Hello Boys and Girls!

This post is a mix of Turtlist Media’s coverage of Secret Identities’ visit to Northwestern University in the spring of 2009  and the first ever Asian American Comicon held a few weeks ago in NYC.

It’s a big post because of that, but there is so much good stuff in here.

Please look through it, watch the videos, and learn how Asian American illustrators are claiming self-representation through comics!

SECRET IDENTITIES: The Asian American Superhero Anthology.

Heroes for generations to come.

Here is a Turtlist Media video of the Asian American Comicon 2009 held at the Museum of Chinese in America in NYC.

Here at Turtlist Media, we seek to promote collaboration between Asian American artists through networking and projects like Savor the Flavor. As the ultimate example of community combined with creativity, “<a href=”http://www.secretidentities.org”>Secret Identities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology</a>” came out on April 15 and the editors are currently touring the nation to promote the book.

THE ANTHOLOGY:

Secret Identities is a collection of comics featuring 52 new heroes in 26 amazing stories. Unlike most other comics created in the US though, these heroes are all Asian American. Just like most of us grew up without any Asian American role models on TV or in the movies, there has always been a lack of superheroes too.

We caught up with the editors, Jeff Yang, Parry Shen, and Keith Chow at Northwestern University. They were gracious enough to make an appearance for Turtlist[Media].com despite the late notice and recent lack of sleep. Here’s what these three Asian Americans had to say about their newly released project:

Keith: When we first started out, we threw the blast out to hundreds of people, we were getting hundreds of submissions.

Jeff: The paradox is, so many Asian Americans are involved in comics behind the scenes, but so few real heroes are in front of the screen—on panel, in 4 colors, on the page. People like Gene Yang [“American Born Chinese”], Larry Hama [“G.I. Joe,” X-Men’s “Wolverine”].

Parry: I was really surprised no one has brought these guys together: we definitely have the talent, lets create these [Asian American] heroes. I thought we could empower ourselves and control the content instead of audition for another person’s idea of Asian Americans instead of being at their mercy.

After Keith and Jeff generated the idea for the anthology, Parry (“Better Luck Tomorrow”) hopped on as managing editor, and word quickly spread amongst Asian Americans in the arts. Kelly Hu (“Cradle 2 the Grave,” “X2”), Sung Kang (“Fast & Furious”) and Yul Kwon (winner of “Survivor: Cook Islands”) are just a few other familiar names in the credits. But the real story here is how these 66 talented Asian Americans got together and paired up as artists, writers, and thinkers to create unique stories that are recognizably Asian American but also accessible to all of America.

VIDEO: Secret Identities trailer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TuX-xJ4MlI

Jeff: You get a portrait of Asian America as seen through the eyes of superheroes. We’re just like everybody else in one way, ordinary people, American… but we’re something else too—it’s tied to something inside of us. These heroes use [the culture] not as a liability, not something to be embarrassed, but as a power.

Keith: But when we started out… we had all these disparate stories—we still didn’t quite know where to go with it. Then this guy named Jonathan Hsiue sent in a story called 9066. Once we read it, we knew that was it. The story is basically about a Japanese American superhero in the 1930s [during the Japanese internment of WWII.] This became the basis of the shadow history section of the anthology, where we put a superhero myth into the actual events of Asian American history.

VIDEO: 9066 preview

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnHnYYnev9k

Perhaps the most brilliant part of the idea is that the graphic novel genre has become so big in mainstream media that this anthology has an even greater chance of influencing generations to come.

Jeff: Comics and other artifacts of pop culture are an escapist fantasy that allows us to be sane—a world to ourselves while the world was in chaos. In a way they are more relevant now than they have ever been. People need to get away to another world.

Keith: If you think of the biggest grossing film, The Dark Knight, or the year before Ironman did great—if you tally up all the comic book based movies that came out last year, they made around $3 billion at the box office. There’s other TV shows that aren’t based on comic books but borrow the storytelling aspect or technique.

Parry: If you have a comic book and you’re a Hollywood executive, you’ll at least take a look at it. There’s already established characters, all the heavy lifting’s already been done. This was always on the forefront of my mind as we were making the anthology—I was slowly tallying up specific names from agents that… make graphic novels into films. You just have to put it in their hands.

Parry’s already mailed copies to the agents that read through graphic novel ideas. If they succeed, we could be seeing genuine Asian American heroes on the silver screen soon. This might sound like a stretch now, but who knows? Plus, these stories are so embedded in the Asian American experience that even if they were made into big films, the movie industry wouldn’t be able to recast the major roles with Caucasian actors, like in “21” or “Dragonball.”

Jeff: In Hollywood right now, there’s this thought that, “if you lead with an Asian, you’ve got to be crasian!” It’s the death sentence for a movie, box office suicide. But with comic books, the only part of the publishing world that’s making money and growing on a year-to-year basis is manga. Manga is inherently Asian, and there’s a generation of people who are growing up right now who not only want to see original anime with subtitles, they want their manga to read right to left. They’re comfortable with Asian language and customs.

Keith: They’re making movies like Dragonball and Avatar, recasting Caucasians into Asian characters, and there’s been an uproar! It’s almost insulting to Cacuasians that they can’t identify with people they don’t look like. Now, other fans who are black, white or Latino are getting upset at these shows being inauthentic. So [leading actors] being Asian American shouldn’t be a death sentence.

THE EDITORS:

Jeff: We each had an individual enthusiasm for this project—different relationships, networks, creative ideas.

Keith: My job was to market comics to schools and libraries. I was writing in a newsletter about Asian Americans in comics, and Jeff saw that newsletter. At the same time, he was doing a column on the same topic.

Jeff: I write for the San Francisco Chronicle, a column called “<a href=“http://www.sfgate.com/columns/asianpop/”>Asian Pop</a>.” It looks at how Asians and Asian Americans are reshaping the world of American culture. We talked about how new heroes and old heroes have been shaped to be different heritages. We looked at the international diversity in comics.

Parry: Every morning I wake up and turn on AngryAsianMan.com and see what I need to know about all things Asian American. I had always been a big fan at comics—I worked at Marvel Comics before acting. I was doing a lot of Asian American awareness events with <a href=“http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0280477/”>Better Luck Tomorrow</a>, and I noticed… that all my favorite [comic] artists and writers were Asian American. When I heard about the anthology, I had a story idea and submitted it, and they made me a part of the editorial team.

Jeff: So we hijacked him and made him do all the work.

Together, these three and Art Director Jerry Ma are the perfect team for the job. Jeff’s journalist connections keeps him in touch with high profile literary and artistic Asian Americans. Keith is an expert in comics and knows people in the comic world as well as education. Parry is the team’s Hollywood connection to actors, directors and producers and is the most organized of the three—the other two call him PreParry. Although Jerry wasn’t able to make it to Northwestern, his artistic touches can be seen throughout the Anthology. They’re a veritable book-producing superhero team in themselves.

THE VERDICT:

If the Secret Identities book tour comes by your town, definitely go check them out. They give a great introduction to the book, opinions on the state of Asian American media, and do an awesome exercise where an artist who contributed to the anthology will draw the superhero of your dreams. Not to mention they’re great guys, even when completely sleep-deprived like when I ambushed them after the session.

At Northwestern, an audience of over 30 students collaborated to invent Lester, or “Everyman,” with the power to shapeshift. Art Director Jerry Ma sketched the image after being emailed a description and back story to the character. Within minutes, he scanned it and sent it back so the audience could see their creation: technology at it’s finest.

I was so amazed by their talk at Northwestern that it wasn’t even a question as to whether or not I’d buy the anthology. Even with all the reporting, studying, paper-writing, and swine flu-avoiding I’ve been doing, I’ve made time to read a couple of the stories. To be concise: AMAZING. Please check it out, and tell all your friends. Put it on your coffee table or in your bathroom—make it your new Calvin & Hobbes. You won’t regret it.

Article by TM Chicago correspondent Bettina Chang

TM Video by Founder Jason Lee