Better late than never, right? May 25, 2007

I meant to post this link almost two weeks ago! 

Graphic Novels: A New Asian American Literature

More Asian stuff May 22, 2007

British publishers marketing books specifically to blacks and Asians (Via GalleyCat).

Check out Papertigers.org, a site I admit I’ve never paid much attention to because their focus is children’s literature, and children’s books are not my bag, baby. But there are a lot of great links and bibliographies, plus they’ll be launching a blog on May 23, which I’ll definitely be checking out. (Via cynsations)

Also, Japan will hand out the first International Manga Award this summer.

And while we’re on the subject of manga, Wallflower anime? I definitely need to watch this!

American Born Chinese May 8, 2007

Apparently we were supposed to be offended by the character Chin-Kee according to the Fuse #8 blog: http://fusenumber8.blogspot.com/2007/05/youre-supposed-to-be-offended-that-was.html which linked to this piece “Gene Yang on Stereotypes” http://firstsecondbooks.typepad.com/mainblog/2007/05/gene_yang_on_st.html. Thank you Trisha for doing some background checks on this topic.

Jolene: I know you guys didn’t care for it, but I liked it. Can’t resist the William Hung reference.
Gayle: I didn’t like the whole Chinky thing it bugged me
Trisha: You mean the cousin?
Jolene: I felt it was more like a commentary on being Asian in America.
Trisha: Well, being Asian in parts of America.
Jolene: Yeah Hawaii is a whole other animal.
Gayle: Yeah wth?
Gayle: Buck teeth, queue, yellow. That bugged me.
Trisha: The accent!
Jolene: But that’s how America viewed Asians at one point in time in history.
Gayle: How long ago was that?
Gayle: Did you ever see those Mr. Wong skits online?
Trisha: No. Where?
Jolene: Yeah, I found them hilarious.
Jolene: Icebox.com
Gayle: Chin-Kee sort of reminded me of Mr. Wong.
Jolene: It’s comedy to me like the Dave Chappelle show.
Trisha: Oh, Chin-Kee, Chinky… Totally didn’t see that before. I’m slow.
Gayle: No way. [in reference to Jolene]
Gayle: So anyway I totally hate the whole Chin-Kee thing. Ruined the story for me. I was like get Mr. Wong out of here, you biter.
Gayle: I know Gene Yang saw Mr. Wong skits
Jolene: Well I do see your point.
Trisha: Huh, the second storyline was my least favorite. When Danny was still Chinese. Like, just because you’re Asian you have to be friends/date the other Asian kids? At least we didn’t get a history lesson about China and Japan in World War II.
Jolene: I liked the whole Monkey mythology part.
Trisha: Yeah, I did, too.
Gayle: That part wasn’t bad.
Jolene: I liked the way he blended that into the story.
Gayle: I didn’t like Chinese Danny because he was uncool to the other Asian kids, like distancing himself from them would make him less Asian.
Gayle: So we like the non-original content of the book, the retelling of the folktale
Jolene: Yeah I guess so. Go figgah yeah?
Gayle: Sad.
Jolene: What’s wrong with us?
Trisha: We like folktales?
Gayle: We just don’t like the stereotypical Asian American characters. Bottom line is we don’t like the perpetuation of stereotypes.
Jolene: But how else could this characters be described without using stereotypes?

High School Musical - The Cine-Manga? May 4, 2007

from ICv2 via MangaBlog:

Tokyopop’s full color High School Musical Cine-Manga, which uses images from the original movie along with word balloons to turn the film into a full color graphic novel…

Goong vol. 1 by Park So Hee May 3, 2007

When I started watching the K-Drama Palace (aka Princess Hours), I had no idea it was based on a manhwa series. The fact that I actually managed to watch the entire show made me want to read the manhwa, Goong: The Royal Palace, as I’ve only attempted to read one other manhwa prior to this and didn’t finish it.

Before I get to my review (recap? discussion?) of the book, I’m going to indulge in some totally unnecessary ramblings about me and K-Drama. My mom used to watch a lot of them years ago, but I was never interested because they seemed so depressing. I mean, it sounded like they all ended with someone dying or going blind or just not having a happy ending in any way. Then my library started buying the DVDs to circulate, and hey, some of them actually sounded interesting.

There are a lot of people who are obsessed with K-Drama, and a lot of teens in my library’s community who have seen a lot more of them than me. But here’s what I’ve tried so far:

1. Damo — Started off so good. Then (I thought) went in totally the wrong direction. Skipped to the end, which pissed me off, though I can’t say it was particularly surprising, so didn’t bother with the middle episodes. Did not finish, in the sense that I didn’t watch the whole thing.
2. Sweet 18 — First couple episodes okay. What sticks in my mind the most were her scarves. Made me want to live somewhere cold so I could wear all those cute scarves! DNF.
3. Rooftop Room Cat — Bored by the end of episode 1. DNF.
4. My Lovely Sam-Soon — First episode was great. Then, oh look, it’s the guy’s old love interest coming back to turn this into a soap opera. DNF.
5. Dae Jang Geum — Watched the whole thing! Okay, so most if it was at 3x speed reading the subtitles (except for the parts where they were cooking), but I did watch it. And I liked it, though I sometimes wanted to slap Jang Geum for being so self-sacrificing.
6. Sweet Spy — DNF.
7. My Love Patzzi — DNF.
8. Palace — Probably my favorite of the bunch. Yoon Eun Hye as Chae Kyung–so cute! Her clothes–also cute! Ju Ji Hoon as Shin–so tall! And skinny. And the sets–so pretty! Yes, I’m superficial. Major drawback–Yul. Oh, stop being so passive-aggressive. YesAsia’s DVD packaging is gorgeous, as usual, and it comes with more special features than most other K-Dramas.

Now back to the manhwa…

Goong: The Royal Palace is set in a Korea very similar to the one today, but with a constitutional monarchy. Crown Prince Shin Lee is seventeen, an age old enough to marry. His mother tells him that unless he already has a girl in mind, he will be forced to marry someone who has been chosen for him. Years ago, his grandfather had a dear friend, a commoner, who agreed to betroth his granddaughter to the king’s grandson, the Crown Prince. When the agreement was made, the Crown Prince was Shin’s cousin, Yul. But when Yul’s father died, Shin became Crown Prince and the future bridegroom of the commoner’s granddaughter. As his proposal to a classmate, Hyo Rin, was turned down (and overheard by some weird girl), Shin will be forced to marry according to his late grandfather’s wishes, and is surprised to learn that his bride attends the same school as he.

Chae Kyung is the weird girl who accidentally eavesdropped on Shin’s proposal and rejection. An odd, not particularly studious girl, she has had several embarrassing encounters with the prince and is horrified to learn that she is to marry him. Shin is capable of cutting cruelty, like treating Chae Kyung and her friend like maids in the first chapter, and later telling Chae Kyung, “I agreed to this marriage because I don’t care about you… Think about it. If you were me, would you marry a girl like you? Do you know what you’re like? You should be thanking me.” Though she has her doubts, Chae Kyung ultimately chooses to go through with the marriage, and all the training that goes along with becoming a member of the royal family, in order to help her own family.

I didn’t particularly care for the art in Goong. Some of body parts seemed disproportionately sized, and the plaid of Chae Kyung’s dress in one chapter completely distracted me because it seemed so, well, loud and glaring. But overall, the art didn’t detract too much from the story, and I liked this volume enough to continue the series, if only to be able to compare it to the TV show and find out if the manhwa version of Yul is just as annoying. The knowledge of what happens in Palace helped keep me interested in Goong, oddly enough.

There are significant differences between the manhwa and K-Drama. There are several characters in the book who don’t appear in the show. For example, in Goong, Chae Kyung’s grandfather is still alive, but he has already passed away when Palace begins. What is more striking to me is how condensed the events of this first volume are compared to the television series. This volume ends the day before the wedding, whereas the wedding does not occur for quite some time in Palace. Palace is actually in the odd position of being more expansive than the manhwa. Perhaps I feel this way because I saw the show before reading the manhwa, yet it’s like their roles are reversed from the usual book/screen version dichotomy, with the manhwa having been cut to fulfill time constraints. The manhwa versions of Chae Kyung and Shin aren’t that dimensional, at least so far. Shin, though he was also a complete ass in the early episodes of Palace (oh, who am I kidding? He was an ass for most of the show, but a compelling one, I must say), still had more nuances and depth than the character as portrayed so far in the manhwa.

The only other TV show I remember watching that was based on a book series is Roswell, which departed so significantly from the books that you can’t really match the events of the show to the books. In Palace/Goong, on the other hand, you can. Though there are many events in the TV show that weren’t in the manhwa, some of the lines in the TV show seem straight out of the manhwa.

There’s a great interview with Park So Hee at end of the book discussing her background, the inspiration behind Goong, and her thoughts on the television series.

Q: People complained about the main characters. What do you think about the casting?
A: A manhwa book is a totally different medium from a TV show. And they have different systems… People who love Goong and people who worry about the casting see the characters as their friends or people they know. I think Chae-Kyung and Shin were reborn as real people who live among the readers. After the TV writer read the book, Chae-Kyung was reborn in her heart like other readers. Chae-Kyung from the book and the TV show will be different and it’s the staff’s job to cast the right person for the characters of the TV show. I hope readers understand that.

And if I hadn’t already decided to keep reading the series, this came up in the interview:

Q: Did you make any special requests of the writer of the TV show?
A: I asked her to make sure that she wrote a different ending from the book.

Trisha’s April Roundup May 1, 2007

We’re starting a new monthly feature here at YA YA YA headquarters. And since it was my idea, I’m going first.

Since we don’t review everything we read, and some of these books don’t exactly fit with our “All YA” theme, we’ll each do a recap of books we read the previous month that we think are worthy of discussion. So here are my favorite unreviewed April reads (with short reactions to each book, since I seem to be incapable of doing short reviews).

Find Me by Carol O’Connell — Wow. Just wow. A bit reminiscent of Judas Child, but it still worked for me. I seem to like the books in which Mallory is not in New York best. Probably because that’s how we’ve gotten most of her backstory, which I always find fascinating, and for all those first encounters with Mallory.

Black Cat vol. 6 by Kentaro Yabuki — That was a long gun fight. Then the story really got started.

The Dead Girls’ Dance by Rachel Caine — sequel to Glass Houses. YA books tend to be written in the first person, so I find it interesting that Caine’s adult Weather Warden series is written in the first person, while her YA Morganville Vampires series is written in third person.

Don’t Touch My Hat by James Rumford — entertaining picture book about a sheriff and his lucky hat.

My Dead Girlfriend by Eric Wight April 20, 2007

I said before that my manga knowledge is rather low. Well, my knowledge of other types of graphic novels? Even lower. So, really, even though My Dead Girlfriend is an OEL published by Tokyopop, the only comparison I can think of making is with My Friend Rabbit.

Finney Bleak’s family is no stranger to death. His ancestors had a talent for dying in truly bizarre, macabre ways. Even his parents (who seem rather Sandy and Kirsten to me*) managed to die pretty spectacularly when they went to the carnival and were electrocuted in the Tunnel of Love. It was at the annual carnival that Finney met Jenny. They go on rides together, swap carnival stories, and agree to meet again the following day. Finney waits for two hours, but Jenny never shows. You can guess why from the title.

The most striking thing to me about this book is the art. With heavy, thick lines, it is unlike any other graphic novel I’ve ever read**, hence the comparison to My Friend Rabbit. Actually, make the art the second most striking thing. What got my attention the most were all the blurbs. Quote from Joss Whedon on the cover, another one from him on the back, along with Meg Cabot, Brad Meltzer, and Josh Schwartz. Inside, more quotes from more people, and an introduction from Allan Heinberg, whom I’ve never heard of, but apparently has written for several TV shows in addition to winning awards for his comics. Anyway, this is the first time I’ve seen a graphic novel with quotes on it and an introduction in it.

Getting back to the story and art, for a book with a “Teen” rating, the art makes it look suitable even for a younger audience. I’m guessing the rating has to do with all of the death in the book, but Wight’s style here is very, well, once again, My Friend Rabbit. Even the panels of Cornelius Bleak dying at the beginning of the story are cute (or maybe I’m just twisted). Bold lines, but cute characters. Striking, yet simple. Very cinematic.

As if it wasn’t totally obvious by now, I didn’t love the book. It’s good, it’s appealing, it’s just not for me. Like Twilight. I read it, it was good, I just don’t care enough about it to read the rest of the series. There are some books you love despite their flaws, some books in which you can’t see past the flaws, and some that just aren’t the right book for you despite everything it has going for it. So give My Dead Girlfriend a try; I’m sure there are a lot of people who will enjoy it.

* Wight, as the book’s cover points out, was the “ghost artist from The OC, ” which is probably why I thought of them. I only saw the first season of the show, but from what I’ve read, I probably should say that they’re like the first season Sandy and Kirsten. Also, no comparisons to Seth’s comics, since the only thing I can remember from that season about Seth and comics is Summer dressing up like…some comic book character. The artist stuff came later, right?

** Again, no graphic novel expertise here.

Harlequin Pink April 16, 2007

Dark Horse Comics has created a Manga division and this one of the fruits of their labor.  The Harlequin Pink Ginger Blossom series comes in a set of 4, romantic tales ‘printed in flirty pink ink.’ (Seriously, they put this on the back cover of the Manga.)  As the series title suggests these are Harlequin Novels turned into Manga format. So if you are a fan of both you will be a fan of this series.

American Born Chinese April 9, 2007

 

American Born Chinese is the first graphic novel to win a Printz Award, and nominated for a National Book Award. 
The graphic novel is a three-pronged story, which later meshes into one storyline.  The first story is an ancient Chinese fable about a Monkey King who is a deity, and kung-fu master. After being rejected from Heaven the Monkey King decides that he wants to be less like a  monkey, and more like “The Great Sage, Equal to Heaven.”  The second story features Jin Wang a Chinese-American student who is racially bullied by his white classmates.  The last story is sitcom-like tale about an all-American teen named Danny, who is visited once a year by his cousin Chin-Kee who is the ultimate Chinese stereotype. (Chin-Kee even does a rendition of American Idol reject William Hung’s “She Bangs.”)

Author Gene Yang effectively weaves the three storylines to form a thought provoking essay on culture, race, and self-perception as a minority in America.  Yang’s artwork is simple, clean, and makes use of bold coloring that catches the readers eye.  Readers will delight in Yang’s humorous and bittersweet outlook on what it means to be an Asian-American.

Kitchen Princess vol. 1 by Natsumi Ando & Miyuki Kobayashi April 8, 2007

I feel a bit awkward reviewing this (if you can call my rambling a review), since I don’t really consider myself a manga reader. I mean, I plan to continue reading this series, so I now read a grand total of six manga series. There are teens who will borrow more than six manga at a time. Anyway…

As a child mourning her parents’ deaths, Najika Kazami meets a boy who gives her his flan and, in doing so, brightens her life. This being a manga, she swears that the next time they meet, she will make him the “most delicious dessert in the whole world!” But the boy has to leave, and she never sees him again. The only clue she has to his identity is a silver spoon. As the years go by, she continues to live in a Hokkaido orphanage. She loves her friends there and Hagio-Sensei, who runs the place. But when Najika discovers that the emblem on the spoon matches that of Seika Academy, she’s determined to leave the orphanage in search of the boy she once met.

Seika Academy is a pretty intimidating place (check out the panels of the exterior and Najika’s dorm room). Although Najika was admitted to the first year A class on the recommendation of the school director, she does not fit in. She’s left Hokkaido for a giant but prestigious school with 5,000 students, and her new class is comprised only of special students. “Special” as in a violin virtuoso, an artist, a famous model, and so on. Najika seems to be the only one without a special talent.

And so begins the story of our Kitchen Princess. In each chapter, Najika is faced with some sort of obstacle and cooking something is part of the solution. She is very much alone at Seika; she has no friends, and when first shown her dorm room, the first things she says is, “This is my first-ever room of my own!” But cooking makes her happy, and though she doesn’t know it yet, it’s her special talent.

Kitchen Princess is rated for 13+, but I would say it’s okay for 10+. There’s no violence or sexual situations. The story is pretty straightforward, and the only magical ability is Najika’s cooking. Also, it hasn’t turned into a soap opera (yet). There are two guys featured, Sora and Daichi Kitazawa, but so far, none of them really like each other. Najika is cute and innocent, but not on the same level as Kazuma in Yakitate!! Japan. If there’s one word to describe this volume, it’s “charming.” Predictable, maybe, but charming nonetheless. And there are recipes at the end!* One for each chapter.

It is beyond my abilities to analyze the art other than to say I liked it and that the characters are drawn more realistically than, oh, Sunako and the boys from The Wallflower (and I say this as a Wallflower fan). I mean, no one looks anorexic or overly, uh, squat. And no gratuitous cleavage, either.

For a more…professional take, Library Journal just reviewed it.

* Of all the Del Rey manga I’ve read, this one had the fewest translation notes. The second to the last note is for one of the recipes, explaining mochi, and I have to say, it’s one of the more ridiculous notes I’ve read. “Mochi is the Japanese word for ‘rice cake,’ and it is usually eaten on New Year’s Day. It is very sticky and elderly people often choke on it.”