The Good Asian: 1936 by Pornsak Pichetshote

The Good Asian: 1936 Reviews

• 
  Doreen

  Most forewords don't do a whole lot to adequately contextualize the books they're introducing, but David Choe absolutely hits it out of the park with his no-holds-barred examination of what it meant to be a Good Asian in the West in the 20th century. In short: when you have nothing, you keep your head down, work hard and accept whatever abuse you must take until you're rich and powerful and can fuck up all those people who tried to hold you down. The opening scene of worldwide phenomenon
  Crazy Rich Asians tells you the exact same thing, but plunges forward into a beautiful present day where that wealth and power has been achieved, for some of the protagonists at least. This graphic novel, on the other hand, is squarely situated in an era where equality, never mind anything more, was still a distant dream.
  
  Peppered with the historical anecdotes that inspired the series, this stylish noir comic follows the travails of the fictional Edison Hark, perhaps the only Chinese police detective in America as the story opens. In San Diego as a favor to the rich white family who brought him up after the death of his mother, Edison is on the trail of a missing maid whom the Carroway family patriarch has tender feelings for. Ivy Chen abruptly disappeared after going to meet her mother one evening, and Edison has been flown in from Hawai'i to help find her. Unfortunately for Mason Carroway, Edison's investigations are revealing an Ivy who seems far from the innocent maidservant the older man knew and adored. As Edison delves deeper into Chinatown's seedier side, aided by his appearance as a local instead of an "American" (and boy did that hurt to read every time this historically accurate if no less racist assumption that "American = a certain kind of white person" was brought up in the text,) he discovers that little is as it seems, and that the Carroways are even more deeply involved in what happened to Ivy than he'd ever thought possible.
  
  As if the conflicting feelings Edison still has for the Carroways isn't complicating matters enough, a serial killer who seems ready to set the political landscape ablaze by feeding racist fears has also begun to terrorize the community. When a climactic face-off results in a terrifying inferno, will anyone be left to bring the bad guys to justice?
  
  The end of the book promises that Edison Hark will return in future comics, but honestly I want more Lucy Fan! Whether assisting Edison or investigating on her own, our intrepid amateur sleuth stole every darn scene she was in, and I adored her for it. Plus, I preferred her and Terence's visions of the future to Edison's nihilistic nonsense. I know that none of them can see into our modern world, but life does get better. That's because of people like Lucy and Terence, and frankly in spite of self-hating naysayers like Edison. Maybe this just means character growth for Edison in future installments, which I'll definitely be reading regardless of my ambivalence towards this series' main character so far. The historical context and parallels with modern-day issues are too strong to resist, especially in Pornsak Pichetshote's incredible storytelling hands.
  
  I also have to give mad props to Alexandre Tefenkgi's art here, which I thought was even better than his terrific work on
  Outpost Zero. The script here gives him so much more direction, even if there were parts where I had to backtrack to make sense of what was happening, particularly in the action sequences. I do not lay the blame for this entirely on the creative team, as Edelweiss and the publishers, in their wisdom, decided to distribute ARCs of this title via the trash fire that is Adobe Digital Editions. I've ranted about this garbage program before, and while its ongoing inability to support two page spreads was detrimental as always to my enjoyment of this graphic novel, even more egregious was its weird and arbitrary choice to skip over multiple pages when I hit the navigation controls for next page. I had to type in individual page numbers in order to advance through the story correctly. That was deeply irritating, and really took me out of enjoying the story.
  
  Those of you lucky enough to experience this graphic novel through other mediums are in for a treat though, with a smart historical noir that reminds Asian Americans of how far we've come and how far we can still go as equal citizens without completely murdering our senses of self-worth. Highly recommended anti-racist reading.
  
  The Good Asian -- Deluxe Edition Vol. 1: 1936 by Pornsak Pichetshote & Alexandre Tefengki was published today June 6 2023 by Image Comics and is available from all good booksellers, including
  Bookshop!
  
  This review first appeared at
  TheFrumiousConsortium.net.
• 
  Tymek Braciszewski

  It is my sincere believe that all the raving quotes on the back of my hardcover were based on the first couple of issues - because they are truly great. It's got everything a proper noir comic book should have - a morally ambigous protagonist, atmospheric, near suffocating setting and most of all an intriguing,
  if typical, mystery. Moreover, the chinese-american perspective is something new to me, which further served to spike my interest.
  
  The exploration of said culture is truly the greatest strength of the book. It feels really in-depth, and it must come from the depth of author's heart. This unique point-of-view makes Edison Hark one of the more compelling protagonists I've read in a comic book in a while. The first half of the book paints a memorable portrait that will not leave my consciousness anytime soon.
  
  Unfortunately, the great setup and chatacter work is soiled by the lacking latter half of the comic. What started as a rather simple mystery soon evolved into a convoluted mess of plotpoints and characters introduced on a whim. We learn things about people in one issue, only to be told it was all a hoax in the next. This wouldn't necesserily be a bad thing if it happened organically, but as it is the latter half loses its way in the myriad of flashbacks. The themes of identity and culture get muddled too, although to a lesser extent. The pacing also grinds to a halt, and each issue in the back half feels as long to read as the entirety of #1-#5.
  
  By the time the book ends, instead of that disctinct satisfaction associated with witnessing a good mystery unfold, I'm left with a rather less pleasant feeling of befuddlement. Even though the sociocultural aspects of the book remain solid throughout, ultimately this is a crime noir story. A one that just could have been better.
  
  The potential is there. I'll be very curious to read a sequel.
  
  The art is magnificent throughout though, and would almost warrant buying the book even if the whole story was utter nonsense. Simply gorgeous.
• 
  Mr. Lavender

  Needlessly confusing. Too many swerves that didn't go anywhere or felt inconsequential. Too many of the characters' motives boiled down to deception, wanting another character to think something that wasn't true. And too many insignificant characters were introduced rather suddenly, only to be dismissed in the same manner.
  
  I really appreciated the concept. And I enjoyed the content about the climate surrounding Chinese Americans, Chinese immigrants, and other Asian American/immigrants at the time. The first three or four issues are really strong. But things start to fall apart in the second half. I would say this is not a rewarding read unless you just want something that's a bit different and provides some really strong historical context. Hopefully the author's next pulp story is a bit tighter.
• 
  Rahul Nadella

  This is a fantastic mystery story and even more fantastic examination of Chinese-American life in the late 1930's. Overall. This first issue of ‘The Good Asian' sets the world and story up brilliantly. You can enjoy it for its detective story alone. But, it's the details that really build out the issue and series. It had times that felt like you missed something but, by the end it all makes sense of whats going on and its actually pretty solid. The ending isn't quite the thrill ride the rest of the story is, but as someone who loves noir detective stories, I can confirm that that's true of 90% of the classics of the genre. Overall, this series was a joy, the conclusion is satisfyingly tidy, and "Edison Hark will return" were just the words I was hoping to hear.
• 
  Victoria Niro

  Eu não estava esperando que fosse tão bom!! As artes são lindas, a edição está maravilhosa, a história é ótima e o estudo sobre o contexto histórico está muito bem fundamentado. Aliás, gostei muito de no final do livro ter uma parte explicando as referências usadas. Isso fez com que fosse possível entender melhor a história e o contexto em que ela estava inserida e, como eu não conhecia muito sobre a história dos asiáticos nos Estados Unidos, foi muito interessante. Me lembrou um pouco "A Noite Passada no Telegraph Club", o contexto histórico dos dois se complementam bastante. Além disso tudo, o mistério da história me fez ficar presa buscando a solução.
  
  Enfim, vale muito a pena a leitura. Livro belíssimo.
• 
  Michael

  Great book - it's a cracker of a noir murder mystery, but layered with incredibly detailed period-specific details about Chinese immigration into the States. Really powerful writing. The art is wonderful as well - clean, precise, and dramatic.
• 
  Lucas Soc

  4.4
• 
  frumpburger

  3.5 stars. I generally enjoyed this, but I did have some difficulty following the story at times.
• 
  Olivia Park

  its all because of wasians...
• 
  Marice

  3,5
• 
  Alexandria Ganger

  Really solid start and middle, the end of the mystery kinda lost me. But overall an excellent read and enjoyable noir graphic novel.
• 
  Lisandra

  3,67 estrelas
• 
  Steve

  I found the plot very hard to follow.
• 
  doowopapocalypse

  Arc from Edelweiss.
  
  A good, well-paced detective story.
• 
  Sebastian Lauterbach

  I'm giving this 1.5 stars, because I do appreciate the unique setting and the interesting historical context given in the book (and I basically disliked everything else).
  
  I have to admit, that neither historical settings nor crime mysteries are my favourite genres, but this book receives a lot of praise, so I was curious how I would like it.
  
  I didn't like the artwork, as I was mixing up faces throughout the story, but I especially hated the colouring. Every page is washed in a single colour with different shades of said colour. It just looks icky and bland.
  
  In addition, the story was very boring for me, a lot of characters are introduced and it's hard to keep track of their relations. Getting through the first half of this book was a chore. Then the action picks up and you get your usual twists and revelations, but they didn't really excite me.
  
  The book makes it very clear that the main character does not like himself and neither does the reader I suppose. Not a recommended read.