Gene Luen Yang (2017)

Thanks for shilling, man! I deeply appreciate the shilling!

The idea for a Justice League of China came out pretty early on. I was doing research, and I realized that so much of modern Chinese pop culture is modelled after American pop culture. For instance, these guys are kind of like the One Direction of China:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cls8ECKf97E

China has a rep for being a copycat, and to be honest I think some of it is deserved, but not always.

Sometimes the Chinese use American art, American music, American symbolism to express something very Chinese.

That's what we wanted the Justice League of China to be. On the surface, they would appear to be "cheap Chinese copies", but underneath they would express something new. (Hopefully.)

Hey filletofishking! Have to tell you -- huge fan of that sandwich. Thank you for being king of it. Overall, I think things are getting better in terms of Asian Am representation. When I was a kid there were a few Asian heroes in American superhero comics. There was Sunfire on the X-Men and that Japanese dude with the bare legs on Super Friends... I don't really remember any Asian American characters.

Jubilee might've been the first one I actually read in an actual American comic book. She was kind of a revelation for me. Now that I'm 44, it's creepy for me to say I have a crush on her, but I swear the crush started when she used to be just a year or two older than me.

My fav Asian Am character right now is probably Amadeus Cho? It's between him and Kamala Khan. Greg Pak and G. Willow Wilson are the best. Willow (I can call her that bc we were on the same panel together one, just sayin') proves that you can write an authentic character who does not perfectly overlap your own identity. Just gotta do your homework.

Thank you for being here! Here's what I'll say. I think it might be true that there are barriers for audiences to connect with a character of a different culture, but dude, kids in minority communities have been doing it for DECADES. Black and Asian and Latinx kids have imagined themselves as Peter Parker since he first debuted. I fully believe kids in the majority culture have as much imagination to do the same.

That said, there is this weird dynamic in writing where often (but not always) when you get super-specific, your story somehow becomes universal.

My example of this: In high school, Richard Wright's Black Boy was the only assigned book that I finished before the due date. In that book, he gave super-specific details about the superstitions that he and his friends had, about his "terrible" thoughts as he sat in church, about how conscious he was of the smell of him and his community. All super-specific. All super-relatable to me, even though as a suburban Asian Am kid I had virtually nothing in common with the author.

Dude. ALL. THE. TIME.

It makes me so mad. My wife and I have four kids and sometimes they have such bad taste, especially when it comes to stuff from the 80's. How do you not think Transformers G1 is the DEFINITIVE Transformers???

Yeah. That's been a tough issue to work through. My dad was born in Taiwan and my mom in mainland China. My mom's family left just as the CCP was getting established, so I grew up with some very strong opinions about politics in China.

As an adult, I've realized that my parents' perspectives aren't the only perspectives. I've also realized that modern China is not the same as the China that my mom's side left. But still.

In New Super-Man, it was hard, right? I've never actually lived in China. I want to be respectful. But at the same time, that Superman S stands for certain things, even when it's on the chest of someone besides Clark Kent.

A central theme of the first eighteen issues of New Super-Man is balance. How will Kenan balance power with vulnerability, human with metahuman, East with West, safety with freedom? I'm trying to take the same approach with the issues you raise, too.

REAL OPTIMUS PRIME WEARS RED

Thanks for following along with New Super-Man! Issue #18, which just came out last week, was supposed to be the last one, but bc of folks like you it's gonna keep going!

Super-excited about a North Korean character we're about to intro in Issue #20.

As for educator and research resources:

http://www.noflyingnotights.com/

https://www.comicsineducation.com/

http://www.geneyang.com/comicsedu/

http://www.diamondbookshelf.com/Home/1/1/20/163

I'm sure there are more. Anyone else want to chime in on this?

Read more comics! :)

That's kind of a joke, but kind of not. Comics are awesome.

Haha. Suicide Squad is not really in my wheelhouse. BUT if I were in charge? Here's my roster:

Deadshot, Harley and Ivy, Static Shock, both Blue Beetles (framed for a crime they didn't commit!), Cassandra Cain Batgirl, red Hulk for muscle (we would find a way to bring him through the Marvel-DC wormhole), Captain Boomerang (Sokka from ATLA, not the DC Comics guy).

Thanks for being here, flyin_narwal! And thank you for reading American Born Chinese. The fact that you read it in FIFTH GRADE makes me feel old, but that's offset by the happiness of having you as a reader.

Let me tell you, teaching is an AMAZING profession. I was a high school teacher for 17 years and I still miss having my own classroom. You will love it.

Balancing two careers can be tricky, but I think it's more and more common now. You can be a teacher and a cartoonist, a coder and a musician, a doctor and a blogger. I read somewhere that businesses that start as side hustles have a statistically higher chance of succeeding? I wish I remembered where.

In any case, for me, cartooning and teaching offered a perfect balance. Cartooning is very introverted and teaching is very extroverted, so there was a balance to the energies, you know?

In the beginning, I would cartoon at night, sometimes in the mornings, always on weekends and during the summer. It took some discipline, but I hung out with a bunch of other cartoonists who would keep me on track.

Eventually I went part time at my teaching gig and I was able to spend every other working day at home making comics. It was a great set up.

As far as I know, there's no official Chinese translation of New Super-Man. We do hear from readers in China, though...

Hey! You sound a lot like me. I also can speak Chinese but I can't really read or write. I know what it's like to be caught in between. That's actually the emotional basis of my book American Born Chinese.

Here's something that helped me as a Chinese American: I realized that America is not a monolith. There is no one "American" culture, and that was by design. From the beginning we have been a culture of subcultures, a society of smaller societies. Right now, we are in the middle of defining the Asian American subculture, and that's pretty awesome.

I'm SURE something similar is happening in Canada.

Thank you! I've read a few White Snake summaries, plus I watched the Jet Li movie. Honestly, a bit of my writing was driving by my Wonderbat ship. (Bc of the Bruce Timm JL cartoon.)

1. I've been super lucky to work with some great artists. Can't choose!
2. I really like writing Baixi and Deilan!
3. Martian Manhunter, no question. (I'm going with the old school seven here.)

Hey jaewonblue! Good to meet you! My writing process kind of goes like this: I start with an outline where I lay out all thie big things that are going to happen in the story. For a 200 page graphic novel, this will be like a 4-6 page document. Then I write a script. Then I do thumbnail sketches of each page -- thumbnails are small, rough sketches of where all the panels are and the staging (where characters and props are) within each panel. Sometimes the script and the thumbs are the same document, but not always. Then I do pencils, inks, and letters. Each of those stages is essentially a draft, as I make changes all the way through.

Comics will eat your life, man. But they're also fun to make.

Ha ha. Here's the first and only episode of MAAGBC:

http://www.readingrockets.org/blogs/reading-without-walls/meet-middle-aged-asian-guy-book-club

I don't know, dude. It was fun, but Thien also spits when he eats and talks at the same time, so it was also gross.

We do want to do it again, though.

Wait. You haven't read Totally Awesome Hulk or Ms. Marvel yet? YOu gotta read those books! They're great!

There are many, many cartoonists who are also teachers. Thien Pham, James Sturm, Jessica Abel, Matt Madden... I could give you a list as long as my arm. Totally doable.

I still teach through Hamline University:

https://www.hamline.edu/cla/mfac/

I did this signing over the summer at St. Kate's in Minnesota. It was super awesome! Folks came out, I gave a talk, during the signing I met a bunch of great people.

Signings can be hit or miss. Authors talk about this ALL THE TIME. Sometimes they're great, sometimes you're just hanging out with your mom and the friend she brought.

I'm not sure what the secret sauce is...

The book is actually set in China. Kenan Kong is a 17 year old kid growing up in Shanghai. We brought him to America (well, DC Universe America -- he went to Metropolis), but most of the stories are set in China.

In Issue #20, out next February, we'll be moving the action closer to the border between China and North Korea.

I think either kind can be done well...

Thanks for being here!

The title of the new storyline starting in Issue #20 (out in Feb, as I said in an early post) is "Seas of Change"... so something's coming. :)

I love Aquaman. Dorkiness is in a circular loop with coolness, and he's one of those characters who is so dorky that he's become cool.

Glad you like New Super-Man's new chest emblem! We're excited about it. :)

Ha ha. Veronica, but only bc she has black hair like my wife. (I love you, honey!)

Practice, practice, practice. Also, use reference photos.

I don't know I'm supposed to say this, but we were trying to put together a Teen Titans-ish storyline for NSM, but it didn't work out. (Emphasis on "ish")

Tell your friend to keep reading!

Thank you! Right now, all my work is either YA or middle grade. I might write for adults someday, but no immediate plans.

Business advice: I began as a self-publisher. Most of my cartoonist friends began in self-publishing. It's hard route, but quite a few of us came out of that world. (Kazu Kibuishi, Raina Telgemeier, Ben Hatke, Jason Shiga...)

The dynamic between Kenan and Baixi is loosely modeled after the Monkey King and Pigsy. Kenan is a jerk like early Monkey King, but Baixi is much more competent than Pigsy.

Thank you for reading!

Cats. Bc you have to earn their love.

Deilan is one of my fav characters to write. I knew from the beginning I wanted to tie her into Chinese myth the way Diana is tied into Greek myth. The Legend of Lady White Snake seemed like a natural choice.

My fav scene to write was Baixi and Deilan's kiss that restores her to her human form. Everybody knows the tale of the princess kissing the frog and turning him into a prince. We wanted to do a gender flip. Why can't a chubby Asian dude's kiss be just as magical as a princess's?

In my original script, Deilan was supposed to be in her full snake form during the kiss, but there were concerns so it was changed.

Wonder Twins

We're immediately introing a (possible) new team member!

I don't know... maybe this guy?

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm5061325/

Or this guy?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1d7vrmeF-nY

Jimmy would have to work out, tho.