Be a Part of the 2016 Angry Asian Man Subscriber Drive

Last month, one of our favorite blogs reached another milestone as Angry Asian Man celebrated its 15th anniversary. A decade and a half of being one of the most influential Asian Americans on the internet is no easy feat, so we’re hoping you can head on over to his site and help Phil Yu with his annual donation drive. You’ll get some cool swag out of it too.

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Top Ten Asian Pacific American Comics Characters

by Gene Yang | Originally posted at Tor.com

Happy Asian Pacific American Heritage Month! Er… did you know that May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month? Well, now you do. And I hope you have a happy one.

All over cyberspace, folks are celebrating in all sorts of ways. Wall Street Journal columnist Jeff Yang (no relation) kicked things off with an article that asks if the APA community is one or many (and graphically compares it to Voltron). CAPE (Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment) launched a campaign of YouTube videos with several prominent APA entertainers talking about their career paths.

I’m doing my part by sharing with you my Top Ten Favorite APA characters in comics. They aren’t listed in any specific order, but they all meet these requirements: They’re in comics, they’re of Asian or Pacific Islander descent, they’re American, and they make my heart happy. Continue reading “Top Ten Asian Pacific American Comics Characters”

Breaking Bats and Monkeys

Earlier I wrote about the endless narrative possibilities available in the superhero comics genre. Of course, comics are not the only medium to enjoy the fractal narrative. Philip Marlowe, the Continental Op, and Sherlock Holmes are ageless detectives forever solving crimes in short stories and novels. If Jet Li had so desired it, Tsui Hark would probably have made fifty more Wong Fei-Hong movies. And the Brits have the idea down with James Bond and Doctor Who.

But while the fractals can expand forever, artists given to make their own new stories and interpretations can sometimes make changes that are so drastic that they change the nature of the character the audience has come to know. Artists should of course be able to bend and experiment with characters to find new avenues, but there must be limits, no? Because the danger in the course of bending a character is the potential of breaking it.

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