#marjorie liu

WINGBEARER goes on sale March 1st! I had a blast illustrating this 204 pg behemoth, graphic novel, written by the incredible Marjorie Liu! The art style is so involved and it was incredibly hard, but I’m really proud of it and I hope y’all will enjoy it! Link to purchase on my website (www.tenyai.com) , should be available almost anywhere!

zvilikestv:

Marjorie Liu: Monstress draws on the stories her grandparents told about their traumas in the war. War was terrible, but also her grandfather, a Chinese pilot, faced racism from Brits transporting his group for training.

Greg Pak has been trying to do his Chinese gunslinger story movies for years, since he’s a Texan and was excited to learn about history of real Chinese cowboys. Finally ended up taking them to Dark Horse, which pushes him to deepen, so he added magic.

@mooncakescomic came out of desire between Wendy Xu and Suzanne ¿Walker? to collaborate. They decided it wouldn’t be about straight people, one character would be Hard of Hearing, and they would be Asian. But the story is about childhood friends a witch and a werewolf reconnecting, solving a mystery, and romance.

Q: How does editorial react to including specific Asian cultural details in ‘mainstream’ comics? A: Larry (GI Joe writer): They still don’t like it. They feel like it’s not safe and not proven. Advice: pick your battles and also don’t tell editorial what you’re writing in the next issue

Vishavjit Singh, Sikh Captain America and cartoonist: prompted by a photographer to do the costume. Inspired to do it by massacre at a Sikh Temple. The costume wasn’t necessarily intended to be political until he went with some other cartoonists to the RNC. Very passionate about using comics to teach people not to demonize the Other.

Moderator: Steve Rogers is a cartoonist, you are Captain America, man. *Applause*

Moderator: Diversity seems to be accepted in kids lit but not in adult mainstream comics…

Greg Pak says his comics experience is that Marvel is always excited to work with him when he introduces non-white, or queer characters.

Wendy Xu: I work on kids publishing. It isn’t better.

Keith, nerds of color. The important thing is to decenter whiteness. The default of whiteness is ridiculous and needs to be dropped. (Aside about how Superman is Asian American)

Greg Pak: all of America’s history belongs to all of us. We’ve always been in this history and we should all have the opportunity to identify with all kinds of people.

Larry: the image of America as white has been deliberately created

Vishavjit: you know, I’ve never identified as Sikh Captain America. In the costume, I’m just Captain America.

Some discussion with Wendy and Greg about Kickstarter and Patreon as ways to fund the work. Advantages: it can be a side hustle, it can move at the creators’ pace (faster or slower than traditional publisher), can be economically small to build audience, gatekeepers can’t say ‘nobody wants those kinds of stories’

Romani question: Greg Pak offers that he tried to depict Magda in Magneto’s origin story respectfully. Kevin offers that the problem isn’t stereotypes, but that people don’t write characters as fully human. Vishavjit recommends Roma are going to have to write their stories and become writers and cartoonists. Larry says you have to confront editorial directly.

audience member: disagrees with panel: Superman is Indian

Q: what to do about queer Asian representation? Marjorie: creators have to actively make choices for different kinds of characters. Wendy: look for and buy the queer Asian comics that already exist. Greg (paraphrase): more $, more content

Awesome rundown of our panel today at NYCC!