Graphic Novel: Gene Luen Yang + Sonny Liew + The Shadow Hero + Green Turtle + Chu Hing

From Amazon:

In the comics boom of the 1940s, a legend was born: the Green Turtle. He solved crimes and fought injustice just like the other comics characters. But this mysterious masked crusader was hiding something more than your run-of-the-mill secret identity... The Green Turtle was the first Asian American super hero.

The comic had a short run before lapsing into obscurity, but the acclaimed author of American Born Chinese, Gene Luen Yang, has finally revived this character in Shadow Hero, a new graphic novel that creates an origin story for the Green Turtle.

With artwork by Sonny Liew, this gorgeous, funny comics adventure for teens is a new spin on the long, rich tradition of American comics lore.

Here's a great article at PRI that also talks more about Chu Hing, who created The Green Turtle in 1944, and how Hing fought against the White Washing of his character by almost never showing his face.

Secret Identities: Get Out The Word And Get It In Bookstores

I was checking out the Secret Identities blog and came across a post for yesterday that read the following:

Dear Friends,

During the first leg of our college book tour last week for "Secret Identities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology", the editors and I made a very disturbing discovery when we made impromptu stops at major bookstores in between appearances:

Bookstores were NOT carrying "Secret Identities" nor had any plans to do so.

We were told customers could place orders at the stores but as far as physical self space? Nada. The situation was the same in the stores around us in Baltimore, D.C., Southern California, and New York. The reason? Well, we’ve been given several of them: “Stores are confused whether the book fits under Asian American Studies or Graphic Novels”, “It’s an accounting error”, “You’ve got too small of a print run”, and of course the popular “E” word these days… “The Economy”.

So I’m finding myself having to appeal to the Asian American Community once again in an open letter as I did 6 years ago for “Better Luck Tomorrow” – asking that readers request the book at their local bookstores and/or order copies online through: Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, Borders.com.

What's interesting to me about the post and the info is that if you had a graphic novel like this with as many non-Asian celebs/writers/artists etc., this would probably be blowing up right about now with a ton of mainstream media buzz - but because it's strictly from the AA community - it's where it's at - sweating it out on a grassroots level (even with the buzz it's already gotten).

So what do you do?

Make a call, send an e-mail, request it down at your local bookstore or a national chain - if you wanna see it out there - help spread the word.

Secret Identities: "Peril" - Preview 8 of 8

Sweet. This is the final installment of the previews for Secret Identities which basically means that the wait is almost over (April 15th).

Secret Identities: Preview #2 "9066"

Here's the second promo "9066" for Secret Identities.

Secret Identities: Updates And Promo #1

You know I've posted in the past about Secret Identities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology that's going to explore Asian American culture, identity, and history through superhero comics, and interestingly enough, as I was looking to do a blog post on The Gene Generation, I got sent out some info from Parry Shen that there are going to be seven new promos released each week up until the publish date.

Check out the first promo video which was put up last week (with the description following).

This story serves as the preface of SECRET IDENTITIES on page 7. It details a fun behind the scenes look into the how's & why's the book came to existence. It answers how the editors all met and explains why this particular anthology, right now?

A full pdf version of the preface is viewable here: http://secretidentities.org/preview.pdf

SECRET IDENTITIES will be available in stores, April 2009 from The New Press but you may pre-order your copy at amazon.com today!

"In the Beginning" - Story by: Jeff Yang, Art by: Jef Castro -- is part 1 of 8 trailer story videos scheduled to be released.

Check for new preview videos every Sunday at http://www.secretidentities.org/ - under "NEWS"

Here's a list of some of the contributors.

Greg Pak: (writer of “Planet Hulk”, “World War Hulk”, “Skaar – Son of Hulk”)

Bernard Chang: (artist on “Iron Man” and “Wonder Woman”)

Francis Tsai: (artist on “Marvel Comics Presents” and “Heroes for Hire”)

Greg LaRocque: (artist on “Marvel Team Up” and “The Flash”)

Sonny Liew: (Vertigo’s “My Faith for Frankie” and Image’s “Liquid City” Anthology)

Kazu Kibuishi: (editor of Image’s “Flight” anthology)

Christine Norrie: (artist on “Black Canary Wedding Special” and creator of “Breaking Up”)

Tak Toyoshima: (creator of first Asian American strip for United Feature Syndicate: “Secret Asian Man”)

Cliff Chiang: (artist on “Green Arrow/Black Canary” for DC Comics)

Dustin Nguyen: (artist on “Detective Comics” for DC Comics)

Jamie Ford: (“Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet” from Ballantine/Random House)

Gene Yang: (“American Born Chinese” - National Book Award finalist, Best Book of the Year: Publisher’s Weekly, San Francisco Chronicle, School Library Journal, amazon.com, NPR Holiday pick, 2007 Michael L. Printz Award winner)

Mike Kang: (director of “The Motel” and “West 32nd”)

Lynn Chen: (actress from “Saving Face” and “Lakeview Terrace”)

Keiko Agena: (actress from “Gilmore Girls” and “Major Movie Star”)

Yul Kwon: (winner of “Survivor: Cook Islands”)

Leonardo Nam: (actor from “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants”)

Sung Kang: (actor from “Better Luck Tomorrow” and “Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift”)

Kelly Hu: (actress from “X2: X-Men United” and “The Mummy Returns”)

Dustin Tri Nguyen: (actor from “21 Jump Street” and “Finishing the Game”)

Even if you're not into comics/graphic novels - you can't tell me that you're not at least a little bit interested...

And Just Because You Want More (The Teacher Edition)

Adrian Tomine's Graphic Novel "Shortcomings"

Released this month, the graphic novel Shortcomings is from Optic Nerve author Adrian Tomine and is his first foray into the long form graphic novel. Check out some articles on his new collection:

Adrian Tomine in Toronto

Tomine is the highly regarded author of the Optic Nerve series. His masterfully produced, ever-growing body of work is published by Montreal’s Drawn and Quarterly. His illustrations have also been featured in many mainstream magazines, as well as on the merchandise of rock band Weezer. A new novel, Shortcomings, is Tomine’s first attempt at a long-form graphic novel. Its content is collected from its originally serialized format in the Optic Nerve series.

Splitting Image

After finishing each issue of his self-published cartoon, Optic Nerve, a teenage Adrian Tomine would slip the comic into an envelope, slap on enough stamps to ensure it survived the cross-continent journey from the southern U.S. to Canada and drop it into a mailbox with a Montreal address scrawled on the front.

Identity Crisis: Adrian Tomine's Shortcomings

Uptight Asian nerds. Weird arty types. Horny lesbians.

Stereotypes, if you're looking for them, abound in Shortcomings, the new Drawn + Quarterly graphic novel by Optic Nerve series creator Adrian Tomine. And that's Tomine's point: Pigeonholing people by race, gender identity or level of nerdiness can cloud your ability to see anything else about a person, including things that could prove to be way more pertinent. Like, say, the fact that they're crazy!