I’ve been living in a bit of a bubble these past few years with respect to my comic book reading habits. I tend to read books that I hear about on websites and what I see on the shelf in front of me at the store. The problem is that this is limiting somewhat and I know that there is an absolute PLETHORA of books out there that I would really enjoy if only I knew about them. I guess as a reviewer of graphic novels it’s part of my mission to hunt these things out myself and really try new things. Sadly my reading of reviews is kind of limited as the number of review sites that I visit has diminished since the Fourth Rail went offline last year sometime. Fair enough the guys behind those particular sites are now doing other things in the form of ComicPants and Eyeoncomics however the consistency is just not there really, which is a shame, but I’m living in a glass box really and I shouldn’t be throwing stones myself to be honest.

The thing is I’ve been listening to more comic podcasts (in addition to producing my own) and that has seriously reinvigorated me in the reading and reviewing comics. One book that was mentioned and I thought was intriguing was a book that I mentioned from published First Second called, American born Chinese. And what an amazing find this book actually is.

I’m not particularly familiar with this publisher or this creator but I’ll definitely be hunting out his work in future and hunting his previous work as well, because in my mind this is one of the freshest talents to come into the graphic novel world in DONKEY years. Before I get further in this review let me just say that this book is without a doubt the best thing I’ve read this year, and I have read a tonne of really excellent books in the last month or so.

The creator of American Born Chinese is Gene Luen Yang and is without a doubt a talent you all should make yourselves more familiar with. The artwork is very simple and soft (that’s the best way I can describe it) and it’s got this seriously magical quality to it. Gene basically is using the graphic novel format to tell a story. That’s the main thing behind this. It’s not about the detail it’s not about the imagination, it’s about the story and the message that he is trying to convey, which he does with absolute ease.

The story follows three seemingly unrelated characters. The first being the Monkey King of Flower Fruit Mountain. A character who is trying to be more than he is and making sure all those around him know this to be true as well. The second follows Jin Wang an American born Chinese kid in school which follows his trials and tribulations as he goes through school and sees how he is treated by his fellow kids and how he feels oddly out of place but is trying to fit in. The final story is like a mocking sitcom, that is COMPLETELY over the top and racist in which feeds on the misconceptions of Chinese people. For a start the sitcom series is called Everyone Loves Chin-kee. The main character Chin-Kee is a complete stereotype and it’s meant to poke fun, not of Chinese people, but rather those that still have those misconceptions.

The real magic is how these three completely unrelated tales come together in the end to tell a brilliant story that has soo many defining moments that you end up with a massive smile on your face for a couple of days after you’ve finished reading it and so much so that you can’t stop talking about it.

Seriously do yourself a favour and get this book, it’s easily on my top ten graphic novels of this year unless Alan Moore comes back from retirement and published 10 new graphic novels that is. A preview of the book can be found on the website here.