More Than Meets the Eye

Now that we have read through the entire graphic novel, we can see how Yang has interwoven and tied all three story arcs together.

Wei-Chan's transformer is incredibly symbolic in the graphic novel. In this vain, we see many of the characters making physical transformations (Danny to Jin, Chin-Kee to the Monkey King, etc.). What are some other ways the characters transform? Are these transformations - or changes - for he sole purpose of adapting to American society?

Now that we have read "American Born Chinese" in its entirety I am curious to see if our own perceptions of the novel have changed. Clearly, there is more to the story than initially meets the eye. Why do you think Yang chose to tell Chin-Kee's story in the form of a television sitcom, while on the hand, told the Monkey King's arc as a mythic tale? How do those two threads compare, contrast, or even compliment Jin's story?  

Extra Credit Project

 Due on December 1st, after Thanksgiving break (giving you the CHANCE to avoid your family during Thanksgiving break by saying you are working on a school project!), your extra credit optional assignment asks you to draw your own comic of approximately one to two pages, inspired by the work we've read this semester.  You might write something autobiographical, like Spiegelman's Maus or Bechdel's Fun Home, or entirely made-up, like Gene Yang's American Born Chinese.  You can use black and white or color images.  I only ask that you submit one copy to my mailbox at McMicken and upload one copy to the blog (we can make sure those entries are private), so we can discuss your work with the class.  I also ask that you include a 1 page write-up, explaining your work/ experience making the comic.

 I know some of you are better artists than others.  The assignment is more about seeing the ways in which the work you've read have influenced your use of panels, space, and narrative structure, rather than your artistry.  If you can only do stick figures, do stick figures.  If you want to use digital tools to make your images, that is okay, too (see example). The author of Hyperbole and a Half uses Paintbrush.

There's a lot of information online about creating comics.

Look at:

rules for drawing comics

making a comic

this youtube video on making a comics page.

how to draw comics 

this WikiHow on making comics

how to make a comic book

online comics tool

General Comics Links and News

Great article about "why comics are more important than ever" in the digital age

Local comic on the Cincinnati riots, Mark Twain Was Right, published

Get involved in the Graphic Futures project. Proposals due, soon!

Check out Jill Lepore's new look at the "secret" history of feminist icon, Wonder Woman

Present a paper (maybe one you wrote for class!) for the Canadian Society for the Study of Comics conference

Racism in "American Born Chinese"

This narrative is unlike the others we have read so far in that it is comprised of three very distinct narratives that seem to have no overlap.  We see an adaptation of the Chinese myth of the Monkey King, a contender for the most racist sitcom ever created, and a simple story of a Chinese boy at a new school.  But I don't think the author would just write three completely separate stories and not create some kind of connective thread between them.  What do you think connects these stories?  Is it that they all center on outsiders fighting an in-crowd?  Or are these characters fighting something else?

One thing all three of these stories have in common is overt racism, which is at times downright offensive.  The Monkey King feels like a victim of racism and so he strikes back at the other deities that saw him as inferior.  The sitcom starring Chin-Kee (even typing that name feels wrong, I must admit) shows the title character as a walking amalgamation of every racist stereotype and caricature of Asian people every created.  Jin Wang's story has him being the victim of racism, but he seems to have racist views as well.  Given all the overtly displayed racism in this story, what do you think that the author is saying about racism?

Finally, the artwork in this story is very different from every other novel we have read.  The style is very cartoony and very colorful, which seems like an odd choice given the subject matter.  But I also think that Yang makes some very interesting choices with regards to the artwork, such as having Chin-Kee (Ugh!) have yellow skin or having the Monkey King break out of a comic panel into nothingness.  Do you think the art style works for this book?  Why or why not?

American Born Chinese

     As we have seen in previous readings, American Born Chinese is another comic that is touching on the personal life experiences of its creator from a child’s perspective. The greatest difference is the use of a Chinese mythological folktale as a secondary story running along side the primary narrative.

Each frame-by-frame movement of the story takes the reader through various moment-to-moment transitions, subject-to-subject transitions and action-to-action transitions. However we rarely see an aspect-to-aspect transition during the story. If you think back to Scott McCloud’s chapter ‘Blood in the Gutter’ these transitions show a lot of “happening” moments.

How do you think that these transitions invoke the reader’s emotional response to the story? Or do you think that these transitions bring a different light to the story being told?

 Do you feel that these transitions differ in their use when compared to how such transitions were used in previous stories?

Remember Scott McCloud said, “Traditional western art and literature don’t wander much. On the whole, we’re a pretty goal-oriented culture.” So a great deal of western art and comics often emphasize ‘getting there’ versus ‘being there.’

How do you think this concept of ‘getting there’ versus ‘being there’ is shown in or has impacted how this story perceived?

The Ending

The Title and The Ending

For me, Adrian Tomine ended Shortcomings perfectly. The reader sees almost everyone’s different failures, or shortcomings, in relation to each other. Miko apologies to Ben for her faults on page 102:

She continues to clearly lay out Ben’s inadequacies through page 103:

The novel ends leaving Ben, and the reader, in mid air, just short of a landing, or resolution.

What did everyone think of the ending? Should it have ended on a more resolved note to “fix” some of the shortcomings? What were some of the other character’s shortcomings? How did race play into perceptions of failure? 

Ironic Twist and Lesbian Tolerance?

Throughout the entire reading of the book, we see Ben’s personality as an obnoxious womanizer obsessed with Caucasian women. He claims to have a “distant relationship” with Miko even when he starts to date other women when she leaves for New York. When we get to page 90, irony hits Ben like a truck of bricks when he sees his ex dating a Caucasian man. He speaks the same language Miko speaks and appears to embrace the Japanese culture, much to Miko’s liking. What do you make of this? Do you think that this form of irony is well deserved for a character like Ben, or do you feel sympathetic for him? What can we draw from Leon (the new boyfriend), a White man embracing Japanese culture? Do you think that this is a form of racism?

 

Another important topic that I found in Shortcomings was the portrayal of sexuality. There appears to be more acts of homosexuality involving girls than there are boys. This is important to analyze because the lesbian community appears to be easily accepted and no one is objecting to this. In Stuck Rubber Baby, there are multiple acts of male homosexuality that are frowned upon by the community. So if the male homosexual community was looked down in Stuck Rubber Baby, why was the lesbian community accepted so easily in Shortcomings? Is this a matter of a time where people were intolerant? Or do people accept lesbians more because of a more…. sexual…. desire?