Bonus Hard NOC Life: ‘Hamilton’ as Fan Fiction (from 2016)

Hard NOC Life will go on a brief hiatus as we prepare for our landmark 200th episode.

But since today is the premiere of Hamilton on Disney+, we’re re-sharing this panel from November 2016 as a bonus episode of the podcast. You can find the original post here.

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SIUniverse Celebrates Lunar New Year at The Met in NYC

A little over two weeks ago, I had the honor of leading a comics workshop with my SIUniverse partner Jerry Ma at the world renowned Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Part of their annual Lunar New Year festival, Jerry and I helped small children and their families use inspiration from the museum’s rooms of Asian art to create their own superhero characters.

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Bryan Thao Worra on Lao Science Fiction (From CTRL+ALT)

In our final live edition of Hard NOC Life from the NOC Reading Lounge at CTRL+ALT — the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center’s pop-up culture lab in the former Pear River Mart location in SoHo, award-winning poet Bryan Thao Worra discusses the literature of the Laotian diaspora and explains why the Asian American literay canon needs more speculative fiction.

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History as Fan Fiction: A CTRL+ALT Panel on ‘Hamilton’

Back in November, we recorded a live edition of Hard NOC Life from the NOC Reading Lounge at CTRL+ALT — the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center’s pop-up culture lab in the former Pearl River Mart location in SoHo. Hamilton superfans Constance Gibbs, Kendra James, and Kevin T. Morales joined Keith to nerd out over the smash Broadway hit musical Hamilton.

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Artist Talk: Shawn Taylor in Conversation with Ajuan Mance

If you’re in the Bay Area this week, you should attend this conversation. It is one of our events leading up to 2017’s Black Comix Arts Festival, a Co-Presentation of MoAD, Cartoon Art Museum, and Black Comix Art Festival.

Join the Cartoon Art Museum and Black Comix Art Festival at the Museum of the African Diaspora for, “Ajuan Mance in Conversation with Shawn Taylor,” an evening celebration of current Bay Area cartooning sensation Ajuan Mance as part of the SF Comics Fest. Writer Shawn Taylor from The Nerds of Color will chat with Ajuan about her latest projects in illustration, cartooning and writing, her creative process, her recent rise in popularity, and what she plans to achieve next.

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Artists Matt Huynh and Yumi Sakugawa Live From #CrossLines

Even though the Smithsonian’s CrossLines pop-up culture lab on intersectionality happened two months ago, we’ve been milking our live artist conversations ever since. Sadly, today marks the final live edition of Hard NOC Life, but it’s definitely worth the wait! Join acclaimed artists Matt Huynh and Yumi Sakugawa as they talk about their work and installations presented at the Smithsonian.

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Comics, Culture, and Cooking with Robin Ha at #CrossLines

On the second day of the Smithsonian’s CrossLines pop-up culture lab on intersectionality, artist Robin Ha stopped by the NOC Reading Lounge to talk about her new book Cook Korean, which takes Korean recipes and presents them in a comic book format.

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NOC x BNP at #CrossLines with Lauren Bullock

An historic event occurred during our special live recordings of Hard NOC Life from the Smithsonian’s CrossLines pop-up culture lab on intersectionality. The NOC and Black Nerd Problems formed a Nerd Voltron when we were joined by BNP’s own Lauren Bullock.

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The Exhibition of Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon

My time in Japan is dwindling down fast so I have been trying to travel a lot. I went to Tokyo last week to check out a video game exhibit (more on that another time) but my friend informed me that there was a Sailor Moon exhibit over at Tokyo City View, the observation deck in Roppongi Hills. Being a huge Sailor Moon fan, I knew I needed to check it out for myself.

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Hard NOC Live at the Smithsonian #CrossLines: Shawn Martinbrough

Last week, we had the opportunity to be a part of CrossLines, a pop-up culture lab on intersectionality presented by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center. In addition to hosting a Reading Lounge/Book Swap and live mural by artist Matt Huyhn, The Nerds of Color was invited to conduct live recordings of Hard NOC Life. The first of these live podcasts featured comic book artist Shawn Martinbrough.

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The Official NOC #CrossLines Reading List

This past weekend in Washington DC, the Smithsonian’s historic Arts & Industries building was home to the most important gathering of artists you have ever seen. The CrossLines pop-up culture lab on intersectionality brought together over 40 artists and scholars to explore race, gender, class, sexuality, religion, disability, etc.

I was fortunate enough to be invited and helped organize a Reading Lounge and live podcasts — while artist Matt Huynh painted a mural in real time the entire weekend. One of the questions I got asked the most was about the books we included, so after the jump you can find a complete list of books we had in the Lounge!
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Making it Up As I Go Along with Larry Hama

A few weeks back, I had the honor to attend the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at NYU’s presentation of Making It Up As I Go Along, a documentary about the legendary G.I. Joe creator Larry Hama. After the screening, I was also able to have a one-on-one conversation with Larry and fielded some questions from the audience in attendance.

If you were unable to be at the screening, the APA Institute has posted the whole thing online, and you can see it for yourself after the jump!

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Making ‘Milestones’ at Geppi’s Entertainment Museum

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Legend Status (L to R): Michael Davis, Kyle Baker, Denys Cowan

On Friday night, I had the honor and privilege to attend the opening gala for the latest exhibit at the Geppi Entertainment Museum in Baltimore. Curated by Milestone Media co-founder Michael Davis and Tatiana El-Kouri — with John Jennings consulting, the exhibit “Milestones: African Americans in Comics, Pop Culture, and Beyond” was a showcase for the artists who make up the African American pop art experience. Representing a true cross-section of popular culture, the pieces on display spanned decades and demonstrated the vastness and diversity of African American artistic expression.

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Marvels & Monsters: Yo, Is This Racist?

It’s an age-old question: does popular culture reflect mainstream perceptions, or is the mainstream influenced by the images it sees in popular culture? Jeff Yang, of Secret Identities and the Wall Street Journal, examines this question in the exhibit, Marvels & Monsters, now showing at the Japanese American National Museum.

Jeff
Exhibit curator Jeff Yang

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