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Pornsak Pichetshote and Alexandre Tefenkgi’s The Good Asian Volume One takes readers on a thrilling and thoughtful tour of 1930s Chinatown.
Since authors like Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammet helped to establish the hardboiled detective archetype, countless creators have been inspired to weave their own noir mysteries. At this point, there’s no shortage of competently crafted detective stories, but it is rare to see its archetypes used to do something new. Since The Good Asian’s series debut, Pornsak Pichetshote and Alexandre Tefenkgi’s work has done just that. Image Comics has collected the first four issues of the series into a book that is thoughtful, thrilling, and thoroughly entertaining.
The Good Asian Volume One follows Detective Edison Hark, a Chinese American who has returned to San Francisco after years of working in Hawaii. Edison’s childhood friend Frankie, the son of a millionaire named Mason Calloway who raised Edison after his mother died, has asked him to help find a missing woman who worked for the Calloways. While helping Frankie, Edison is forced to cooperate with racist police in Chinatown and ends up getting dragged into a murder investigation that threatens to disrupt San Francisco’s Asian American community.
Pichetshote, best known for his horror series Infadel, centers this detective story on the socio-economic tensions that erupted following America’s Asian immigration ban in the 1930s. Hark’s classic hardboiled cynicism is amplified by his conflicted feelings about working with racist police who often abuse their power to make life difficult for his community. Pichetshote brings well-researched historical context to an era that is often romanticized and adds an extra layer of tension and a new perspective to the detective story. The central narrative twists and turns with all the charm of a Raymond Chandler novel. Each new chapter manages to recontextualize previous events and raise questions about Hark’s past and the case he’s working.
Tefenkgi’s art presents Pichetshote’s complicated narrative in a deceptively simple style. At first glance, Tefenkgi seems to prioritize shadows and atmosphere over precise details, but a closer look reveals lovingly crafted crowd scenes and era-appropriate architecture. His page layouts are frequently cinematic, conjuring memories of Polanski’s Chinatown. However, when the story calls for a flashback or a change of pace, Tefenkgi utilizes comic compositions — allowing panels to circle around each other. These inventive moments help control the pace of the story and double as gorgeous works of art. Lee Loughridge’s colors compliment the art perfectly and soak the proceedings in a stunning but somber palette.
The shocking conclusion of The Good Asian Volume One sets the stage for escalating tensions in detective Hark’s personal life and throughout Chinatown. Mysteries abound, but the one thing that this volume does make clear is that Edison Hark is one of the most intriguing detectives in the history of noir. Pichetshote and Tefenkgi have crafted a brilliant story that sheds light on a dark time in American history while telling a compelling and singular story that is sure to fascinate audiences for quite some time.
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