The Eternal Smile

The last time Gene Luen Yang wrote a graphic novel, American Born Chinese won many honors, including the Michael L. Printz Award for young adult literature and an Eisner Award for Best Graphic Album. While The Eternal Smile doesn’t measure up to American Born Chinese, it does manage to make its own positive impression.

Yang teams up with Derek Kirk Kim, who won his own share of awards in 2004 with Same Difference And Other Stories. Like American Born Chinese, The Eternal Smile offers three stories to the readers, the main difference being that they are not expertly interwoven together. Instead, there is an overlapping theme of reality clashing with fantasy. The first tale, “Duncan’s Kingdom,” is reprinted from a two-issue story published ten years ago, and it shows. It’s not that the tale of a young knight seeking to avenge a king’s death and win the love of a princess isn’t good, but it doesn’t feel special enough. Even the big plot twist feels pedestrian, though the ending is somewhat satisfactory and cathartic.

Yang and Kim get back on track with “Grandpa Greenbax and The Eternal Smile.” The protagonist is a homage to Disney’s Scrooge McDuck, a frog that seeks all the money he can lay his hands on. With the help of his twin granddaughters and a stuttering assistant, Grandpa tries to exploit “The Eternal Smile” – a shape not unlike a Cheshire cat’s grin in the sky – to his own ends by forming a religion around it. The tale takes a dark turn midway through, and the plot twist dumps Grandpa in a far bigger pond than he could imagine. Kim’s art captures the feel of Scrooge McDuck’s comic book adventures, while making Grandpa original in his own right.

“Urgent Request” is easily the most painful story of the three, even as it takes a different approach to the book’s theme of fantasy versus reality. Janet is a lowly and timid office drone who cannot catch a break. Her boss goes so far as to call her “insignificant” behind her back. Then an e-mail from a Nigerian prince in need pops up, and Janet decides to help him. Those who have even a passing notion of Internet scams can probably guess where the story leads. Yang does manage to bring a satisfactory ending and Kim mixes drab coloring of grim reality with the bright colors of Janet’s view of Nigeria to great effect, but watching Janet go deeper into her fantasy can be depressing for some readers, even as Yang makes it a good story.

In the end, The Eternal Smile makes its mark as a good graphic novel. While its main fault is that it doesn’t reach the standard set by American Born Chinese, that is a fault that can be overlooked with ease.

-Jason Borelli