Bam!

As a newcomer to reading comics and graphic novels, but an avid reader of traditional novels, I couldn't help but use American Born Chinese as an opportunity to compare the two types of literary media. Particularly in American Born Chinese, I noticed that the graphic novel medium seemed well suited to a story based so much in physicality.
Many of the qualities that are emphasized and transformations that are underwent within the novel are physical: the monkey king, disdaining his monkey smell and bare feet, becomes tall and more humanoid. Jin, under pressure to conform, first perms his hair, then changes physical form to become the blond Danny. When the true identity of Chin-Kee is revealed, he is literally beheaded and transformed.
Clearly, all of these transformations could be conveyed via narrative in the more traditional novel format, but I think some of their immediacy would be lost. It's said that a picture is worth a thousand words, but the information that a picture conveys is assimilated by the mind in a much different way than the information conveyed by a string of words. Words come one at a time, producing a cumulative store of knowledge. Pictures, on the other hand, force the viewer to assimilate multiple different pieces of information simultaneously. Thus, in pictures, these physical transformations are lent more of an effect of occurring in "real" time, than if they had been described by words.
This style works really well for conveying the "bam" of these physical transformations. I find this really exciting-- in some ways it makes me think a lot about the multi-level assimilation of infomration demanded by more avant-guarde styles of poetry that create intense and simaltaeneous impressions on the intellectual and the sonic or visual planes. It also leads me to wonder about the differing perceptual styles of people who prefer graphic novels versus those of people who are more drawn to eclusivley text-based works of literature. I'm excited about continuing to think about the perceptual experience of this type of literature!