“I kind of just write what I like to write. I'm thankful that readers of different ages seem to connect to my stories. I don't consciously think about age demographics when I'm working on my comics.”
Gene Luen Yang“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.”
Gene Luen Yang“I think there is always romantic tension between Lois Lane and Clark Kent.”
Gene Luen Yang“My first job was as a programmer. So I feel like I'm familiar with the information technology sector and the information technology culture.”
Gene Luen Yang“Ch'in Shih-huang is the first emperor of China. He united seven separate kingdoms into a single nation. He built the Great Wall and was buried with the terra-cotta soldiers. The Chinese have mixed feelings about him. They're proud of the nation he created, but he was a maniacal tyrant.”
Gene Luen Yang“I kind of just write what I like to write. I'm thankful that readers of different ages seem to connect to my stories. I don't consciously think about age demographics when I'm working on my comics.”
Gene Luen Yang“I talk about religion because it's one of the ways human beings find power and belonging. Religion is more than just that - I think faith traditions give us ways to talk about experiences of the numinous, too - but power and belonging are a big part of it.”
Gene Luen Yang“Religion and culture are two important ways in which we as humans find our identity. That's certainly true for me.”
Gene Luen Yang“This is a profession for me, but I started off as a self-publisher working on my own schedule and my own stuff before moving on to graphic novels with First Second Books, where there was definitely a schedule, but it was very different from monthly comics.”
Gene Luen Yang“I wanted to make an explicitly educational comic that taught readers the concepts I covered in my introductory programming class. That's what 'Secret Coders' is. It's both a fun story about a group of tweens who discover a secret coding school, and an explanation of some foundational ideas in computer science.”
Gene Luen Yang“[S]ometimes, a fight you cannot win is still worth fighting.”
Gene Luen Yang, The Shadow Hero