It’s not a deep thought, necessarily, but it does point out some of the misconceptions people who hate sports have about them, and Yang comes to it organically. One thing sports always has going for it is that you never know the ending, because it’s unscripted, and Yang starts out hating that – as a comics writer, he’s tuned to the idea that heroes win, but his “heroes” – the kids at Bishop O’Dowd – don’t always win, because real life doesn’t work that way – but he eventually understands that the thrill of the unknown is part of why sports are so popular. There’s a reason why sports stories make such popular movies, and Yang – a self-professed sports hater at the beginning of the book – makes note of this a few times throughout the book. I mean, a rousing sports story is usually entertaining, even if you can see where most of it is going.

That makes it sound boring, but it’s not, because Yang is too good a writer.

In many ways, this is a very traditional sports story – Yang follows the team, they lose early but win late, they all learn something, they overcome adversity (I hate to say this because it’s a true story so what happens in the book actually happened, but it’s too bad because it feels like a cliché), and they become better people. What matters in the book is the people Yang writes about and how they change as they move through the season and how they help change him, as well. I won’t tell you how the story ends (Bishop O’Dowd was a powerhouse school, but they had never won the state championship, so of course they make the title game again in this book), but you can easily Google it if you want to. Yang tells the story of the Bishop O’Dowd High School Dragons basketball team, specifically the 2014-2015 men’s team, which he followed around with the blessing of the coach (he taught at the school for several years). It’s still a very entertaining comic, with a lot of interesting bits in it, both from a story aspect and an artistic aspect. So let’s take a look at it!ĭragon Hoops is not quite as good as Yang at his best, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad comic, just not as brilliant as he can be. Gene Luen Yang has been an excellent comic creator for some time now, and a new book by him is always cause for celebration, so it’s nice that Dragon Hoops, his latest (published by First Second), has come out and we can all read it. “The last thing I need is Adidas terminatin’ my contract for wearing those old pair of wack Reebok low tops covered up by floppy socks”

Dragon hoops full book