Graphic Novels

                                                             Dragon Hoops - Graphic Novel

For this assignment, I read the first 50+ pages of Dragon Hoops by Gene Luen Yang, a graphic memoir where Yang follows the Bishop O'Dowd Dragons basketball team as they try to win a state championship.

Thinking about a graphic novel as a form of technology is actually really interesting. Unlike regular books, graphic novels use a mix of visuals and words through panels, spacing, color, and pacing. Yang shows this right away in the prologue. Instead of explaining how he spends his time, he draws a pie chart splitting his life into family, teaching, and writing. That’s something comics can do really well. It combines visuals and storytelling in a way normal writing can’t.

Yang also shows how random inspiration can be through the way the story is told. While lying in bed, he says, "Inspiration isn't really something you can control…is it? It hits when it wants to hit" (Prologue, p. 8). What’s interesting is that the graphic novel format works the same way. One panel can hit you emotionally way faster than a full page of writing. The way comics are set up makes moments feel sudden, just like he describes.

That idea makes his introduction even more ironic. At the start, he says, "I'm just not a sports kind of guy" (Prologue, p. 3), but then ends up writing a whole book about basketball. Later, he says, "I've hated sports ever since I was a little kid! Especially basketball" (Prologue, p. 14). When he looks directly at the reader in that panel, it feels way more personal than if it was just written out. The visual part makes it feel real.

By Chapter 1, Yang shifts to Coach Lou, who says, "You tell everybody down in Southern California that Lou Richie's about to bring the championship home for Northern California" (Chapter 1, p. 34). Compared to Yang, Lou is super confident, and you can really see that through how he’s drawn. His posture, facial expression, and how the panel is framed all add to it in a way words alone wouldn’t.

The gutter, which is the space between panels, might be the most underrated part of comics. As readers, we fill in what happens in between, which makes us part of the story. Reading Dragon Hoops actually changed how I look at both sports and storytelling, because it made me realize even something as simple as a basketball season can feel meaningful if it’s told the right way. It also showed me that technology doesn’t always mean screens. Sometimes it’s just how images and words are put together to tell a story.

TRADE RATING: Dragon Hoops by Gene Luen Yang is the best comic of 2020 — Comics BookcaseTRADE RATING: Dragon Hoops by Gene Luen Yang is the best comic of 2020 — Comics Bookcase

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