This indie comic book was published back in June, but it’s only now coming to my attention. Still, I figure not many of you guys caught wind of this either, and it might make a sweet gamer gift for the holidays.
Level Up by Gene Luen Yang and illustrated by Thien Pham is a gaming comic that isn’t really about gaming at all. It’s about an Asian-American boy named Dennis who struggles to live up to the rigid expectations of his immigrant parents. He would rather take it easy and play some videogames, which conflicts with a future in medicine. He winds up getting kicked out of med school due to his gaming habits then finding assistance from four little angels to get his life back on track.
That’s all I’ve got so far. His web site has some excerpt pages, a few which I’ve included in the gallery below. The art is very simple and masks the deeper message behind the words so the product can be enjoyed on multiple levels. What I’ve read has gotten me extremely curious, so I think I’ll track down a copy for myself. Is anyone else interested? Has anyone actually read Level Up?
Level Up [Gene Leun Yang]
