Comic Review: We Served the People: My Mother’s Stories (BOOM! Studios/Archaia)

BOOM! Studios comics releases a graphic novel about a cultural revolution in China which obviously focuses the times changing in the Chinese society in We Served the People: My Mother’s Stories.

So we’re about to have a history lesson for the comic today, even so, there are some comics that were more of a documentary story, but this time we focus on the Cultural Revolution in China which would mean what Americans do during the Industrial Revolution and such, but instead of that this would be a history lesson. The story is written and illustrated by Emei Burell, she’s a cartoonist and illustrator based in London and she’s currently venturing into the gaming industry and working on animation to pursue herself in such a way, even when she made this comic, she expressed herself with the culture of her society in China, and how her mother experienced that kind of suffering.

The front cover shows on the top about some Chinese people are venturing into a jungle, not to mention this story is going to be about a wicked road trip for them even in the middle of the cultural revolution. So the cover shows that four adventurers are traveling to Yunnan, and they are enjoying the ride. The adventurers learned everything from what the revolution offered, and the whole story is about her mother going on an adventure with the other women on the wagon. And to be honest, unlike the other non-fiction novels, I got to say, this is the first time there’s a comic telling about the author’s mother going on a trip, other than that Tata Rambo Mexican comic from Dark Horse comics when the whole story talks about the Mexican society, domestic violence, and politics. Speaking of, the story starts when the whole lecture is being told by Emei’s mom which she has a lot of experience throughout her time, even so, her storytelling to their children about how she became brave and how she helped people along the way. Her story is more than having her to do some general labor jobs between day and night, however, there is something that makes her inspire everyone. Her children inspire her mother that way, and her story took place in 1969 when she was a teenager. Perhaps this is more than going to social work because the time when she worked labor jobs, but when she’s 27, she felt like her life and time is being wasted for being at the camp and working for too long. The only thing that she got out of her life is to attend a university in China, and she did. Even so in my recognition about the story is that women can do better than anything and they can do it because they are strong individuals.

The story is amazing to tell about the cultural revolution in China, but it seems that most of the story is telling about biography about the author’s mother at some point because how is anyone supposes to know what this story is about, this comic is made for the Chinese society and her mom. What? You never read a comic about cultural shock between the community and society throughout the civilian’s lives? Oh, and even from the start and the middle of the story, it tells the readers the truth about the revolution in the 60s, even so, her mom shares the story to the readers to know what her life is like because they knew that women can be natural fighters. The art which she drew has a similar kind of art style that anyone could observe, the characters are like stick figures who have their free will and the anatomy is quite interesting. Supposedly, it was drawn almost one of the drawings on social media, despite that she’s a cartoonist and an illustrator, she makes the characters look so cute and realistic at the same matter. Again, the coloring is all monochrome style, and it seems like this is more to be real because the panels almost seemed that she played around with the characters’ expressions just to have more in action. But anyway, this comic is filled with some peace and love for her mother and that is a very sweet thing to create a comic about her past, if you rather want to read a biography from another world, then this is for you.