In Review: The Good Asian #6 (of 10)

Synopsis: This month in The Good Asian. On the run from the police, Edison Hark heads to the only person he can for help—and confronts a long-avoided past.

The Story

Continuing the story from previous issues. Edison Hark is now on the run after having been caught next to the dead body of Frankie Carroway. After a brief and brutal confrontation with Detective O’Malley. Edison manages to escape and reaches out to Victoria Carroway who helps him evade his captor and helps him brainstorm various scenarios based on information that he has collected. After spending the night with Victoria. Edison evades the police and is confronted by Hui Long who reveals another piece to the puzzle about Ivy Chen.

Artwork

The art team does a solid job in this issue as we get some really violent and bloody panels at the start of the book, but done in a very stylized way. Almost monochrome with cyan-like blues, but generous amounts of red for the blood. Fortunately, things get less bloody as Edison gets away and has an interesting conversation with Victoria. These quieter panels include some interesting flashback sequences to young Edison challenging Mason Carroway about his interest in his mother.

The final few pages are really dramatic as we finally learn the connection between Ivy Chen and Lui Long.

Overall

Pornsak Pichetshote continues to entertain with this hard-boiled detective story. He successfully tunes readers into what the Asian experience was like in 1936 America while simultaneously weaving a detective story that would rival just about any Humphrey Bogart or Jimmy Cagney film from that same era. I thought the conversations between Edison and Victoria really gave us a bit of insight into Edison’s cynical worldview and his resentment at having to go along to get along in order to just do his job and the self-loathing that brings him.

Overall. A really strong issue that offers up a fantastic plot twist.