Gene Luen Yang

Lark Pien

In 1898 China, Little Bao has had enough of foreign missionaries and soldiers robbing peasants, and he recruits an army of Boxers to fight to free China from its oppressors.

Boxers

Flavia Louise

I had no idea what this was about going in and I was pleasantly surprised.

Katie Egan

Loving the historical fiction graphic novels right now.

Destiny J Tamayo

3.5. 
Very interesting. Can’t wait to pick up Saints.

Ana Ignat

Elad Schulman

Actual rating: 3.5 

Eh.. I do not seem to be a fan of Gene Luen Yang. I never like his characters, as I can never relate to any of them, and the plot is just okay.

Bryan Alexander

I read this because my daughter recommended it. She's a lifelong comics fanatic, and a fine creator to boot. I always trust her taste.

Boxers is a graphic novel in that rare but important and burgeoning subgenre, the historical graphic novel. Its topic is the 1900 Chinese uprising against European and American colonialism, known in the west as the Boxer Rebellion. The narrative focuses on a young peasant man as he grows up in a village, gets radicalized, discovers local militias and secret societies, then gradually becomes an insurgent leader.

It's a gripping, fascinating, and moving tale.

Let me highlight some especially interesting and effective elements.

First, this is a bottom-up account. We never leave the protagonist's perspective. Since he's an illiterate peasant, we only see the world through his (developing) understanding. Besides several title cards telling us the date and location, Boxers never gives us a third person view. It's all subjective in this sense... and yet objective, in that we're immersed in a Chinese participant's experience. That's a perspective usually missing in western accounts.

Bao is very sympathetic in this limited frame. He's also pedagogically useful, as his learning process lets readers gradually into the time period.

Second, Boxers incorporates some degree of fantasy. The Boxers (also the Society of Harmonious Fists, some belonging to the awesomely named Big Sword Society) believed that they could summon spirits and/or gods and/or mythic heroes to aid their cause, and so Yang draws accordingly. Following the dictates of one classic fantasy style, it's usually unclear if these evocations actually transpire, or if they're only in Bao's mind.

A notable instance of this is the character who sometimes possessed Bao, and then becomes his fierce advisor. (view spoiler)[It's China's first emperor. Bao, being uneducated in his nation's history, cannot recognize him. Shi Huang Di hectors Bao on tactics and strategy.  (hide spoiler)] . Again, in fantasy mode, we can't tell if this is an actual possession, or a shadow play in Bao's mind.

Third, Yang casts the story to cause the reader to sympathize with the Boxers, at least for the first half. Foreigners appear as arrogant, ignorant, and above all physically destructive. The Boxers stem from poor peasants, so you can see a clear moral framing. As the novel progresses Bao's crew becomes more violent in turn, committing increasingly dubious acts, while Chinese civilians converted to Christianity ("secondary devils") take on moral strength. 

As a visual story, Boxers is very nicely done. Panels are clean, simple, and direct, which helps a reader unfamiliar with the story to focus. Yang relies on some classic European and Japanese comic tropes for, I think, similar reasons. I was especially impressed by his willingness to make rural life sparse and bland. This evades romanticism, and then makes the (imagined?) spirits very shocking in their visual power. They are gorgeously colored and detailed, a massive contrast to the humans we've seen so far. (Reminds me of the way Tous les matins du monde (1991) depicted the European baroque)

Recommended. And thank you, Gwynneth.

PS: I am not familiar with the post-revolutionary Chinese historiography of the Boxer Rebellion, so I cannot comment on how Yang engages with it.

Boxers

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