We here at KungFuMagazine.com have been fans of the work of award-winning author Gene Luen Yang almost since the very beginning. It was his groundbreaking use of Sun Wu Kong, The Monkey King in his premiere 2006 graphic novel American Born Chinese published by First Second Books that put him on the map for many of us. That book won several awards after all; an Eisner and the Michael L. Printz award in 2007. It also earned colorist Lark Pien a Harvey Award and made it onto numerous top 10 lists that same year.
It would take several years for that appreciation to blossom. In 2013 KungFuMagazine enjoyed the opportunity to interview the author about his Boxer Rebellion set graphic novel duology Boxers & Saints (read Talking Boxers & Saints). We were also able to collaborate with First Second to provide 5 fortunate contestants with signed copies of the boxed set. It was a part of our bi-weekly sweepstakes. We talk about that briefly below.
But that was only the first cross-promotional endeavor KFM undertook with Gene Luen Yang and his publishers. In 2014, he and artist Sonny Leu released the graphic novel The Shadow Hero. This restoration of a little known 1940’s era superhero The Green Turtle also won an Eisner award.
Gene Luen Yang’s presence on a number of panels at San Diego Comic-Con and a coincidental encounter during Gene Ching and my coverage of that convention led to a one-on-one interview right on the convention floor just after a book signing for his latest graphic novel Lunar New Year Love Story.
PLUGO:
It's been a while. A lot's happened since we covered Boxers and Saints. Loved Shadow Hero as well (for different reasons) but, we in the office felt that that book deserved more attention than it got, especially when compared to so many of your other books. I don't know exactly how well it did, but I wonder if you wanted more from it? How does it rate among your body of work?
Gene Luen Yang:
I was really happy to do it. I was happy that First Second was willing to give it a box. First time I ever did a box set of anything. It was really fun. Overall, I don't really have any complaints about how that book was received or anything. I was just grateful to have that chance to do it. It was also a kind of a hard pitch. Nobody really knew what the Boxer Rebellion was. Yeah, the fact, that First Second allowed me to run with its very heavy topics. That's very cool.
PLUGO:
I was curious if afterwards, the books that you created kind of intended to move away from the historical side of things.
GLY:
So after that, I did my first real nonfiction book, Dragon Hoops. That was my next project where I did both the writing and the drawing and there was overlap. There was a huge research component to Boxers and Saints. There's a huge research component to Dragon Hoops as well. I read a lot about basketball history to prepare for that book, yeah, but the bulk of the research for Dragon Hoops was actually dealing with real people.
PLUGO:
Right? You were on the ground with a basketball team, on tour. So not quite like anyone was expecting you to pick up a sword and start training. I mean, I think I’ve still got photos of you with sword in hand, but we’ll put that aside.
GLY: [Laughs]
PLUGO:
So let’s kind of catch up. The big thing that we were looking at was the adaptation of, AMERICAN BORN CHINESE on Disney+. I mean, on the martial arts side, with the fight choreography, we were all cheering for the casting of Sun Wu Kong, I was wondering, for all of us comic creators that have that little dream of some form of adaptation; is there any lesson that you took away from that process?
GLY:
It was the very first time I ever had any real dealings with Hollywood. I came away with a lot of admiration for people who work in that industry, because their work hours are just crazy. It's like, really, really intense. It's like, almost all consuming. You know, everyone from the actors to the writers to the directors, to the costume folks, to the bike coordinators. They were just on set all the time. I mean, those work hours were absolutely incredible. I was shocked by the amount of work it takes to put something on.
PLUGO:
Just the fact that it gets done is an accomplishment. I think a lot of people lose sight of it. Like, even if it's some terrible movie, the fact that it got done is something.
GLY:
A miracle. Yeah, that's the other thing. Not only does it take a lot of effort and resources, also there's so many hoops that you have to jump through in order to get something made.
PLUGO:
We loved it, you know, and we were just mostly angry that it wasn't renewed.
GLY:
I can't be too mad about that, because I feel like even getting one season was amazing. You know now that I've seen it up close, I realize how rare it is for something to make it through all the stages and end up on screen.
PLUGO:
That's very cool. Okay, so now let’s get caught up to today. Let’s talk about the Lunar New Year. Well, the new year isn’t so new anymore but Lunar New Year Love Story, certainly is.
GLY:
Yeah, that's right.
PLUGO:
So it’s taking place in Oakland. Very awesome. Are there any easter eggs that us East Bay folks should be looking for in those pages?
GLY:
Yeah, if you read the book and you're from Oakland or from the Bay Area, you'll recognize the landmarks. Yeah, Lake Merritt is in that book. It's just, you know, the book is about not just lunar year but lion dancing. Lion dancing happens often at weddings. So there are different scenes at different weddings. And if you're from the Bay Area, you'll probably recognize some of the venues of those weddings. Yeah.
PLUGO:
Excellent. So yeah - lion dancing. I mean, the Bay Area is like the gold mine for martial arts. Did you have any specific Kung Fu schools in mind?
GLY:
So it's funny, because even though the story is set in the Bay Area, our consultant, we actually hired a lion dance consultant based elsewhere.
PLUGO:
Awesome. Are you willing to name her?
GLY:
Her name is Mimi Chan. Do you know her?
PLUGO:
I know Mimi, she’s our modern-day Mulan!
GLY:
Right. Mulan, yeah, she's a comic book geek. She runs a podcast. Yes. So I met her because she invited me on her podcast.
PLUGO:
We were both on an episode, except for me, it was Game of Thrones that we discussed. That was back when the original series was wrapping up.
GLY:
Yes, Oh yeah. So when, when I told her that we were going to do this lion dancing book, she started volunteering information, and eventually First Second hired her as an official consultant.
PLUGO:
That's awesome.
GLY:
So Lewin Pham, the artist of the book, she and Mimi just went back and forth, you know, and Mimi checked over every single panel to make sure all the body positions were correct.
PLUGO:
That's so awesome, you know, we've been kind of noticing that there's a little cottage industry for that level of specific consulting, you know. Alongside that there is what we've been kind of calling a Wuxia boom. That kind of kicked off around 2021 and the release of SHANG CHI & THE LEGEND OF THE 10 RINGS.
GLY:
I think it's not even like, necessarily martial arts-themed books that still need martial arts consulting now, right? Like John Wick, I imagine. I'm not a martial artist, but I imagine that somebody had to know martial arts in order to work on that.
PLUGO:
Well Keanu’s been training since The Matrix. So, it seems he fell in love with it then. He's just been really hardcore about it since then. So coming back to Martial arts lore once again, there are rivalries, and politics. Did anyone come to you and whisper anything about rival schools?
GLY:
Yeah no experience of that. (laughs) Mimi also introduced us to a Sifu in San Francisco, Richard Ow.
PLUGO:
Richard Ow of Yau Kung Moon in San Francisco.
GLY:
Yeah, Richard Ow. So Richard actually invited us to their studio, and so Lewin Pham got an up close look at all of his equipment, and they spent like an hour or two together. It was like all of that was a playground, the details of Lewin's drawings, right down to the seafood.
PLUGO:
I'm gonna be going through that book with a magnifying glass. So, I imagine, these days, you don't have to work too hard to perfect your pitching. You have so much momentum from each project that's been moving forward.
GLY:
We are trying to do new things. We do have five more volumes of The Books Of Clash planned and then First Second books. My primary publisher is starting a brand-new adult imprint.
PLUGO:
Yes! 23rd Street Books.
GLY:
Yeah. So I'm doing a book for them. That one, that's gonna be sci fi. So that's also new territory.
PLUGO:
Are you thinking of it in terms of hard sci-fi?
GLY:
It's more near future.
PLUGO:
More in the vein of speculative fiction? That's very exciting, a vision of the near future in the near future.
GLY:
(Laughs)
PLUGO:
Thank you, Gene.
GLY:
Thank you Patrick, have a great rest of your Con.
We didn’t have the chance to talk about his superhero work. His various takes on Superman or the two marvel comic titles most interesting to readers of KFM; The Monkey Prince and Shang Chi. But for those who might be curious, Marvel only just collected Gene Luen Yang’s work on various Shang Chi titles into a single collected edition. It includes SHANG-CHI (2020) #1-5, SHANG-CHI (2021) #1-12, SHANG-CHI AND THE TEN RINGS #1-6, SHANG-CHI: MASTER OF THE TEN RINGS and material from MARVEL’S VOICES: IDENTITY (2021) #1. All under the title SHANG-CHI BY GENE LUEN YANG - quite the accomplishment. Hopefully we'll talk in detail about that comic run sometime in the near future.
