The first graphic novel to be nominated for a National Book Award (albeit in the "Young People's Literature" category), Gene Yang's American Born Chinese is a tremendous book.
The stories (or, more properly, story) are clever and engaging, but that isn't why I appreciated the book so much. Mostly, I'm relieved to read a graphic novel that's not a retelling of some painful past experience. Maus and Co. aside, the graphic-novel-as-cathartic-release grows tedious when all you want is some lighthearted pre-bedtime distraction...
...which is why I was thrilled when I saw the Mountain View library had a copy of Gilbert Hernandez's "Palomar" comics from Love and Rockets. While it's not a proper graphic novel, it satisfies my need to consume more than a comic's standard 24 pages.
In a way, this book is terrible bedtime reading, as it's a 500 page oversized hardcover book. I really couldn't figure out how to hold the book while reading in bed. (An additional compaction was that I couldn't rest it on my stomach, as I would have otherwise.)
That said, it's not really good public reading either, as it is explicit in parts. I read it while in Indiana, and was afraid my grandmother would flip through it and find all of the steamy sex scenes. I can't even imagine her incomprehension.
Seriously, though, Palomar is great. The town that Gilbert Hernandez has created is a curious mix of pure feminism (women seem to be the only competent people in town; the sheriff and the mayor are both incredibly strong females) and pure sexism (apparently, all women must wear skirts - the only woman who does not wear a skirt is the steroid-popping bodybuilder). While the end is weak - and drifts too far into magic realism for my tastes - the other 450 pages more than make up for it.
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