Town Boy

A friend of a friend recommended this and Kampung Boy before I took a trip to Malaysia. I'm so glad I read them--even though they depict Malaysia as it was decades ago, I could still see some of the traces of these stories in the people and the society. And the drawings are wonderful--they made me laugh out loud!

Last year I went gaga over a Malaysian comic from the seventies. Doesn't a sentence that like sound cool? Like I'm some kind of obscure comic enthusiast with a penchant for the best overseas comics of decades past? The truth is far less sexy, I'm afraid. First Second brought to our American shores the comic book Kampung Boy, a title that original appeared in Malaysia long ago. Initially the format didn't intrigue me, but after a test run I found that I liked Lat (the one-namer author) and his work quite a lot. The story was an unpretentious memoir of growing up in a small kampung (village) and the typical mischievous boy adventures that occurred in one kid's life. At the end of the book our hero leaves his home to go to Ipoh to pursue his studies. This year the sequel, "Town Boy" is out and continues Lat's story. With all the humor and visual aplomb of the first book, this second story crosses the critical boundary from being a boy to becoming a man. Our hero, Mat, has moved from village boy to city boy and the transition has come with a host of different changes. His family has moved to Ipoh with him and the life and excitement that comes with such a transition is thrilling to them all. Other changes are in the works too. Mat befriends Frankie, a Chinese student, and when they discover their mutual love of music and records the two really hit it off. "Town Boy" follows Mat's growth and adolescence. He falls head over heels in love with Normah, a stunner of a girl. He goes to dances, learns art, and is even in the marching band. But age brings change and soon Mat finds himself losing his best friend and trying to decide whether or not to follow in his father's footsteps or find his own path through life. What I really loved was how much of this book was a buddy story. Mat has never really had a best friend until this moment and Frankie's character offers a direct connection to the time in which this story takes place. After all, he's a fan of contemporary music, so that means a lot of Ricky Nelson, Paul Anka, and The Beatles. The cover indicates how important their friendship is. I also really appreciated the character of Normah "the girl". In the hero's eyes, every man she passes looks at her, but when you see her in person (not just a fleeting eyebrow) you see that though she is quite pretty, she's also very sensible looking. No overthrust boobs or pouty lips. Just a gal who wears jeans and t-shirts and is very much the girl next door. First Second took a bit of a risk publishing a graphic novel as thin and long as "Kampung Boy". Reading the sequel, I was struck by how necessary that move really was. To force this book into a square rather than a rectangle would be to cut off crucial portions of the action (not to mention some great visual gags). It would be the equivalent of panning and scanning a great film. So many portions of the book rely on full landscapes for the joke or the idea to make sense too. At