Gene Luen Yang
Gene Luen Yang
Gene Luen Yang is an American writer of graphic novels and comics. Until recently, he was the Director of Information Services and taught computer science at Bishop O'Dowd High School in Oakland, California and travels all over the world, speaking about graphic novels and comics at comic book conventions and universities, schools, and libraries. In 2012, Yang joined the faculty at Hamline University, as a part of the Low-Residency Master of Fine Arts in Writing for Children and Young Adultsprogram...
NationalityChinese
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth9 August 1973
CountryChina
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.
With my own comics, I try hard to get the vision in my head onto paper, to have one match the other as closely as possible. With the 'Airbender' comics, I'm working with someone else's vision, an already-established vision. I want to stay true to what's come before.
Writing for myself and writing for another artist are two very different experiences. When I handle both the story and the art, I have full control. I can endlessly tweak every word and every line.
Writing, for me, is very inspiration-dependent. And inspiration can be a jerk.
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.
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.
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.
In my research, I learned that the Boxers' kung fu wasn't all that formalized. The vast majority of them didn't belong to some age-old martial arts tradition. They were basically poor, starving teenagers doing the best they could to figure out how to fight, relying more on their mystical beliefs than formal training.
In academia in general, there's this push toward using comics as an educational tool.
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.
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.
When I was growing up, I did go to the arcade. We had a neighborhood arcade, and my friends and I would go fairly regularly.
I was really worried that sitting at home by myself in front of a computer was going to make me crazy.
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.