#dragon hoops

[cantstopthinkingcomics]

Congratulations to Gene Luen Yang on his Eisner win for Dragon Hoops in the Best Publication for Teens (13-17) category.

[heroicadventurists]

2020 Harvey Award Winners

Book of the Year: Dragon Hoops by Gene Luen Yang (First Second)

Digital Book of the Year: The Nib edited by Matt Bors (thenib.com)

Best Children or Young Adult Book: Superman Smashes the Klan by Gene Luen Yang and Gurihiru (DC Comics)

Best Manga: Witch Hat Atelier by Kamome Shirahama (Kodansha Comics)

Best International Book: Grass by Keum Suk Gendry-Kim, translated by Janet Hong (Drawn and Quarterly)

Best Adaptation from a Comic Book/Graphic Novel: Watchmen by HBO, based on Watchmen (DC Comics)

Hall of Fame Inductions

The Godfather of Manga and Anime, Osamu Tezuka

Jill Thompson 

Milestone Media

[richincolor]

We have just one book on our radar this week, and it's a graphic novel about basketball (among other things)! Is it on your TBR pile?

Dragon Hoops by Gene Luen Yang First Second

In his latest graphic novel, New York Times bestselling author Gene Luen Yang turns the spotlight on his life, his family, and the high school where he teaches.

Gene understands stories—comic book stories, in particular. Big action. Bigger thrills. And the hero always wins.

But Gene doesn’t get sports. As a kid, his friends called him “Stick” and every basketball game he played ended in pain. He lost interest in basketball long ago, but at the high school where he now teaches, it's all anyone can talk about. The men’s varsity team, the Dragons, is having a phenomenal season that’s been decades in the making. Each victory brings them closer to their ultimate goal: the California State Championships.

Once Gene gets to know these young all-stars, he realizes that their story is just as thrilling as anything he’s seen on a comic book page. He knows he has to follow this epic to its end. What he doesn’t know yet is that this season is not only going to change the Dragons’s lives, but his own life as well.

[re-readingcomics]

Comics Read 07/30-08/18/2024

Over this period I read Dragon Hoops by Gene Luen Yang. Going into the book I had no idea what this was about, but I will read almost anything by Gene Luen Yang.

It’s a dense read, and unfortunately I didn’t take notes. (I give myself too many writing assignments.) But I did enjoy reading it, despite the fact that it is about basketball, a subject to which I don’t pay attention to in my real life.

The main narrative takes place over the 2013-14 year following the arc of a high school basketball team. The team belongs to the Bishop O’Dowd school in Oakland, California, and the6y are the titular dragons. Turns out that Yang taught there as his day job for years including while making his previous masterpiece, Boxers & Saints. It took him years to finish that one and while I read this I understood why it would take years longer to actually finish writing and drawing any of his books. Knowing that he taught math and is the father of four children is more than I ever knew of his biography. (Though I think I knew he was friends with Greg Pak, who gets name dropped here.)

Yang sets himself up as someone who was interested in superhero’s instead of sports. The nerd instead of the jock, who has done a fair amount of self cordoning himself off from the athletic aspects of his school. He gets interested because he hears students in the hall talking about the teams and how excited they are to have another chance at state championships and he’s hungry for another idea for a book. He starts talking with Coach Lou Richie, who turns out to be an alumnus. Through this he constructs a possible narrative about how this is the year that the Coach will finally get the championship, after loosing that game in his senior year back in 1989. Multiple times over the course of the year Yang worries about if this arc will actually happen, especially as the next year’s prospect doesn’t look that great (too much of the team is graduating). 

Much of the book alternates between the history of basketball and profiles of teenage athletes. Yang is excited to get too know some his students through an interest other than math. There is even a section where he takes advice on how one of them wants to look in cartoon form. This makes me appreciate the character design even more. (I have to admit, I bring it up in this blog because it is something I think I should write about, more than something I consciously think about while reading comic books.) The book is as much about making this book as it is about the season of boys basketball. The layout works to mix internal thoughts with external action in interesting ways. The pace is meandering. I liked getting to know all the kids, but didn’t feel that invested in the ones who were designated the stars at the beginning. I didn’t grow to love basketball as Yang did, (and I lost my love of superheroes before starting it), but got what a profound experience this would be to live. It’s not my favorite book of Yang’s, but making it was great, life changing experience make.

[lairn]

Book 3/24: Dragon Hoops by Gene Luen Yang Rating: 3/5

This comic was fine. I’ve read two other Yang graphic novels and prefer them to this one, but it was still engaging enough. He follows the path of a high school basketball team as they attempt to win the state championship while Yang negotiates the challenges of managing a personal life and telling a “true” story.

I think Yang could have done more to engage with the struggle to write non-fiction as entertainment, as I get the feeling that in some ways that is what interested him most - more than a story about basketball. But he is clearly invested in the story itself and wanted to tell some version of it.

I’m a little puzzled why he gave himself a different typeface than everyone else. He starts as an outsider, so in that sense the text difference is sensible, but even when he is in his element with his family, his speech remains distinct. I’m not sure the choice entirely works.

I enjoyed the chapters dedicated to fleshing out the players. I don’t think Yang’s character design is very strong (as he says himself, he’s no good at caricature), so chapters focusing on individual players were crucial for reader investment. He does some nice work with repeating visual motifs, but ultimately the art is a little dry and characters remain indistinct.

[bookcoversonly]

Title: Dragon Hoops | Author: Gene Luen Yang | Publisher: First Second (2020)

[paperandwax]

50 books in 2022 #2: Dragon Hoops by Gene Luen Yang

“Every time they step on the floor, they give us their Superman. Who can blame them for wanting to keep their Clark Kent to themselves?”

Rundown:

Read: January 15, 2022 - January 16, 2022 (1 day)

Reason: suggested by BookRiot as a fit for their 2022 challenge

Source: library book

Stats: nonfiction, graphic novel, published in 2020, 435 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Reading Challenges:

BookRiot Read Harder 2022 prompt #6, read a nonfiction YA comic (2/24 complete)

Reflection:

My memory of my childhood is pretty sparse, but this very well might be the first graphic novel I’ve ever read. It has never been a format that appealed to me in theory, so I was not thrilled to see this BookRiot prompt. However, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the story! Early on I noticed I was skipping over looking at the images in favor of reading the words straight through, but I got the hang of it eventually. Overall, this book was a mix of engaging plot, mild suspense, and some great introductions to interesting historical events about basketball. I don’t imagine I’ll start reading a lot of graphic novels all of a sudden, but I do intend to check out Yang’s Boxers & Saints.

[thereelbradbell]

Dragon Hoops

Published by: First Second

Format: Hardcover

Written and illustrated by: Gene Luen Yang

Gene Luen Yang rose to prominence as a comics writer in 2019 with his breakout hit: Superman Smashes the Klan for DC Comics. Before that he had dabbled in Action Comics and introduced the Chinese Superman before being given the reins of the World’s Finest Team Up book with Batman and Superman. However Yang’s most critically acclaimed follow up to Smashing the Klan has been Dragon Hoops published by First Second.

Dragon Hoops follows Yang’s personal journey documenting the 2014-2015 High School Basketball Season of the O’Dowd Dragon’s as they make their run at the first State Championship in School history. Like the author himself I went into this with little to no love for high school basketball. Sure as a NC native I watch the Duke and UNC game almost every year, but my hoops prowess ends there. Not as a newbie to the world of sports as Mr. Yang being an avid NFL fan, I still found a lot to enjoy here.

Yang rides the dream narrative of this high school basketball team to the most personal of journeys for both players and coaches. Despite Yang’s entertainingly cartoonish portrayals of these real life student athletes, he uncovers the core of the players' humanity for an inviting look inside this diversely talented locker room. Overall Dragon Hoops makes for an unlikely journey as one father, teacher, and writer learns the love of sports that so many people across the globe feed off of.

*Rating 3 out of 5