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Gene Luen Yang




Title Creator Publisher Series Price
Animal Crackers Gene Luen Yang Slave Labor Graphics $13.50
($14.95 list)
Animalcrackers
Read more and comment... 		Before he became a household name as a result of the runaway success of his graphic novel, American Born Chinese, Gene Luen Yang produced two graphic novellas for Slave Labor Graphics:  Gordon Yamamoto and the King of the Geeks, and Loyola Chin and the San PeLigran Order.  Both are herein collected, along with bonus materials.  Both of these tales center on high school life and integrate modicums of science fiction and fantasy with themes of ethnic and group identity. Fans of American Born Chinese might well enjoy seeing Yang feeling his way towards his more mature work, and anyone who appreciates fun, well drawn comics with a sense of humor and solid storytelling might want to take a look.
The Eternal Smile Gene Luen Yang, Derek Kirk Kim (:01) First Second $15.25
($16.95 list)
Eternalsmile
Read more and comment... 		More than a long-awaited follow-up, this hefty, full-color volume teams two of the brightest lights of the Asian-American comics scene to bring readers of comics a triptych of tales celebrating universal themes that incorporate motifs from fairy tales, myths and legends and integrate them into the fabric of contemporary California life.  Fans of formal invention will find plenty to celebrate as well.  Yang, author of the multiple award-winning American Born Chinese, and Kim, author of the amazing Same Difference, employ between them a host of styles and techniques to properly situate the content of their narratives in the readers minds
American Born Chinese Gene Luen Yang (:01) First Second $8.88
($9.95 list)
Amerchin
Read more and comment... 		Yes, the entirety of the above list of full color graphic novels printed on heavy semi-gloss stock with French-flap softcovers has just landed on our shelves and they are creaking from the strain.  We would like to draw your attention especially to the first book of Joann Sfar's Klezmer series and American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang.  While the graphic style of these two works could not be more different -- Sfar's art is as loose, wild and impressionistic as Yang's is tight, sharp and controlled -- both of these titles contain equally solid and moving tales of minority ethnic identity:  in Sfar's case of Jews -- itinerant Klezmer musicians, to be exact --  in pre-WWII Eastern Europe; and in Yang's case of a Chinese community in California that focuses on the coming of age adventures of a self-conscious youth (some Copacetic customers may remember that we carried American Born Chinese during its original serialization in Yang's self-published B & W  mini-comic version that was released over the last two or three years).