y letters.

I don't know. Much of the humor (much of it scatalogical) didn't amuse me, and the general neuroticness annoyed me. It was good to see bits of Korean-American-ness in there as background, but not the center, but all the same, it wasn't enough to get me over my dislike of the characters. I'd personally skip this and go for Kim's Good as Lily instead.

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Sadly, this is not quite as charming as its predecessor, but then, I think that may be an impossible task. Still, it's a worthwhile read, although the last story is somewhat awkward, as it tries to Teach Us About Racism.

The first story is about the cat and his journeys with the rabbi's cousin Malka and his lion; I love how you can't quite tell what's fact and what's fiction as Malka tells his tales. And! As bonus, there is a hilarious talking snake, although this snake is more sinister and less amusing than Koh of Silver Diamond. Even so, the conversations among the cat, the lion, and the snake are priceless.

The second story is the One About Racism, and I was poised to like it until the ending. The rabbi, a Russian Jew, and several other people, decide to go find the Ethiopian Jews and encounter many adventures along the way. Unfortunately, Sfar seems to be espousing the typical viewpoint that judging people based on race is bad (which I agree with) and leaving it at that (which I don't agree with); he ends by showing that the Ethiopian Jews are just as prejudiced as the Jews who refused to marry the Russian Jew and his black sweetheart. Which, okay, I'm sure it's true, but not the point!

I still think it's worth reading, but had I known the ending of the second story, I might have skipped the last few pages so I could keep an untarnished memory of the series.

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It's Grace Kwon's 18th birthday, and mostly she's thinking about her cute drama teacher Mr. Levon and the school play. That is, until she goes out at night and stumbles across herself at 6, 29, and 70. Now she has to hide the other Graces from everyone as she tries to help the drama club raise money.

This is a cute, light YA story in which everyone has realizations and comes to terms with themselves. The gimmick of the many Graces sometimes doesn't work so well—I especially wish they were spread out more in terms of age so that 70-year-old Grace's life weren't such a surprise—but Kim pulls it off. Hamm's art reminds me more of indie art than manga or superhero comics, but I found it fitting for the story. I like that there are many curvy women and girls represented, and that the Asian people look Asian in a non-stereotypical way!

The title ties in less with the story than I wanted; it's pivotal for one of the Graces but not necessarily all of them, and some of the futures felt unnecessarily bleak. Also, I want to argue that being single at 29 or 70 is not always a giant tragedy! People can have rich and enriching lives without being a part of a couple or having kids!

Still, I think Kim might do well with even more pages to flesh out his characters, and I'm always grateful to have Asian-American characters who aren't dealing with culture angst.

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Ann Marie Fleming found a few reels of old film when she was recovering from a car accident, and portrayed in those reels was Long Tack Sam, magician extraordinaire and her great-grandfather. After researching his life a little, she left with even more questions: who was Long Tack Sam? How did he negotiate being Chinese while touring worldwide during the turn of the century? And why was this world-famous magician almost completely forgotten today?

The graphic novel is actually based on a film Fleming wrote and directed, albeit adapted to take advantage of the different format. It's a combination of memoir, biography, and cultural history, as Fleming ties together the story of her own search and how it affected her with the not-always-factual story of Long Tack Sam and the history of the world at the time. Long Tack Sam lived through the fall of the Qing dynasty and the rise of the Republic of China, two world wars, the rise of movies and the downfall of vaudeville and other travelling acts like his. His story is particularly interesting because it is so international; he married an Austrian (I think) woman and raised three biracial children, two of which ended up marrying Chinese (I forget about the third). And he was travelling at a time when it was just as common to see a white man playing a Chinese man than an actual Chinese man.

I'm not sure if you get a cohesive story out of this book, but I also don't think that's the point. Information about Long Tack Sam is piecemeal and untrustworthy; Long would tell different peopel different stories, his advertisements would say something else, and all of it had to be rediscovered. What we see is what Fleming had to puzzle together, and as such, I think the patchwork nature of the story works.

Fleming doesn't go as into issues of race and racism as I wanted. It's perpetually there in the background, but I suspect that one of the ways Long Tack Sam dealt with it was to use it to his advantage and capitalize on his own "exoticness" to the non-Chinese world. He also incorporated his daughters in his act later, changing their names to more "Chinese" stage names. I wish there had been more about Fleming's grandmother and what she thought of all this, but I suspect that would have been difficult, given that her grandmother had passed away before she started the project.

Still, an interesting look at an interesting life lived during an interesting period.

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This is for books and Western comics only; manga and manhwa get a separate post.

( Thoughts about the year in books )

Amazingly, I managed to blog about every single book I read this year! I didn't link the full list, but you can always look in my tags or memories.

The below are my favorites out of all the books I read this year, not books published this year.

1. ( Emily Bernard, Some of My Best Friends )


2. ( Emma Donoghue, Kissing the Witch )


3. ( Ursula K. Le Guin, Voices )


4. ( Megan Lindholm, Harpy's Flight )


5. ( Laurie J. Marks, Elemental Logic series )


6. ( Susan Beth Pfeffer, Life as We Knew It )


7. ( Joann Sfar, The Rabbi's Cat )


8. ( Ronald Takaki, Strangers from a Different Shore )


9. ( Alice Walker, In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens )


10. ( Elizabeth E. Wein, The Sunbird )

Also recommended: Carl Chu, Chinese Food Finder: The Bay Area and San Francisco; Brenda Dixon Gottschild, The Black Dancing Body: A Geography from Coon to Cool and Waltzing in the Dark: African American Vaudeville and Race Politics in the Swing Era; Theodora Goss, In the Forest of Forgetting; Margo Rabb, Cures for Heartbreak; Madeleine E. Robins, Point of Honour; Joanna Russ, What Are We Fighting For?: Sex, Race, Class, and the Future of Feminism; Sarah Smith, The Vanished Child; Beverly Daniel Tatum, Can We Talk about Race?: And Other Conversations in an Era of School Resegregation; Lawrence Weschler, Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder: Pronged Ants, Horned Humans, Mice on Toast, and Other Marvels of Jurassic Technology; Ysabeau S. Wilce, Flora Segunda; Helen Zia, Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People

Total read: 131 (6 rereads)

( Complete list of books read in 2007 )

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A dog gets a mail order robot and assembles it; the two go off together and have adventures. Along the way, dog and robot are separated.

I have no idea how to sum this up. It's a wordless comic, and on the larger scale of things nothing happens. But at the same time, everything happens in the course of a few months -- friends are lost and found again, people are changed, lives go on.

I love how sweet the art is, how Varon pays attention to all the little details, how she doesn't forget that her characters are dogs and ducks and anteaters, albeit anthropomorphized ones. And I just love how the ending isn't what I would have expected, but it's perfectly right.

Definitely recommended, particularly if you liked the movie The Iron Giant (I haven't read the story) -- and not just because the two are about robots! They've both got this old-fashioned but not necessarily nostalgic tone, and both of them are about friendships.

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I love this. LOVE.

In 1930s Algeria, a rabbi's cat eats a parrot and miraculously gains the power of speech.

Well, it's miraculous to the cat, as much as cats are amazed by things. The rabbi sees it as a miracle and a misfortune, as the first thing the cat does is lie. The cat then claims he is not Jewish, then demands a bar mitzvah. The rabbi, understandably confused, goes to seek his rabbi, and things sort of go on from there.

The cat is so very cat-like:

The rabbi tells me that of course I'm Jewish, since my masters are Jews. I tell him that I'm not circumcised. He tells me that they don't circumcise cats. I tell him that I haven't had a Bar Mitzvah. He tells me that the Bar Mitzvah occurs at thirteen years of age. So I tell him that I am seven years old, and for cats, the years are multiplied by seven; therefore, it's as if I were seven times seven years old, which is definitely more than thirteen. I tell him that if I am a Jewish cat, I want to be bar-mitzvahed.

Some of the charm is lost in the quote because you can't see the accompanying panels, which are scribbly and reddish and almost misshapen, but just enough to perfectly capture the tilt of the cat's head and the slyness in his eyes.

The rest of the book is about ordinary things: will the rabbi pass his dictation test? How will his daughter's marriage turn out? But it is so perfect and funny and charming and true true true, nevermind that it is being narrated by a cat. I love the cat and I love the rabbi and I love his daughter Zlabya. I love how they are selfish and kind and petty and generous; I love the rabbi's nonkosher meal; I love Zlabya's shopping trip; I love the lion; and most of all, I love the cat.

I am only sorry that I didn't buy this before when Mely first blogged about it.

Go read this.

Links:
- coffeeandink's review
- buymeaclue's review

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For the record, Arabian Nights (and Days) is why I am not going to be reading Fables anymore.

I've previously had issues with politics and gender in Fables, and this one is the last straw. That said, it's one freaking huge straw.

( Orientalist stereotypes for the win! (also, spoilers) )

The only reason why I finished reading that arc was so I could blog about it knowing that Willingham didn't suddenly retract something. After that, I threw the book in disgust at the floor. Quite honestly, if it hadn't been a library book, I probably would have thrown it against the wall repeatedly, as just once doesn't even begin to encompass how disgusted I am with it.

ETA: all anonymous comments on this post now screened, thanks to the appearance of trolls!

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Out of McCloud's three books on comics (the other two being Understanding Comics and Making Comics), this is the weakest. This is largely because this is McCloud's book on the future of comics, and it was published in 2000.

The book consists of two distinct halves, the first concentrating on the future of comics themselves -- the industry, the readers, expansion, etc., and the second concentrating on how the digital revolution will affect comics. I think the first still has a lot of relevant information in it, despite the fact that it's now seven years later. McCloud clearly has a lot of experience in comics and in the industry, and his manifesto of sorts still resonates with me (despite my, uh, knowing not much at all about the comics industry). While some of it is now obsolete or somewhat funny, given the current manga trend, it's nowhere near as obsolete as the second half on computers and comics.

Alas, the second part just had me alternately giggling or scanning over pages. It is not really his fault that he wrote it just before the first big internet boom crash, or that things in that industry change so fast that books from last year are already out of date. But there you go. Also, it reads like every other book about the internet and "ZOMG THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION!" written. I mean, I would be interested to see McCloud's look back on things that have changed -- PayPal and the popularity of many webcomics and blogs and the entire "long tail" theory are versions of what he predicted, but I'd love more concrete details on how they have changed the comic industry. But no more predictions, because they just make me laugh.

The first part, though, would have benefitted from even more detail; I think the book as a whole would have been better if it had all been the first part. McCloud details 12 areas in which comics could improve in, some of them being gender representation, minority representation, more genres, focus on the writing, focus on the art, industry revolution, and etc. Sadly, there are only a few pages dedicated to each of these twelve areas. And while I know he only wanted to give a jumping-off point for people, there could be whole books written about each of them.

Also, (you all knew this was coming up) while I was glad that he did at least notice the disparity in gender and POC representation in the content of comics and the comic industry, the whole thing gets about four pages. Argh. I mean, he thankfully knows enough to acknowledge that it's not as easy as saying, "Well, it's just because we don't see enough comics with women/POC" and he acknowledges sexism and racism as institutions. But I don't think he goes far enough to point out that increasing representation takes a lot of work and focus; it's not something that just happens. Granted, it is the same for broadening genre representation, but since I personally find that combating sexism and racism in comics is about, oh, say, eleventy billion times more important to me than genre representation (I can get that elsewhere), I am just going to harp on that point.

Also also, I laughed and laughed because we did get a lot of the advances he was asking for, only with manga. Alas, the American comics industry has yet to get a clue, from my POV. This is, by the way, not to say that manga solves everything, because manga also needs to improve in the same twelve areas that McCloud pointed out for comics. It's just that I feel like the manga industry keeps growing here, so the potential to hit upon those improvements is larger, as opposed to the comics industry, which has yet to win me back. (Comics, I used to love you a lot, but I feel like you keep slapping me in the face over and over and over. At least manga wants me, even if it is only for my money.)

Anyway, it was an interesting read, though flawed, and I so desperately want McCloud to write something on manga.

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Argh for genre-crossing books that wreak havoc with my tagging system! I have finally decided on comics instead of manga, but only barely.

I liked this, but I didn't love it like I wanted to. This is largely because it hit some of my love triangle triggers really, really hard.

Plot summary: Scott Pilgrim (23, unbelievably cool according to his own rating system) is currently dating high-school student Knives Chau (17, Chinese, yay!), along with playing in a rather bad band. But this tantalizing girl keeps rollerblading through his dreams (literally), and she turns out to be the local Amazon.ca delivery girl, Ramona Flowers (I forget her age, and I'm sure Scott Pilgrim rates her as unbelievably cool). Scott Pilgrim basically ends up with her, only to discover that to date Ramona Flowers, he has to defeat her eight evil ex-boyfriends.

To first get the bad out of the way: I hate love triangles. I particularly hate love triangles in which there is any kind of cheating, deceiving or lying involved. There's not that much in Scott Pilgrim, but there's enough to make me want to shake Scott Pilgrim really hard or bonk him over the head (granted, it doesn't take much for me to want that). Thankfully, pretty much all of his other friends feel the same way I do, which mitigates the ick factor. The other thing that I hate about love triangles is jealousy and revenge, particularly when it's two girls fighting over a guy. Unfortunately, Knives goes out for revenge out of jealousy. And I liked her too! She was Chinese and sort of bouncy, ditzy high-school girl, but one cannot expect a seventeen year old to not act like one.

On the other hand, the series has a completely insane and zany energy to it that I love, from the random referential notes to the guitar chords for Scott Pilgrim's band's lame songs, to the fight with Matthew Patel, complete with Bollywood ninja singers. Also, the energy of the art completely matches the tone of the series, and the entire thing is odd and funny and really not that much like anything else.

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Ooo, I am now fully into this series. It doesn't seem to have giant plot arcs; there are plot arcs, but things (gasp) actually get resolved within a chunk of issues. Mostly I like watching the kids interact with each other, make snarky comments about the superhero-populated world they live in, and watch Vaughan have tons and tons of fun bringing in as many random Marvel characters as he possibly can. The best part is that even though some of the kids are superpowered and they all fight crime (for once, said in truth), they act a whole lot like kids as well. And not just when they're hanging out -- when they're fighting villains and sort of saving the world as well.

( Spoilers )

Links:
- rachelmanija's review

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All teenagers think their parents are evil. But what if they really are?

Six teens discover that their parents are actually supervillains. This volume doesn't feel especially new or different, largely because it's more concerned with introducing all the characters and setting up the entire concept. I'm ok with that.

(also, one should never try and look up character names on Wikipedia and inadvertantly spoil themselves. I'm sure no one else is stupid enough to do this, but I throw up this warning just in case)

So far, we have: Alex, a MMORPG player (black male); Nico, a goth teen (Japanese female); Karolina, a somewhat ditzy daughter of vegans (white female); Chase, a jock son of brainy scientists (white male); Gert, a purple-haired Janeane-Garofalo-esque miscontent (white female) and Molly, a twelve-year-old on the verge of adolescence (white female).

I like the female-to-male ratio, though I'm less happy with the number of POC characters. It also feels a little odd when the POC characters are paired off with each other; I don't think it's tokenism in this case, particularly because they seem to be the more proactive ones. But it feels like two is still a minority, while three would seem more integrated to me.

Also, is it just me or does it feel like most Asians in superhero comics are Japanese? Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong; I really haven't read that much. Also, do let me know if there are Southeast Asian superheroes! That would be awesome.

I also like the inversion of the usual black athlete stereotype; here, Alex is the brainy one and Chase is the jock.

There are a lot of expected plays on the usual parental sayings: "This is all for your own good" takes a much more sinister meaning when said by someone with a knife.

So far, the characters feel distinct enough, though no one's really been developed yet, and there's a good enough of a cliffhanger in the end to keep people reading.

Also: psychic raptor dinosaur!

ETA: Adding links that a quick googling for "asian comic book characters" turned up

• Coloring the Comic Books (Wired, 2003)


• Ethnic stereotypes in comics (Wikipedia)


• List of Asian superheroes (Wikipedia)

And because I am insane and obsessive, I am actually going through the last link and tallying.

add to memories

This is not actually a story about a rat, although a pet rat plays a pretty big role. It's actually a story of a runaway named Helen who is trying to get over being sexually abused by her father, and how she manages to make peace with herself.

Talbot has had pet rats, and he writes that rats have a misleadingly bad rep. They're actually very smart and clean, but often get called dirty and nasty, and as such, he parallels the misunderstood rats with his runaway and other victims of sexual abuse, who are often told that they are bad and dirty, when they have done nothing wrong.

The art is fairly realistic and doesn't gloss over or stylize what happens to Helen and how she manages to live as a runaway.

And, in case anyone was wondering, the rat drawings are immensely accurate! I squeed when I saw them, because Helen's pet rat is a hooded rat and looks just like Fool-rat.

I have to admit, I read this mostly for the rat stuff, even though there's not that much of it. I was vastly amused because I read this while letting my own rats run roughshod over me, and they were snuffling away and standing on their hind legs and sniffing at all sorts of random things.

So... eh, yes, it ended up being much more on the therapeutic-ness of having pet rats than on the important topic of child abuse for me. But I suspect that is a highly idiosyncratic response.

Talbot does handle the subject well, though I feel the book is a little too short -- I would have preferred more time spent in Helen's head.

add to memories

This is the comic that caused such a to-do when it was nominated for the National Book Award. I am not going to comment on whether or not it was in and of itself worthy of nomination, since I don't know much about the award, but in general, I am happy that it got more recognition for itself and for comics in general.

American Born Chinese tells three stories: one of the Monkey King; one of Jin Wang, a kid growing up in mostly-white suburbia; and a sitcom featuring Danny (white) and his Chinese cousin Chin-Kee, a cartoonish amalgram of racist stereotypes. The stories all end up intersecting in a very nifty way, but the general theme is one of "accept yourself and don't be ashamed of your culture," which isn't all that ground-breaking, particularly if one has proofread many college essays on growing up in Taiwan after years in America.

On the other hand, I very much liked how Yang adapts the story of the Monkey King and Journey to the West, though he's said that he took out Buddhist references and used Christian ones instead. Personally, I didn't realize until I read the above post, even though there's a neat panel with Monkey and his two fellow disciples bearing gifts to Mary and Joseph, which gives an entirely new meaning to "Journey to the West" and the three treasures they're supposed to bring.

I was more nidgy about the Chin-Kee storyline, given that it is a collection of incredibly racist stereotypes, but I figured that it was there for a reason, which it is. The transformation of the Chin-Kee storyline may be my favorite part of the story. Ok, not really, because Monkey King! I love Monkey! But it was cool.

I don't know if I liked the Jin storyline or not; I suspect I would have liked it more if it hadn't felt so archetypal, but I don't know how fair of a critique that is. I'm not sure if I've even read that much on growing up Chinese, so it is quite possible that it is very original. But the experience of being ashamed of being Chinese, the immediate assumption by others that you're from China, the teasing that the only Asian kids in school are going to end up getting married -- I found myself remembering my own elementary school experiences when I was reading this (I spent grades 1-3 in the US and 4-12 in Taiwan). I think it sounds archetypal because it is; I can't have been the only Asian kid to have those experiences. And that was only in three years in the US school system.

Actually, I think I may just be disconcerted because this book so accurately reflected the contents of my head with regard to Asian-ness, which isn't something that I find often. Just... the story that Jin's mother tells him in the very beginning, the Monkey mythology, Jin's experiences in school, pearl milk tea, Taiwan, fobbiness, Asian "cliques," wanting to be white, learning to not be ashamed. It is my life story, and I'm not used to seeing my life story in the books I read, particularly not the YA coming-of-age stories that I love so much.

Come to think of it, that's really sad. The books I usually read are universal in one way, but in another, they assume a certain cultural background that I don't have.

To change the subject entirely, the book just looks great. The art style is clean and fun and stylized niftily. And I happily noticed a few panels that maximized the text-picture dichotomy of comics (yay Scott McCloud for making me notice!), and I totally cracked up during the Monkey King's story. And it's printed on very nice paper stock, so I was very surprised to find that it was only $16.95. I haven't bought it yet; this is the library's copy (ha! I made my library buy it! Win!), but I think I will add it to the collection. Each storyline has separate Chinese chops -- chops of the starring characters begin each storyline, and there are individual chops for each storyline that show up on the top center of each page. I think the one for the Monkey King is just "monkey," and I looked up the one for Jin, which seems to be "jin." I can't figure out the one for Chin-Kee, though I suspect it's probably "chin."

And I was just pleased that whenever Monkey uses his assorted spells, he speaks in Chinese characters! Written correctly!

So, recommended, with the caveat that I can't tell if this iteration of the coming-of-age story is one that's overly done or not, because it is entirely too familiar to me, but may be completely foreign to other people.

Links:
- rilina's review