I've really been enjoying your thoughts on Gene Yang. Take a few minutes to peruse some of this background information about the author to help flesh out your conversations!
Check out this great interview with Gene Yang on the Millions.
You might also be interested in this NPR radio talk with the author.
ALSO: One aspect of the comic we haven't discussed in depth is its use of color and the fact that the color was provided by another cartoonist, Lark Pien. How does this "graphic novel"'s color scheme affect your reading? How does it contrast with the mainly black and white works we've read? How do color comics invoke some of the issues about emotion that McCloud writes about in his sections on color in Understanding Comics?
Though I loved the colors (seriously, they were bright and fun and they kept me awake!) I love the panels more. They were simple and there were very little of them. The more I read, the more I flipped and thought, "no I don't want it to end." It was a nice manipulation of space the artist had going for them. Black and white comics tend to either had a serious undertone, where as with color people tend to be more attracted to the story. I guess in today's terminology, seeing color in a "graphic novel" is "sexy."
ReplyDeleteI don't know if I'm running to close to childish here, but did anyone else know that Gene Yang worked on the Avatar comics?
ReplyDeleteThe topic of color in comics always seems to afford a certain amount of contention. I think a lot of people find the use of color in comics as a means of visual simplification. In a sense, comics with color are seen as more childish. This would certainly seem to fit in American Born Chinese’s case, with its setting and line style. Of course, the fact that it is, indeed, a children’s comic, also supports this. But this doesn’t stop the work from providing an important message to adults, and I think that more than anything, Yang’s use of a simple, approachable color palette belies the more nuanced themes that his work explores.
ReplyDelete