The Good Asian #2 Review

Writer: Pornsak Pichetshote / Artist: Alexandre Tefenkgi / Image I can’t stop thinking about The Good Asian. I can’t stop reveling in the recreation of a world adjacent to the past that Pichetshote and Tefenkgi have carefully curated. And I mostly can’t stop thinking about how Edison Hark’s complicated struggles with his Chinese-American heritage have analogs to my own experiences navigating my Filipino-American heritage. I said as much during my last review, but it definitely bears repeating. There is a level of attention and authenticity to this story that makes it mystifying in the best ways possible. The Good Asian #2 wastes no panel as it jumps immediately to Hark dealing with the consequences of finding a dead body and trying to protect a boy who had the misfortune of being there at the wrong time. And it is a flurry of feelings and images as Pichetshote’s writing packs a punch and Tefenkgi’s art and Lourghridge’s colors manage to tell vivid vignettes in compact spaces. The Good Asian #2 effectively utilizing each page and covers a multitude of emotional spectrum and various times. It’s incredibly efficient story telling from both a narrative and visual perspective that really lets the noir foundation of the series to bustle along.

As Edison Hark navigates Chinatown on the behalf of a white police force, we get to see a very reasonable facsimile of 1936 California. The level of detail, the specificity, and the care that the creative team put into the story is so blar…