12 May 2009
Editors Discuss Creation of Asian-American Superhero Anthology
Graphic novel explores themes of heritage, history, identity
America.gov staff writer Peggy B. Hu interviewed editors Jeff Yang, Parry Shen, Keith Chow and Jerry Ma about their new graphic novel, Secret Identities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology. (See “Asian-American Experiences Viewed Through Superhero Lens.”)
More information about the book and an educational guide to the events that inspired many of the stories are available on the anthology Web site.
Following is the transcript of the interview:
Question: When did you decide to put together this anthology? Did the idea come to you as a result of a brainstorming session with friends and colleagues, or was it proposed by one person?
Chow: The whole thing came together kind of serendipitously. In a previous life, I managed an educational newsletter for industry giant Diamond Comics. Back in May 2006, I ran a piece about Asian-American comic creators in which I interviewed folks like Gene Yang, Greg Pak and Derek Kirk Kim. I guess Jeff somehow got a hold of that piece and decided to interview me on Asian Americans in comics for his column, “Asian Pop,” in the San Francisco Chronicle.
During the course of our interview, we got to talking about why there weren’t more Asian-American heroes in the books, and started sharing our own secret ideas for superheroes. To be honest, I’m not exactly sure who brought up the idea of doing a book together — it just kind of came up as a “wouldn’t this be cool” kind of idea.
At the time, our conversation seemed like a one-time thing and we thought we’d likely never speak to each other again. Besides, neither of us can draw worth a lick, so the notion of doing a graphic novel was a pipe dream at best.
But a few weeks later, I met Jerry at a comic convention in Philadelphia. I mentioned the conversation I had with Jeff about the idea of doing an Asian-American superhero book. It turned out Jerry and Jeff had the same acquaintances and knew of each other — and Jerry thought it was an excellent idea. So, with our first actual artist on board, we decided to give it a shot. And as we outreached to our contacts seeking out additional collaborators, we connected with Parry, whom Jeff knew from his acting career — Parry was the lead in the breakthrough Asian-American film Better Luck Tomorrow. It turned out he used to work for Marvel Comics, before going into acting, and was as big of a fan as we were; we basically kidnapped him into becoming one of our co-editors.
The rest, as they say, is history.
Yang: As Keith said, that first chance connection between us back in 2006 set in motion a whole domino series of events that led — almost three years later! — to the publication of this book. But seen from another perspective, the origin of this book extends back over three decades ago, when all of us were kids. We grew up as fans of comic books because the media we were surrounded by had so few heroes that we could identify with, as Asian Americans. Other than Bruce Lee, who died before any of us were born, there were no heroic Asians on TV or in films. There weren’t any in comic books either, really ... but at least we could pretend that, behind the masks, the faces of the secret identities of heroes like Spiderman and Batman might possibly look a little something like us.
And yet, when those masks came off, it was Peter Parker, not Peter Park; Bruce Wayne, not Bruce Wong (as Keith likes to say). Even in the comic books, where people could be from anywhere — other planets and dimensions — and look like anything — red, blue, purple or green — we were invisible (and I’m not talking the cool Sue Storm kind of invisibility, either).
This was an experience all four of us shared, and we knew we were far from alone. And during the creation of this book, three out of four of us had babies — Parry had his second girl, I had my second boy, and Keith had his daughter — which underscored to us how we didn’t want our kids to grow up facing that same situation.
Because, after all, superheroes have become the central mythology of our time. All you have to do is go to the movies and see how every blockbuster is a superhero story, to recognize how sad it is to not have your faces and voices depicted as part of that amazing tradition.
Q: Did you ask contributors to follow any particular guidelines? Were there any particular themes or events that you wanted them to focus on? Did you (and/or the other editors) give them specific assignments, or did they pursue their own ideas?
Shen: There was only one requirement we asked of potential contributors — that the heroes organically come from an Asian-American perspective. They had to ask themselves, “Why is this character in this particular anthology?”
By having the writers come follow that mantra, it forced the richness of the Asian-American experience in the back stories to show through and make these characters compelling and nuanced — as opposed to just slapping on an ethnicity as an afterthought. But at the same time, we were also very conscious of the other extreme and didn’t want overcompensating, preachy Asian heroes standing on a soapbox either.
The story “9066” by Jonathan Tsuei was the submission that really set the book on course. Here we had a Japanese-American hero in the 1940s, who faces internment after Pearl Harbor despite all the heroic acts he’s previously done. Here was a hero whose ethnicity was organic to the circumstances he faced. Here was a real character with real stakes brought to life. Once he’s released, will he become a villain with a chip on his shoulder because of what his country [has] done? Or will he rise above it and continue to fight for justice just as the real-life soldiers of the 442nd Regiment did when their families were interned? It’s that specificity that makes characters universal for readers of any race to connect and empathize with.
Other than that, we just cast a wide net and watched the submissions roll in. We started to notice similar-themed stories and we grouped them together accordingly into the six chapter headings in the book. For example, “War and Remembrance” focuses on stories of World War II, “When Worlds Collide” contains tales of immigration,” “Girl Power” focuses on strong female Asian-American heroines, and “Headline to Hero” is filled with stories inspired by the acts of real world heroes.
Q: How did you decide which artists and writers to feature? Were you looking for a variety of artistic styles to showcase?
Ma: As a team, we went through each artist submission and made, in our opinion, the best match of artistic style to style of writing. Unfortunately, we had to turn down a lot of great talent. But that shouldn’t bring anybody down at all; if and when we get to the second volume, we are going to need everybody to be just as enthusiastic about submitting art and stories for the second as they were for the first. But overall, I can’t stress enough how impressed I was with the level of professionalism and integrity with each individual artist’s work.
Q: What was your overall objective? Does the anthology have an overarching message? What do you hope your readers will take away from it?
Chow: I think there are several takeaways from the book. One of the things we wanted to accomplish with Secret Identities was to use the lens of the superhero archetype, one of the most iconic and American forms of storytelling, to illuminate the many facets of the Asian-American experience. Similarly, by having so many contributors (66 in total) with such different art styles and writing styles, we were also able to showcase and celebrate the diversity that exists within the Asian-American community.
Yang: As Parry says above, we wanted to create a pantheon of original superheroes that were as rich and interesting as the superheroes we grew up loving — but that were authentically Asian American, coming from a place and culture we recognized and connected with.
Our motives in doing so were twofold: The first was to use this unique and incredible words-and-pictures method of telling stories to insert our voices into the grand tapestry of the American narrative. It was amazing to us how many contributors chose actual historical events as the backdrop for their tales; from the building of the railroads that opened [the] American West, to the Japanese-American internment and the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to the Vietnam War, the rise of Japan and then China and India as economic rivals to the U.S., the arrival of Islam in America, even more contemporary “ripped from the headlines” circumstances like the murder of Vincent Chin in 1982 and the false espionage accusations [against] Wen Ho Lee in 1999. By using larger-than-life, iconic characters, the writers of these stories were able to highlight the enormous and largely unexplored ways that Asian Americans have played a role in shaping our nation’s history.
At the same time, by telling these stories, we were creating dozens of superheroes who are organically Asian American, based on their very origins; for example, Parry wrote a story about the descendants of the survivors of the atomic bombing of Japan, who as a result have developed unusual powers. You couldn’t take that story and recast it with non-Asian characters — something that happens all too often in Hollywood, as Parry can attest!
There’s a kind of Easter egg in the book that explains what these two motives add up to, in our eyes. We created a fictitious Midwestern metropolis called Troy City to serve as the central location for a lot of the book’s stories; we explain it as kind of a “superhero homeland,” where those with special powers can live alongside “normal” humans freely, without threat of legal liability or exposure of their secret identities. We chose the name Troy because the book is, in a certain fashion, a Trojan horse — a way to smuggle these stories and characters into our popular culture while no one’s looking!
Q: Have you had any feedback from readers? If so, how have they responded to the anthology? Have you been surprised by their reactions?
Shen: This customer review on our Amazon.com page pretty much sums it up for me: “After reading it, I was speechless … I never thought I’d live to see the day where I had the opportunity to read about [Asian-Pacific-American] superheroes and eventually, share them with my children.” It was so exciting to know that other people have been literally waiting for a book like this to come along.
But I’ve been most surprised when meeting folks during the book tour who have been taking the initiative in making the book their own and wanting to spread its content to the next generation by purchasing one copy for themselves and donating another copy to their local library. We first witnessed a gentleman do it during a signing at New York University; this past week, someone else from the University of California at Davis did it, then a woman at University of Texas–Austin … I just hope that’s something that catches on. That’s how a legacy begins: It’s all about the stories you pass down to the next generation.
Chow: I’ve been surprised by the enthusiasm from people who aren’t necessarily comic book fans. I’ve encountered so many people who tell me that they don’t read comics, but had to preorder this because just the notion of having Asian Americans represented in an art form that has become so integral to popular culture was an important thing to support.
If nothing else, I like to think we’re converting a lot of noncomics fans into comic readers through the book!
Q: Do you have plans to collaborate on another anthology any time soon?
Ma: We’ve talked briefly about ideas for a second volume. I personally hope that it happens, as I’m looking forward to taking what we learned from this first book and applying it to the next. Hopefully, this won’t stop, and we’ll be making books for as long as there are still great stories to tell.
Yang: It’s obviously something we’re just starting to discuss, but there’s a concept that intrigues us. At one of our earliest events, someone raised a hand and said something that got us thinking. It’s easy to write interesting, positive stories featuring superheroes, he said, because superheroes are the good guys. But so many of the most interesting characters in comics aren’t good guys — they’re villains. Why didn’t you do any stories about Asian-American supervillains? And that got us thinking: What about a book that explores the bad guys? Explains how they got that way, and turns stock cartoon “yellow peril” caricatures into real and interesting characters? We agreed that would be a pretty cool idea. Wouldn’t it?
