The Good Asian #1
- WRITER
- Pornsak Pichetshote
- Artist
- Alexandre Tefenkgi
- Letterer
- Jeff Powell
- Cover Artist
- Sana Takeda, Dave Johnson
- Publisher
- Image Comics
- Price
- 3.99
- Release Date
- 2021-05-05
- Colorist
- Lee Loughridge
Even if the era that inspired it has long since passed, the noir genre remains as effective as ever, with its hardboiled stories of rugged individuals weathering the gritty, cruel worlds in which they inhabit, just trying to get by. Within the classic noir period of the 1930s, there's the racially outdated archetype of the Chinatown detective, popularized by Hollywood film series like Charlie Chan and Mr. Moto. But now, acclaimed comic book creators Pornsak Pichetshote and Alexandre Tefenkgi team up for the new Image Comics series The Good Asian, which reclaims this racially insensitive character type for their own period-piece noir story in an impressive start.
In San Francisco's Chinatown during 1936, Chinese immigrants are subjected to the cruelties of the first federally sanctioned immigration ban in American history targeting a specific racial group. Chinese American detective Edison Hark detests himself for being willingly complicit working alongside corrupt San Francisco police and their treatment of fellow East Asian immigrants into the city. And amidst all the rampant violence and police overstepping their bounds among the defenseless immigrants throughout Chinatown, Edison stumbles across a grisly murder scene that is only slated to add to its bloody body count in a mystery that is poised to shake San Francisco right to its core.
After previously co-creating the acclaimed Image horror miniseries Infidel -- a meditation on racism fueling literal, bloodthirsty monsters -- Pichetshote crafts a more grounded look at common, racially motivated prejudices in 20th century America. There are no monsters here, per se, outside of those possible by maligned extensions of the human condition. Working with historical consultant Grant Din, the world of The Good Asian feels authentic and lived-in. This is an issue chock-full of exposition but that feels more like an affectation of the genre itself, as Edison introduces himself and the unforgiving world that he scraps by as he makes a hardboiled living on those mean streets.
Tefenkgi, working with colorist Lee Loughridge, delivers a vision of Chinatown constantly shrouded in menacing shadows as Edison is forced to comply and participate with the morally questionable aspects of his line of work. The Good Asian is very much a crime comic, but the tension and savagery on the printed page is no less visceral and unnerving than what Pichetshote had previously woven to great effect in Infidel, and a significant part of that is how well Tefenkgi realizes the sinister potential of a story that delves so heavily in the darkness. And with its character designs and paneling, there is something timeless about the execution of this comic overall, aided by letterer and designer Jeff Powell; readers can practically feel and smell the newsprint quality off its pages, even reading this issue digitally.
The Good Asian delivers an unflinching look at the Chinese American experience in 1930s Chinatown at a time when the narrative parallels of racially motivated abuses and overreach of police authority, unfortunately, echo more uncomfortably in the modern era than they should. Even without the story's timeliness, Pichetshote and Tefenkgi are off to a strong start with their new Image Comics series, evoking classic noir and reappropriating a misused archetype, with all of its complicated implications, for modern audiences. And as the true stakes of the story begin to take shape, it's clear that this murder mystery is going to have far-reaching narrative implications as readers are drawn into its enticing web of violence and mayhem.