![]() ![]() Since I can read a smattering of Japanese, I spot-checked many of the word balloons and to the best of my ability, all her Japanese was accurate, and so I assume that her Korean is good as well. ![]() It is an innovative technique, and it conveys exactly what the author has in mind. ![]() ![]() The conceit is that when a native speaker in a non-English language speaks too fast, the English translation is blurred out, struck through, or deliberately obscured, giving you the same bewildered feeling you get when someone in Japan thinks you're Japanese, and opens up her language stream at you full bore. That's because characters in the book speak a combination of those languages. The word balloons are in 3 languages (though never all 3 in the same balloon): English, Japanese, and Korean. Right from the start, the book introduced a new story technique that I'd never seen before, and can only be pulled off by a true multi-lingual artist/writer. (For instance, I could never get into Love and Rockets) But Harmony Becker's work was compelling, interesting, and very readable from the get-go: I finished it in a couple of days, and never felt like it was a slog. Indie usually means black and white, bad art, and is to interesting reading what "literary fiction" is to actually good fiction. Himawari House showed up in one of the "best comics of the year" lists and while it was labelled an "indie comic", it sounded interesting, so I checked it out of the library. ![]()
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