Level Up
Gene Luen Yang and Thien Pham, Roaring Brook/First Second, $15.99 trade paper (160p) ISBN 978-1-59643-235-2
Yang, writer-artist of National Book Award finalist American Born Chinese, writes this magical-realist tale of Asian-American parental pressure and video-game escape, leaving the art to up-and-comer Pham. Dennis Ouyang struggles with the burden of his dead father's orders that he study hard, go to med school, and become a gastroenterologist. When Dennis, inspired by four mysterious angels, gives up his passion--video games--and buckles down to his studies, he befriends three fellow second-generation students and begins to make a place in med school. But a crisis in confidence reveals the true nature of his guardian angels, and the real source of his father's dreams for his only son. Pham's watercolors can be charming, but his primarily gray and brown palette gets visually monotonous; thankfully, his work increases in energy as the plot does. Yang's familiar story of immigrant striving and filial rebellion gets just enough juice from its connection to arcade culture. A bravura storytelling and visual twist near the end brings together the plot's several strands. A minor work from Yang, but a welcome introduction to Pham, whose own upcoming First Second graphic novel, Sumo, looks promising. (June)
Seeds
Ross Mackintosh, Com.x (Diamond, dist.), $10.99 trade paper (80p) ISBN 978-0-9832238-0-1
Telling the truth usually isn't nearly as easy as most of us think. When the truth is told in a work of autobiographical art, it stands out as something particularly rare and noteworthy. This sense of truth telling is what gives Mackintosh's thoughtful, spare account of his father's death from cancer such a potent punch. In neatly compacted, simply drawn square frames, Mackintosh tells of how his father--affectionately memorialized as a guy who wanted little more from life than to not have to work too hard--was diagnosed in rapid succession with two different kinds of cancer. As Mackintosh and his mother come to grips with his father's impending death, he details in quick, deglamorized strokes the stages of treatment and decline from hospital to home to hospice. Mackintosh also comes to grips with his own sense of mortality, speaking directly to the reader and (much less successfully) dialoguing with a philosophy-prone friend, while evading completely the feel-good bromides or false, eliding profundities so common to graphic memoirists. The book's ability to take on a dismally grim topic with such forthright sincerity is ultimately much less depressing than it is hopeful and even revelatory. (Apr.)
Mister Wonderful
Daniel Clowes, Pantheon, $19.95 (80p) ISBN 978-0-307-37813-2
Schlubby, broke, lonely divorcé Marshall only wants a partner, "someone to read the parts of the paper I throw away (travel, garden)." He's been set up on a date with Natalie, who's more or less perfect for him--operative phrase "more or less." She's got some damage of her own, but they do seem to have at least a touch of chemistry. Over the course of the evening, nearly everything that could go wrong with a tentative flirtation does, including a mugging and a really bad party. Expanded from a serial that ran in the New York Times Magazine, this is a gorgeously staged graphic novella consistently playful and funny on a formal level--there's a running joke involving Marshall's interior monologue covering up images or dialogue, and constant fantasy sequences signaled by drawing-style shifts. It's also the most tightly focused and sweet-tempered of Clowes's books so far, the closest thing he's done to a Woody Allen movie. Still, it wouldn't be Clowes if he didn't show at least a touch of contempt for all of his characters amid the tenderness; the story is a romantic comedy with almost--but not quite--enough caveats to sink any sense of hope. (Apr.)
iZombie, Vol. 1: Dead to the World
Chris Roberson and Michael Allred, DC/Vertigo, $14.99 trade paper (144p) ISBN 978-1-4012-2965-4
SF author Roberson and comics icon Allred team for quirky take on zombie "life." When we meet Gwen, the zombie girl at the center of the story, there's been an uptick in postmortem activity in Eugene, Ore. We have a gang of mean vampire girls who run a paintball center as a way to lure young men to them; a were-terrier who's in love with Gwen; an ancient Egyptian mummy who wants Gwen to join forces with him; a cheerful girl ghost from the 1960s; and a monster-hunter named Horatio who Gwen falls for before realizing what he does for a living. When she eats a dead boy's brain, Gwen is overwhelmed with his memories and finds herself compelled to avenge his murder. The story moves at a rapid pace, pulling you right along with it, and Allred makes the characters cute and likable in spite of their monstrous qualities. Roberson has put together a good story with plenty to keep readers interested. (Mar.)
