‘The Good Asian #1’ (review)

Written by Pornsak Pichetshote
Art by Alexandre Tefenkgi
Published by Image Comics

If you ever crushed on a smooth-talking, fedora-wearing dective or dreamt of saving the femme fatale in a noir mystery, you absolutely have to get your hands on Good Asian.

1936 is a bad time to be an Chinese immigrant, particularly in San Francisco. Anyone considered a suspicious foreigner is detained at Angel Island until their stories can be verified with family back in China.

This includes recently-arrived detective Edison Hark from Honolulu–an “oversight” quickly remedied when the influential Frankie Carroway finds out that Hark is being detained.

It doesn’t take long for Hark to get involved in local law enforcement again.

It’s Chinatown; he’s Chinese-American.

Between his heritage and his impeccable eye for detail, he’s a grudgingly-acknowledged asset to the police squad and an openly-scorned member of his community.

Hark–Eddy to those close to him–is only in California right now after being summoned there by his adoptive family.

That family? The Carroways.

This is no family reunion. Eddy’s been called here to deal with the case of a missing woman. One particularly close to his adoptive father, Mason: Ivy Chen, an upstairs maid in the Carroway’s San Francisco mansion.

This case coincides with some of Eddy’s own experiences.

Eddy doesn’t believe in coincidences.

The more Eddy digs into Ivy’s disappearance, the more complicated things become. What looks like a simple missing persons case may in fact be a sign of a larger crime syndicate gaining traction.

And with new crimes underfoot, Eddy is going to have to make some hard decisions about where his loyalties like.

I’ll be frank and say that at times this was occasionally difficult to read because of all the era-accurate racial slurs flung at the characters. I cringed everytime an Irish policeman spat particularly bigoted remarks about the folks who lived in Chinatown.

The authors themselves are Asian-American, which makes reading this ring differently than if it were a writer without a connection to the community throwing these terms around.

All of that said? I’ve already read this three times and cannot wait for the next issue.