Verified by All-American Angst
Gene Luen Yang turned first-generation immigrant agita into a timeless graphic novel. Now the winner of a MacArthur genius grant, he's launching a radical new take on America's most iconic hero.
By Gary Drevitch published January 3, 2017 - last reviewed on March 7, 2017
Capping a year in which he gave the world its first Asian Superman (in DC Comics' New Super-Man) and began his term as the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, graphic novelist Gene Luen Yang won a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant" in September—$625,000 over five years. A father of four in San Jose who created much of his work during a 17-year career as a high-school computer science teacher, Yang has joked that he might spend some of the cash on a more private space to work, but also says he'll stay committed to exploring new paths to get kids reading and to using comics to teach in untried ways.
Q: Your characters, superpowered or not, tend to begin their story arcs as arrogant and then arrive at a humbling comeuppance. I grew up with the story of the Monkey King, an old Chinese myth that was first written down 500 years ago. The Monkey King starts off full of himself: He believes he's the equal of heaven. But then he gets knocked down a peg and learns to care about other people. That's also something that I had to deal with when I was growing up. I constantly came up against the reality that I was not as good as I thought I was. And through that, I came to a more mature understanding of my place in the world.
Q: You routinely mix the real and the supernatural, as icons from Chinese mythology interact with your characters. That also comes from growing up reading comics. Even though they come up with hokey scientific explanations as to why Bruce Banner turns into this giant green monster and how Spider-Man got the ability to climb walls, it's all magical realism.
Q: How did New Super-Man come about? They approached me with the idea. At first I said no; I felt like there were too many cultural sensitivities. Superman is supposed to be all about truth, justice, and the American way, but what does that mean in modern China? Also, writing a Chinese character, I'm very much working from an outsider's perspective. But then I started hearing him talk to me, and I felt like I had to write him.
Q: In the comic, the Superman we know is dead, and China has created knockoff versions of him, Batman, and Wonder Woman. What's the cultural commentary there? After the Communist Party came into power, people still practiced religion secretly, and the government realized that the impulse was impossible to suppress, so they created state-sanctioned versions of major world faiths. For Catholics, there's the state-sanctioned "Patriotic Church," but there's also an underground church, and it's a very messy relationship. That's the sensibility I wanted to bring to New Super-Man. These knockoff heroes are like the Patriotic Church. The government hopes that by providing its versions of popular superheroes, it can suppress grassroots heroes popping up in China.
Q: It's taken a while for asian heroes to emerge, even though Asian-Americans have had a major role as comics creators for decades. I agree. It's taken awhile for Asian faces to get into the panels. But I'm thankful that when you look at a poster of all the DC characters now, there are a variety of faces. It's important.
Q: Growing up, did it bother you that those faces were not represented? It definitely affected me, but I don't think I was conscious of it. I do remember that seeing Chinese faces on TV was rare enough that when it happened, my brother and I would call our parents over to see it. There was always a sense, deep down, that we were outsiders, and I think that had we seen more Asian faces on TV, it would have alleviated some of that.
Q: The youngsters in your best-known work, American Born Chinese, face stereotypes that immigrants from many cultures have grown up with. Was that your experience as well? A lot of the words that are hurled at those characters were words that I heard in the halls of my junior high, and I felt that embarrassment over and over again. I remember being embarrassed by my parents' accent, by speaking Chinese in public, even by the way I looked in the mirror; I just really wanted to fit in. It does seem like children of immigrants, regardless of where our parents are from, all go through very similar emotional realities.
