American Born Chinese vs. Naruto

The two graphic novels are similar and different in a lot of ways. I am going to talk about American Born Chinese in this paragraph because I would have to say that of the two, it was my favorite. The way the novel was set up was that of a normal comic to me. It read from left to right, had color, the scenes were depicted nicely on each and every page. With all comics it's either extremely hard or quite easy to follow the dialogue of the characters. Gene Luen Yang did a great job of having the flow of conversation easy to follow throughout the novel. The bubbles came in sequence as my eyes moved across the page. The sound affects I think came at appropriate times in the novel. I am not a fan of authors writing out sound affects, I think they should be implied. However, they certainly were not overdone in the novel. I thought that the characters were drawn very well throughout the book. Each page they looked the exact as the same before and they were believable. You could tell there was a lot of detail that went into creating both the fictional and non-fictional characters of the novel. Even the Monkey King and all of his encounters had details about them that made them intriguing to look at. The scenery in the novel was creative. I personally was a fan of the dinner party that took place up in heaven during the first few scenes. The general layout of all the scenes was put to good use. I think that the way the cartoon images were shaped and the borders around them fit nicely onto each page. I liked the simplistic use of black bordering and white text bubbles. When there needed to be close ups to provide emphasis during a certain situation I think they were used effectively. I don't think that the mood or tone took away from the novel at all. I personally thought I was really just reading just another book that was brought to life by pictures. I haven't read many graphic novels because I have never been one to enjoy them, but this one was different than most. I think a lot of time and care was put into this. The characters and their relationships, roles, dialogue and actions were all thought out carefully and it was a well constructed novel.

When it comes to Naruto I don't necessarily have negative feelings. The two novels are just completely different from one another. It took me a little while to figure out how exactly to even read Naruto. I don't like the fact that it was reading from right to left, it just doesn't follow the protocol that I am used to. The balloons and text were much more difficult to read compared to American Born Chinese. I think a lot of that just has to deal with the fact that Naruto is in black and white instead of color. Not that there is anything wrong with that at all. I must say I am not a fan of using things such as "?!&%" to try to indicate feelings or thoughts. It's much easier to type or write out what the person is trying to say or think. I certainly wouldn't consider them to be noises because those aren't noises. I understand though that a lot of comic books do this with their text, I am just no a big fan of it. Naruto did have a lot of strong qualities to it. The characters looked fierce and strong throughout the novel. I am guessing that most of the reasoning behind this is due to the NINJA story from the book, but it does appeal to a guys point of interest. There were a lot of close up shots in this novel which didn't require any scenary to be in place for that box. However, when there were scenes in the pictures, they were actually very detailed and look like they had more emphasis on them rather than the characters themselves. I do wish that this novel would have been in color. Looking at the cover of the novel, it looks so much more professional. Yet, I guess that the black blood and bruising and the overall darkness of the novel gives it a more edgy feeling which again plays along with the ninja aspect. There were funny party in this novel, particularly the part on 102 where he can't kiss Haruno because he has the runs! Overall I would recommend this novel to young male readers, but I don't think too many other people would enjoy it.