Pen-Elayne on the Web

Pen-Elayne For Your Thoughts: Modern Tales Part One

Joey Manley was kind enough to give me a free subscription to his Modern Tales website, asking for feedback on their comics. As I'm busy uploading my old reviews to my website anyway I'm kind of in "review mode" anyway, so why not resurrect the column style for this blog, since it's all online now anyway? The reviews will be alphabetical by title; here are the first two.

AMERICAN BORN CHINESE
Reflections on the Chinese-American Experience
by Gene Luen Yang
Updated every Monday

Here's what I thought...

First off, great design touch, running the title and byline to read up-to-down on the right side of the page, in "Asian-style" letters. I also love that the strip retells stories from probably the most famous Chinese legend, Monkey King; my friend Alan Davis, who loves this mythos and collects various versions of it, first turned me onto it about a year or so ago, and it's a lot of fun. In the prologue, Yang retells the story of Monkey King's battle with Tiger Spirit for control of his mountain amusingly and effectively, with lots of humorous panels and easy to follow visuals. Although as I recall, in the original the Monkey King knew very well who he was, and was never confused as to his own origin; in fact, his arrogance was the central theme of many of the stories. And indeed, Yang does away with this odd plot point in his follow-up in Chapter One, which retells a portion of the heavenly dinner party which Monkey King was barred from attending (although Yang left out my favorite part, where Monkey King gets even; thus, the ending is rather flat because it's not really the end of the story).

Chapter Two, which is currently on its eleventh installment, changes the pace as Yang delves into the realm of semi-autobiography, talking about growing up in San Francisco then moving to a mostly-white neighborhood and having to deal with the cruelty and prejudice of the other children. It gives Yang a chance to show how adept he is at serious stuff as well as the humorous, and it's shaping up to be a very touching and well-told story. Highly recommended.

So, what did y'all think?

BITTEN APPLE
by Jesse Hamm
Updated every Friday

Here's what I thought...

This is a retelling of the Snow White fairy tale, wherein Hamm delights in placing the pictures (done in a somewhat dark and gruesome style) in opposition to the narrative. For instance, the panel which reads "His first wife long dead, the king presently decided to search for a new one" shows a female skeleton dressed in royal raiment, hanging from a noose. It looks like Hamm spends a lot of time rendering his backgrounds, to the point where the figures look a bit sketchy, but I think the effect works nicely. Chapter One eschews narrative in favor of dialogue, some of which is quite witty (we listen to the royal stepmother bitching, then asking, "Tell me Mirror, how do you cope with it?" "Your majesty's self-pity?" the mirror responds). The Queen is portrayed as insecure as well as evil (or has her insecurity driven her to it?), addicting to smoking =heh= banana slugs; the Mirror with the long, hook-nosed face reflects as petty and vindictive towards her; and the Huntsman as a greedy, self-interested buck-passer. To say that "zany hijinx ensue" regarding the plot about the Huntsman being ordered to bring Snow White's heart to the Queen would be putting it mildly. As for Snow White herself, not to mention the dwarves - well, that would be telling. Hamm also graces his readers with some "work in progress" stuff, showing uninked pencils of various episodes underneath the finished product. I'm enjoying this one a lot. Even (or especially?) with the tortured "scruffy boy" Britspeak.

So, what did y'all think?