cover image Hotel Africa, Volume 1

Hotel Africa, Volume 1

Hee Jung Park, . . Tokyopop, $12.99 (215pp) ISBN 978-1-4278-0575-1

Elvis, the know-it-all narrator, is the son of a single mother who runs a boarding house in the middle of nowhere. (Supposedly, it's Utah, but the book is definitely Asian in approach and mood.) The narration is stilted and pretentious from the start, describing the location as where “only those who were truly able to love everything in between [sic] dream and reality often came.” The art concentrates on moments, where lovely faces ponder the past or stare at the reader, but the story is firmly text-driven, almost an illustrated novel, with the art having little storytelling value or flow. The first chapter establishes the hotel, with a four-year-old Elvis who talks far beyond his years. Then we jump ahead to him as an adult, only to flash back again to his childhood, when he was saved from death by a mystical guest preaching oneness with nature. Many of the characters are like him, meant to be deep but coming off as exceedingly clichéd. This framework repeats, with the hotel just a device to tell stories about love lost or denied or broken parental relationships. Park's art is attractive and his people are pretty to look at and seem to be thinking deep thoughts—unfortunately, it's all a facade. (Apr.)