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The Good Asian # 1 – 3
Publisher: Image Comics
Story: Pornsak Pichetshote
Art: Alexandre Tefenkgi
Colors: Lee Loughridge
Letters: Jeff Powell

Back during NYCC 2018, I was privileged to be able to sit down with writer Pornsak Pichetshtoe. At the time he was accompanied by the rest of the creative team for Infidel to discuss Image Comics’ critically acclaimed horror comic series coming to trade format. I knew then that I would be reading his work again, as Infidel was a timely and penetrating deconstruction of Aisha’s cultural and family circumstances critically lauded for its depth and complexity. Fast forward almost three years, and Pichetshote seems right on cue with Image’s The Good Asian at a particularly difficult and dangerous time for Asian Americans. 

Delivering another incisive look at the less than subtle nuances of racial disharmony in America, The Good Asian is a hardboiled noir detective story set in 1930s San Francisco. Hawaiian police detective Edison Hark returns to mainland USA at the request of his surrogate brother Frankie on behalf of their father, Mason Carroway. The old man has been rendered comatose at the loss of his young mistress and Frankie fears that only her return will rouse his. With very limited information to go on, Hark sets out for seedy Chinatown to find answers.  

Despite being an American citizen, Hark is subjected to a protracted vetting process while detained at the Angel Island immigration station. There, confined with dozens of Asian immigrants, we see depicted one of the many internal compromises that have begun to eat away at Hark’s sense of self-worth. Edison has become rather adept at lying to his own people. Particularly, he plies disaffected Chinese immigrants and citizens who look to his authoritative status with reverence and, at times, even hope. 

On Angel Island, he lies to assuage the trepidation of a young boy traveling alone to his meet father. Later we see him lie again to gain the trust of a Chinese family, intimidated by the strong-arm policing of one of Hark’s Irish colleagues. At every turn, his half-truths and misdirection turn out to be the lesser of a multitude of evils. But these compromises build up in the character’s consciousness and the weight of them is palpable in Hark’s interactions as the story progresses. 

The personal struggle between loyalty to his privilege and loyalty to his people is fascinating to see because it isn’t an internal one. Hark’s decisions land like foreshocks in a secretive community already terrorized by gang violence and scrutinized by law enforcement. What his investigation uncovers can ultimately shape the future of Chinatown itself, with each discovery echoing up through throngs of immigrants and Tong gang affiliates, shady businessmen and politicians, and self-serving cops. Only Hark can find out how it’s all connected to one of the most powerful families in all of San Francisco.     

Encompassing Pichetshote’s layer storytelling, Alex Tefenkgi’s San Francisco is a character unto itself, breathing and shifting with every step Hark makes. Together with colorist Lee Loughridge, Tefengki delivers a surprising degree of nuance across the vibrant, inky pages. He preserves striking clarity in the expressiveness of his characters through quiet exchanges and frantic action without compromising the impenetrable veil of intrigue the genre thrives on. This tonal quality is spot on, delivering emphatic resonance in lockstep with the narrative pacing.

Chinatown observes and recoils from Hark’s presence very organically, as the outsider loathed among outsiders. His knack for reading people and situations serves him well, but you never really know who is a true friend and who is a true threat. If Edison Hark does, he isn’t giving it away just yet.

The Good Asian is eminently entertaining, delivering on mystery and action noir demands while expertly subverting genre conventions with thought-provoking historical context. The book is a treat where style and substance are well paired.

Christian Davenport
cable201@comicattack.net