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Boxers and Saints
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Boxers and Saints
Boxers and Saints are two companion graphic novel volumes written and illustrated by Gene Luen Yang, and colored by Lark Pien. The publisher First Second Books released them on September 10, 2013. Together the two volumes have around 500 pages.
Boxers follows the story of Little Bao, a boy from Shan-tung (Shandong) who becomes a leader of the Boxer Rebellion. Saints follows the story of "Four-Girl", a girl from the same village who becomes a Catholic, adopts the name "Vibiana", and hopes to attain the glory of Joan of Arc.
One book cover shows the left half of Bao's face with Qin Shi Huangdi and the other shows the right half of Vibiana's face with Joan of Arc. Together the covers portray a divided China.
Yang stated that the event that sparked his interest in the Boxer Rebellion was learning how, at the time, becoming Christian was perceived as forsaking Chinese culture, a concept alien to him as he grew up in a Roman Catholic Chinese American community in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Yang said that he wanted to do two volumes because he was not sure which side in the conflict were "good" or "bad" and he noticed connections between contemporary terrorists and the Boxers. Yang said "So in a lot of ways, I was trying to write the story of a young man who was essentially a terrorist, and I wanted him to be sympathetic, but I also didn't want the book to feel like I was condoning terrorism. So it was kind of a fine line." He explained that he needed two different characters so the reader can "see everything through".
Yang took six years to make the books. The first one or two years went into research. He visited a library on a university campus to read books and compile notes. He visited the library once weekly for a period of one year. Much of the research came from The Origins of the Boxer Uprising by Joseph Esherick. He also visited an archive in Vanves, France made by the Jesuits; this archive included photos depicting violence during the Boxer rebellion, causing Yang to conclude that he needed to portray the said violence in his works. So he himself and his readers could stomach the violence, Yang deliberately used a cartoonish and simple manner of illustration.
The books were different lengths due to the differing natures of the respective stories. Yang stated that he encountered more difficulty writing Saints, in which the Christians stay in the same place and defend themselves, compared to Boxers, in which the characters go on an adventure. The reason was that he wanted to find a visually interesting way to present the converts' internal struggles. Yang outlined both books together and made the volumes separate. He scripted and drew the two volumes separately, scripting Boxers first, then simultaneously scripting Saints while drawing Boxers, and finally drawing Saints. He worked on an unrelated superhero comic in-between drawing the two volumes to deal with his emotions. Yang decided that a reader needed to be able to enjoy each individual book as a story of its own and not only together, so he gave the beginning-middle-end narrative structure to each.
Yang has described Boxers and Saints as "historical fiction". In Boxers, Yang began including more history as the characters reach Peking (Beijing). The author said that his process in making the story was creating Bao, taking "just the bits and pieces that we do know about the beginnings of the Boxer Rebellion and weave it into his fictional life story." In Saints, Yang modeled the style off of American autobiographical comics, and the color scheme of Saints is far more limited than that of Boxers.
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Boxers and Saints
Boxers and Saints are two companion graphic novel volumes written and illustrated by Gene Luen Yang, and colored by Lark Pien. The publisher First Second Books released them on September 10, 2013. Together the two volumes have around 500 pages.
Boxers follows the story of Little Bao, a boy from Shan-tung (Shandong) who becomes a leader of the Boxer Rebellion. Saints follows the story of "Four-Girl", a girl from the same village who becomes a Catholic, adopts the name "Vibiana", and hopes to attain the glory of Joan of Arc.
One book cover shows the left half of Bao's face with Qin Shi Huangdi and the other shows the right half of Vibiana's face with Joan of Arc. Together the covers portray a divided China.
Yang stated that the event that sparked his interest in the Boxer Rebellion was learning how, at the time, becoming Christian was perceived as forsaking Chinese culture, a concept alien to him as he grew up in a Roman Catholic Chinese American community in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Yang said that he wanted to do two volumes because he was not sure which side in the conflict were "good" or "bad" and he noticed connections between contemporary terrorists and the Boxers. Yang said "So in a lot of ways, I was trying to write the story of a young man who was essentially a terrorist, and I wanted him to be sympathetic, but I also didn't want the book to feel like I was condoning terrorism. So it was kind of a fine line." He explained that he needed two different characters so the reader can "see everything through".
Yang took six years to make the books. The first one or two years went into research. He visited a library on a university campus to read books and compile notes. He visited the library once weekly for a period of one year. Much of the research came from The Origins of the Boxer Uprising by Joseph Esherick. He also visited an archive in Vanves, France made by the Jesuits; this archive included photos depicting violence during the Boxer rebellion, causing Yang to conclude that he needed to portray the said violence in his works. So he himself and his readers could stomach the violence, Yang deliberately used a cartoonish and simple manner of illustration.
The books were different lengths due to the differing natures of the respective stories. Yang stated that he encountered more difficulty writing Saints, in which the Christians stay in the same place and defend themselves, compared to Boxers, in which the characters go on an adventure. The reason was that he wanted to find a visually interesting way to present the converts' internal struggles. Yang outlined both books together and made the volumes separate. He scripted and drew the two volumes separately, scripting Boxers first, then simultaneously scripting Saints while drawing Boxers, and finally drawing Saints. He worked on an unrelated superhero comic in-between drawing the two volumes to deal with his emotions. Yang decided that a reader needed to be able to enjoy each individual book as a story of its own and not only together, so he gave the beginning-middle-end narrative structure to each.
Yang has described Boxers and Saints as "historical fiction". In Boxers, Yang began including more history as the characters reach Peking (Beijing). The author said that his process in making the story was creating Bao, taking "just the bits and pieces that we do know about the beginnings of the Boxer Rebellion and weave it into his fictional life story." In Saints, Yang modeled the style off of American autobiographical comics, and the color scheme of Saints is far more limited than that of Boxers.