Gene Luen Yang Quotes

In traditional Asian arts, the word and the picture always sit next to each other. I have an aunt, a Chinese brush painter, who told me that when you do a Chinese brush painting, you have to pair the image up with some poetry.

Oh, cruel abandonment! My bones turn to dust beneath the gaze of your ever-mocking smile!

It is not human nature to dominate, but to create. Yes, humankind falters every now and then, but you know how to learn from your past mistakes. You've done it before, and you can do it again. I believe that ultimately, you will create a civilization that preserves and protects even as it grows. Do you understand? The spirits will always have a place in this world, as long as you -- and humans like you -- create a place for us. - Lady Tienhai, Guardian Spirit/Queen

When 'American Born Chinese' started getting a lot of attention, I freaked out a little bit because I realized that up until then I had just been doing comics by following my gut. I didn't really know much about plot structure or anything; I kind of just followed my gut.

I took a Logo programming class in fifth grade. Logo is a language specifically designed for the classroom environment. It was basically doodling through words.

Building a habit of reading leads to all sorts of reading.

When I first started making comics, I was living with a bunch of guys, old college friends. We had this deal. At the end of each day, they would ask me how far I'd gotten on my comic. And if I hadn't made my goals, they were supposed to make me feel really bad about myself. They happily obliged.

During the Cultural Revolution, the communists came in, and what they wanted to do was eradicate all sense of traditional Chinese culture.

Dichotomies are an inherent part of comics, aren't they? Comics are both pictures and words. They blend time and space. Many feature characters with dual identities like Bruce Wayne/Batman. Cartoonists also tend to live dichotomous lives because many of us have day jobs.

I love the interplay between words and pictures. I love the fact that in comics, your pictures are acting like words, presenting themselves to be read.

'Shadow Hero' was my first superhero story. I don't know why it took so long.

I grew up on monthly comics. My closet is full of monthly comics. I've always wanted to do a monthly comic, and while I've had a couple of offers, the timing has never worked out. Most superhero comics come into the world as monthly series, so we wanted the same for 'The Shadow Hero.'

I think a lot of the things in my life that I become most passionate about, and most excited about, are all from comics.

Many Japanese families moved to Taiwan during the occupation. Then, when the war ended, they were forced to move back. And at the macro level, the Taiwanese had every reason to cheer when the Japanese left. The Japanese military could often be incredibly brutal. The Taiwanese lived as second-class citizens on their own land.

We're afraid of writing characters different from ourselves because we're afraid of getting it wrong. We're afraid of what the Internet might say.

Every superhero has this superhero identity and a civilian identity. A lot of their lives are about code switching.

'Avatar: The Last Airbender' is, to my mind, the greatest American animated series ever produced. The characters lived and breathed.

I have a fairly limited drawing style. I'm not like my friend Derek Kirk Kim, who can pretty much change his style at will. My drawing style can handle some of my stories, but not all of them.

I wanted to make an explicitly educational comic that taught readers the concepts I covered in my introductory programming class. That's what 'Secret Coders' is. It's both a fun story about a group of tweens who discover a secret coding school, and an explanation of some foundational ideas in computer science.

There is no right or wrong apart from what you decide. Who you chose to defend deserves to be defended simply because you chose them. You are the Fire Lord. What you chose, by definition, is right.

I was really worried that sitting at home by myself in front of a computer was going to make me crazy.

For 'Boxers and Saints', the tension between Eastern and Western ways of thinking was very personal for me, and I needed to control every aspect.

When I looked into the lives of the Chinese saints, I discovered that many of them had died during the Boxer Rebellion, a war that occurred on Chinese soil in the year 1900.

I think the 'Boxers' book was easier for me to envision as a comic, because they were on this epic journey. These teenagers basically gathered into this army and marched to the capital city where they had a showdown with the Europeans and Japanese. On the 'Saints' side, it was a lot trickier.

Class, I'd like us all to give a warm mayflower elementary welcome to your new friend and classmate Jing Jang!"
"Jin Wang"
"Jin wang!"
"He and his family recently moved to our neighborhood all the way from China!"
"San Francisco."
"San Francisco!"
"Yes, Timmy."
"My momma says Chinese people eat dogs."
"Now be nice, Timmy!" -km sure Jin doesn't do that! In fact, Jin's family probably stopped that sort of thing as soon as they came to the united states!"
The only other asian in my class was Suzy Nakamura.
When the class finally figured out that we weren't related, rumors began to circulate that suzy and I were arranged to be married on her thirteenth birthday.
We avoided each other as much as possible.
(30-31)

Nobody really knows for sure how the Boxer Rebellion started. It began among the poor, and the history of the poor is rarely written down.

To be able to write 'Superman,' to be able to work with the legendary artist who is John Romita Jr., I signed on as soon as I could.

I grew up with an Apple 2E - I had a deep, emotional attachment to that machine - and I loved doodling.

Appa has feelings, too!

Superheroes were created in America, they're most popular in America, and at their best, they embody American ideals.

The Boxer Rebellion is a war that was fought on Chinese soil in the year 1900. The Europeans, the Japanese and their Chinese Christian allies were on one side. On the other were poor, starving, illiterate Chinese teenagers whom the Europeans referred to as the Boxers.

I think, pretty much like everyone around my age, I grew up playing those classic video games. I wouldn't say I was addicted to them, but I definitely liked them.

'Shadow Hero' was a dream to work on.

We have to allow ourselves the freedom to make mistakes, including cultural mistakes, in our first drafts. I believe it's okay to get cultural details wrong in your first draft. It's okay if stereotypes emerge. It just means that your experience is limited, that you're human.

There's something about the intimacy of comics that gives you a false bravado; you don't always consider the consequences.

Religion and culture are two important ways in which we as humans find our identity. That's certainly true for me.

When you work on a pre-existing character, when you end up getting invited to be part of a legacy character like Superman, I don't feel like it would be true to the character if all I did was go in looking to express my own voice.

[S]ometimes, a fight you cannot win is still worth fighting.

One of the ways [racism] pops up is when they turn a comic into a live-action movie and there's this temptation to make Asian characters white.

I do not make mistakes, little monkey. A monkey I intended you to be. A monkey you are.

'Boxers' was more time consuming simply because it was longer, but 'Saints' was definitely harder. I think it's just hard to talk about faith in general.

I noticed that when my daughter was born, my son really, really liked her. But then as she started getting older, and as she started crawling around our house and touching different things that were his, sibling rivalry issues started appearing.

In the early '90s, I was finishing up my adolescence. I visited my local comic-book store on a weekly basis, and one week I found a book on the stands called 'Xombi,' published by Milestone Media.

Writing, for me, is very inspiration-dependent. And inspiration can be a jerk.

What is China but a people and their stories?

For 'Boxers & Saints,' I started by reading a couple of articles on the Internet, then writing a really rough outline, then getting more hardcore into the research. I went to a university library once a week for a year, year and a half.

Though cast away am I from the heart of my city, black tears dribble from mine eyes at the sight of the fearful trail blazing towards her gates!

Eventually, I just couldn't imagine myself being in a cubicle for my entire career.

The thing about research is that there's no end. You constantly have this fear that an expert who knows more than you will call you out on some detail in your book.

My experience of Chinese culture is indirect, through echoes. When I approach the cashier at my local Chinese supermarket, they switch to English before I've even said a word. They somehow know that I'm not quite Chinese enough.

I majored in Computer Science at U.C. Berkeley and worked as a software developer for a couple of years. Then I taught high school computer science for over a decade and a half in Oakland, California.

It's just nerve-wracking in general to write 'Superman,' right? I'm a life-long superhero fan, and he is the character that kicked off the entire genre.

I work at a high school, and we have an anime and manga club.

In academia in general, there's this push toward using comics as an educational tool.

Creativity requires input, and that's what research is. You're gathering material with which to build.

A lot of Asians and Asian-Americans have liver problems. If you basically ask anybody who is Asian, they or one of their relatives will have some sort of a liver issue, and the liver actually falls into the jurisdiction of the gastroenterologist.

I was a huge fan of the Bruce Timm animated series and, of course, the live action 'Lois & Clark' series. I watched that when I was in college.

To find your true identity within the will of Tze Yo Tzuh ... that is the highest of all freedoms.

I love hearing people who are smarter than me talk about my comics. It makes me feel smarter.

When I work on my own stuff - and I think this is true for anybody - but when you work on something that you just completely own, you are trying to stay as true to your own storytelling voice as you can.

I grew up in a religious community, and like everyone, I went through a period of doubt and later made a conscious choice to embrace the faith of my childhood.

My brain subconsciously limits itself to panel compositions that my hand can actually draw.

Carl Barks and Don Rosa are two of my favorite cartoonists ever.

If I'm writing about a modern-day suburb, there's going to be details of the home and furniture, and if I'm writing about a historical period, those details, those pieces of the world are going to be there as well, but they'll be simplified, because I'm cartooning it.

There's bleeding between age groups in terms of reading material, and there's bleeding between media. So there are books that are clearly comics and books that are prose, and then there are these books that are kind of in-between.

Superman is such an old character. He's an old character with this huge legacy behind him. And one of the awesome things about the fact that he's been around for these decades is that he's gone through these different phases.

My experiences growing up in both a Chinese American household and the Catholic Church define much of who I am.

Ch'in Shih-huang is the first emperor of China. He united seven separate kingdoms into a single nation. He built the Great Wall and was buried with the terra-cotta soldiers. The Chinese have mixed feelings about him. They're proud of the nation he created, but he was a maniacal tyrant.

I started 'American Born Chinese' as a mini-comic. I would write and draw a chapter, photocopy a hundred or so copies at the corner photocopy store, and then try to sell them on consignment through local comics shops. If I could sell maybe half a dozen, I'd be doing okay.

For 'American Born Chinese,' my first graphic novel with First Second Books, I did mostly 'memory' research. It's fiction, but I pulled heavily from my own childhood.

I've tried to write from my own understanding of identity in all my comics, whether it's about superheroes or historical conflicts or monkey gods.

Family is in essence a small nation, and the nation a large family. In treating his own family with dignity, a ruler learns to govern his nation with dignity

Any superhero, regardless of how different they are from Superman, recalls Superman in some way. They're either pushing against Superman or reflecting Superman; there's something about them that comes from Superman.

Dwayne McDuffie was one of my favorite writers. When I was growing up, he was one of the few African Americans working in American comics.

Comics are such a powerful educational tool. Simply put, there are certain kinds of information that are best communicated through sequential visuals.

Superheroes are also about immigrants. Superman, the prototype of all superheroes, is a prototypical immigrant. His homeland was in crisis, so his parents sent him to America in search of a better life. He has two names, one American, Clark Kent, and the other foreign, Kal-El. He wears two sets of clothes and lives in between two cultures. He loves his new country, but a part of him still longs for his old one.

I minored in creative writing in college, and I've played with the idea of doing something more hybrid, but comics are my first love.

Like all of us, I don't think Facebook is 100% evil, but there are aspects of it that move towards evilness. It's true of all the major Silicon Valley companies, that there are aspects to all of them that move towards evilness, but I don't believe they're 100% evil.

Wait." "So what am I supposed to do now?" "You know, Jin, I would have saved myself from five hundred years' imprisonment beneath a mountain of rock had I only realized how good it is to be a monkey." (222-223)

The project that I did between 'Boxer & Saints' was 'The Shadow Hero,' which is illustrated by Sonny Liew, an artist who lives in Singapore.

I think there is always romantic tension between Lois Lane and Clark Kent.

My first job was as a programmer. So I feel like I'm familiar with the information technology sector and the information technology culture.