Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
An Existential Graphic Novel, August 5, 2010
This review is from: Koko Be Good (Paperback)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
Jon is unsure of his life path. He is planning a move to Peru with his much older girlfriend Emily. She's working at an orphanage and doing good things. Jon wants to help her, but she questions his decision because Jon is young and hasn't had a chance to explore his life, to determine what is right for him.
Koko is the quintessential free-spirited screw up. She bounces around from one place to another, one job to another, taking what she wants with sheer disregard for the people around her...until she meets Jon. After a talk, Koko decides she wants to change, to do something purposeful and good with her life.
Faron is an unmotivated slacker. He lives and works with his family and doesn't seem to have any aspirations beyond playing video games and sometimes performing Kung Fu tricks as Koko's sidekick. But his life takes a turn when he gets in trouble with the law.
It's not always easy to tell a cogent story with picture panels and word bubbles, so I tend to be more forgiving with graphic novels, but 'Koko Be Good' suffered from problems with consistency and pacing (which tended toward slow), more than a few of the panels were difficult to follow, and some sections lost their meaning altogether. The overarching story was interesting enough, ultimately asking the reader to consider what "good" actually means, but even as a character study, this book faltered and it could have benefited from another round of edits for clarity and depth.
The artwork on the other hand was excellent. I love Wang's loose, almost unfinished, sketchy style with subdued sepia and umber toned washes. It worked well for the story and its characters. The top notch construction of the book also gave me pause. At first, I thought it might be the ink, but it turned out to be the paper which had an opalescent (for lack of a better word) quality and it made the colors come alive. This is a graphic novel I'd recommend for the artwork and craftsmanship more so than for the story itself.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Koko Be Mediocre, August 11, 2010
This review is from: Koko Be Good (Paperback)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
Jen Wang can draw. There is no question about that. The artwork for "Koko Be Good" is fantastic. Wang's style is loose and frenetic, stylistically solid and beautifully colored (water color? Maybe). There is so much life and energy in her imagery that the pages of the book have a hard time containing it all. Her characters are all circles, and Wang has a great way with facial expressions.
The real question is can Jen Wang write? That same wild energy that appears in the artwork has a hard time being tamed into a compelling story. Koko's introduction into the story is so visually confusing that even when I re-read the five or so pages I realized I had no idea what was going on. But the real problem is that her characters are mostly superficial, and the closing of the story is apparent from the first few pages. There are no surprises, and the book ends exactly like I thought it would. "Typical Hollywood Ending" comes to mind.
The basic story set up starts with Jon, an aimless 20-something recent collage graduate who is planning to move to Peru to be with his 30-something girlfriend who plans to dedicate her life to helping the poor. Jon has no particular dreams or ambitions of his own, and so is just tagging along with his girlfriend. He feels that doing something is better than doing nothing, and simply wants to be with his girl. Jon had dreams once, of playing music, but the fire has left him. The girlfriend on the other hand is ambivalent, afraid that Jon is coming for the wrong reasons and not afraid to tell him so. Suddenly, into Jon's life comes Koko, an explosion of id who acts without thinking, full of strange passion and drive but with no focus at all. Koko is pure impulse, and forget the consequences. The two form a strange friendship, with Koko impressed by Jon's plan to "be good" and Jon finding himself drawn to the impish girl. Koko questions her own life, and sets out on a plan to "be good" without really knowing how, but goes about it in her own way.
Maybe it is my age, but I didn't find either Jon or Koko's journey to be particularly interesting. It is the typical shallow soul-searching that affects most collage graduates; that sort of "what do I do now?" malaise when you realize that your childhood goals have been accomplished, and that soon you will have to look at the world from a more adult perspective. Jon is wishy-washy and directionless. Koko is wild and directionless. Time to grow up, just like we all do. Yawn.
To be honest, I thought that "Koko Be Good" had the wrong main character. Threaded loosely through Jon and Koko's tale is that of a young boy named Faron Lau, who was infinitely more interesting than either Koko or Jon. Faron is Koko's friend and partner in crime, a young boy who was fat and teased as a kid, and so pushed himself to grow up strong and dangerous. However, Faron's secret is that he loves Broadway musicals, and his most treasured possession is a poster from the musical Wicked. Faron was awesome. Faron was interesting. The short seven-page interlude called "The Ballad of Faron Lau" was the best part of the book.
I look forward to more by Jen Wang. Her artwork is truly tremendous, and if you don't demand too much story-wise from your comics, or if you are young enough to empathize and be moved by the characters, then <em>Koko Be Good</em> might just blow you away. Me, I hope Wang teams up with a writer to give focus to her energy. Maybe Wang is a little too much Koko herself, and needs to find a Jon to bring her down to earth a little.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Rock-Solid Artistry, August 7, 2010
This review is from: Koko Be Good (Paperback)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
This graphic novel, released by :01 and created by Jen Wang, is something of an enigma for me. On one hand, the story has been done, the characters aren't very likable, and there isn't really much in the way of plot, particularly climax. However, the art is so fetching that I can ignore the previous complaints.
Koko Be Good is about Koko, a young woman in search of herself and willing to do just about any preposterous thing you can think of. She is the classic twenty-something narcissist, a stand-out among the "me-generation." Unfortunately, there is very little character development with her in the way of significant change, and so she fails to ever connect to the reader in a meaningful way. Jonathon is also a young twenty-something, in love with a woman across the coast and about to move to Peru with her. He seems lost, unsure of himself, and unwilling to feel true joy. His quest ends (or begins anew) with a more substantial moment than Koko, but I'm still not sure I like where he finally lands. Of course, Koko and Jonathan cross paths, and both have an effect upon the other, but in the end, I don't think either had as substantive an impact as the story would like us to believe. And if that's the point ... then that's a bummer.
Obviously, I didn't care for Wang's actual story. But, she is a phenomenal artist with a charismatic style and a wonderful sense of color. Her layouts are dynamic, her backgrounds are nuanced without being busy, and her characters are refreshingly quirky in appearance. I would have liked her word balloons to have been more appropriately placed in some panels as they became confusing if reading left to right, but that wasn't a major hurdle to overcome. I truly enjoyed looking at this book.
Overall, I wouldn't recommend Koko Be Good on the merit of its story or characters, but I would on the rock-solid artistry.
~Scott William Foley, author of Andropia
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
|
![[Start the discussion]](http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/x-locale/communities/discussion_boards/start-new-discussion-sec._V192250339_.gif){kind=small}
