Comic Books ARE Books, too!!!

Interesting piece I found yesterday while searching for comic book news on ye old Internet.
Read the piece HERE!

The new Gene Yang graphic novel (to a degree it's more properly "graphic non-fiction") called AMERICAN BORN CHINESE is up for the National Book Award, one of the highest honors in book publishing. And writer Tony Long doesn't like that a graphic novel is up for the National Book Award.

You can read Gene Yang's response to Tony Long's comments HERE!

Gene Yang's career features a number of fun, thoughful, entertaining and even spiritual works, including LOYOLA CHIN & THE SAN PELIGRAN ORDER, GORDON YAMAMOTO AND THE KING OF THE GEEKS (both from Slave Labor Graphics' Amaze Ink imprint), DUNCAN'S KINGDOM from Image Comics (with Derek Kirk Kim) and even a graphic novel adaptation of the ROSARY published by Pauline Press.

AMERICAN BORN CHINESE (published by First Second Books) delves into Gene's childhood, exploring prejudice of his own as the only Chinese-American in his class. Using the Chinese fable of the Monkey King, along with some very poignant moments, AMERICAN BORN CHINESE is really one of the year's must-reads.

There are some folks, though, who don't consider anything with panel-to-panel storytelling to be "books", no matter how rich and deep the subject matter, no matter how strong the book spine, no matter how acclaimed the work. Some folks are simply prejudiced against the medium of comics and graphic novels.

Given the attention AMERICAN BORN CHINESE is receiving as a finalist for the National Book Award, I do invite you to check it out next time you visit FLYING COLORS.

Peace!

FlyCoJoe