This comic grew on me. At first, it felt very edgy for edgy's sake. Crude jokes and nasty language was used left and right, and it felt like it was just trying to appeal to a younger audience's shock factor appeal. However, as I learned more about the characters and read more of the comic, the story felt like it was evening out. The jokes felt less crude because it became more about the story rather than about trying to appeal to some certain audience from the get-go. I also was not sure how to feel about the art style at first, but that grew on me as well as I kept reading. The shaped are very simple and really reflect the characters, and the designs of the characters are simple but appealing. The diversity in cast and body types is refreshing after having spent the semester reading comics where there is not much of that. I would say the biggest off-putting this about this comic is how it feels like it does not try to take a stance. It shows the ridiculous in things like veganism and smoking weed, but then it also shows characters that are both this and appealing. It becomes confusing to me on the stance of the creator on these things. It seems to me like it is a wishy-washy approach that wants to hate on these things because that stance follows the crowd, but immediately disproves this stance because, hey! the people that are/ do these things aren't actually that bad. Overall, I think the comic is enjoyable after the first couple chapters.
I read American Born Chinese about two years ago for the Asian and Asian American Diaspora LMST Class, but I did not quite remember everything that happened, so I decided to read it again. While there are seemingly three story lines, they all merge into one at the end, which caught me off guard again the second time reading it. I definitely think this fits into the category of literary comics. Not only does it have great writing, it tells a compelling story that really makes the reader stop to think. While I cannot say that I relate to this story in the same way, I can see how this story could be relatable. I feel like this is an important novel that everyone should take a second and read. I also really enjoyed the pacing of this novel, both in the sense of the three stories coming together as one and in the panel by panel framing of the scenes. The writer understands well how to use blank panels and pages.
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