Yesterday afternoon, Netflix announced a trio of animated projects featuring Asian American protagonists and creative teams. Among those series was one based on a comic book from an old friend, Mech Cadets based on the Boom! series by Greg Pak and Takeshi Miyazawa.
Continue reading “‘Mech Cadets’ Brings the SIUniverse to Netflix”
Happy Holidays! Not only is it Christmastime, but this is also Jamie Noguchi week on Hard NOC Media! Before he guests on a special Rise of Skywalker focused edition of Hard NOC Life, Jamie is also Keith’s guest on this month’s Southern Fried Asian.
If you haven’t checked it out already, Boom! Studios’ Mech Cadet Yu by Greg Pak and Takeshi Miyazawa has been one of the best comics to come out this year. Now, Pak has released an awesome new trailer for the series, whose trade is due in comic shops on January 3. Make sure you head to your local comic shop and pre-order by Monday, December 11 to guarantee your copy!
Continue reading “Check Out the Trailer for ‘Mech Cadet Yu’”
This week, Boom! Studios has finally released the first issue of Mech Cadet Yu, the most recent collaboration between comic book stalwarts Greg Pak and Takeshi Miyazawa. To celebrate the book’s release, Greg returns to Hard NOC Life to explain the book’s creation, including its origins in the Secret Identities follow-up anthology, Shattered.
Continue reading “Diversity Within Diversity: Greg Pak Discusses Mech Cadet Yu“
Yesterday, Parry Shen challenged our own Keith Chow to take part in the Ice Bucket Challenge for ALS research. This is the result: Continue reading N.O.C. One-Shot: Keith’s Ice Bucket Challenge
Hey East Coasters! I know all the cool kids are going to be in San Diego this weekend, but if you couldn’t make the cross-country trip, folks in the DMV can get their comics fix by coming to the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association in Washington, DC’s Chinatown this Sunday, July 27.
I’ll be joined by illustrator Jamie Noguchi (Yellow Peril) and NPR Code Switch’s Kat Chow to talk about the secret origins of Secret Identities and Shattered as well as Jamie’s Yellow Peril webcomic. We’ll also discuss why we have chosen the comics medium to tell Asian American stories in the first place. Check out details after the jump!
Last Sunday evening, we flipped the script on the Google Hangout format. Instead of hosting Hard NOC Life, I had the pleasure to be Mega Ran’s guest on the NPC Collective’s monthly “Ask the NPC” series on YouTube.
Catch me on with Ran, and his NPC partners-in-rhyme Shubzilla, Sammus, and Sky Blew. We discuss a lot of topics including potential NOC/NPC collabos, gender representation in nerd spaces, how people perceive nerdcore music, and our favorite comics. Plus, we get into some show-and-tell of the best nerdy stuff in our rooms. Check out the video after the jump!
Continue reading “My Guest Spot on Ask the NPC Last Weekend”
Captain America rakes in billions of dollars in box office. Computer graphics are required to bring Superman’s powers to life. An Oscar-winning celebrity is cast to play Batman and the internet breaks in half. We take for granted that these superhero characters are embedded in our modern cultural conscience. They are more than just household names, they’re indelible parts of our collective identity. They are also all really old.
After all, 2014 marks Batman’s 75th anniversary (Supes turned 75 last year). And Steve Rogers being a WWII relic isn’t just a plot gimmick for a series of movies, it’s because the character was actually conceived during WWII. 
The point is that these characters who are part of contemporary popular culture were actually born during the 1930s and ’40s (the “Golden Age” of comics, if you will) and have endured ever since. They weren’t the only ones who were created at the time, but they have had the most staying power.
There is actually another superhero that is also celebrating a milestone anniversary this year. Seventy years ago this July, a superhero called the Green Turtle debuted in the pages of Blazing Comics. You’ve probably never heard of him, but if Gene Luen Yang and Sonny Liew have anything to say about it, you will soon.
Continue reading “Gene Yang & Sonny Liew Bring the Green Turtle Out of the Shadows”
by Gene Yang | Originally posted at GeneYang.com
All this week, Sonny and I are taking you behind the scenes of our new comic The Shadow Hero! Buy the digital first issue of The Shadow Hero on Amazon Kindle, Apple iBooks, or B&N Nook for a mere $0.99!
Here are the previous posts, in case you missed them:
Secret Origin of The Shadow Hero Part 1
Secret Origin of The Shadow Hero Part 2
Secret Origin of The Shadow Hero Part 3
Secret Origin of The Shadow Hero Part 4
by Gene Yang | Originally posted at GeneYang.com
All this week, Sonny and I are taking you behind the scenes of our new comic The Shadow Hero! Buy the digital first issue of The Shadow Hero on Amazon Kindle, Apple iBooks, or B&N Nook for a mere $0.99!
Here are the previous posts, in case you missed them:
Secret Origin of The Shadow Hero Part 1
Secret Origin of The Shadow Hero Part 2
Secret Origin of The Shadow Hero Part 3
by Gene Yang | Originally posted at GeneYang.com
All this week, Sonny and I are taking you behind the scenes of our new comic The Shadow Hero! Buy the digital first issue of The Shadow Hero on Amazon Kindle, Apple iBooks, or B&N Nook for a mere $0.99!
Here are the previous posts, in case you missed them:
Secret Origin of The Shadow Hero Part 1
Secret Origin of The Shadow Hero Part 2
by Gene Yang | Originally posted at GeneYang.com
Today is the day! Sonny Liew and I revive the Green Turtle, the first Asian American superhero!
The Shadow Hero #1 hits the digital shelves of Amazon Kindle, Apple iBooks, and B&N Nook! Buy it now for the low, low price of 99 cents!
All this week, Sonny and I are sharing our behind-the-scene material with you. Check out character designs on Sonny’s blog, and here’s my post from yesterday in case you missed it.
by Gene Yang | Originally posted at GeneYang.com
Tomorrow, First Second Books will release the first digital issue of The Shadow Hero, a six-issue miniseries written by me and drawn by the tremendously talented Sonny Liew! The Shadow Hero #1 will be available via Amazon Kindle, Apple iBooks, and B&N Nook for the low, low price of $0.99! A print trade paperback collecting all six issues will be available July 15, just in time for Comic-Con.
The Shadow Hero revives the Green Turtle, an obscure comic book character from the 1940s who is arguably the first Asian American superhero. Like so many Golden Age characters, he’s in public domain now. You can read more about him and his creator Chu F. Hing here and here. You can find all of his original adventures at the Digital Comics Museum, an amazing free resource for comics fans.
Since this is The Shadow Hero‘s debut week, Sonny and I are going to share with you some behind-the-scenes stuff. Sonny’s going to show you his amazing character designs, while I’m going to give you a glimpse at my writing process.
Loved “Kimchi Power?” Meet Tyler Landis who animates it. He talks about how he got started, and what he does to keep from getting flabby.
Check it out after the jump!
Continue reading “It’s a Draw with Natalie Kim Special: Animator Tyler Landis”
Today’s special episode is “Kimchi Power,” an animated cartoon about a normal Korean American girl who finds out she gets super powers when she eats kimchi.
Natalie created this short with animator Tyler Landis aka Visual Brownies!
Check it out after the jump!
Continue reading “It’s a Draw with Natalie Kim Special: Kimchi Power”
How do the best comedians and cartoonists do what they do? Check out our new twice-weekly collaboration with Natalie Kim to find out!
Today Natalie sits down and draws with her partner on the “Ching Shih: Queen of Pirates” story in Shattered: The Asian American Comics Anthology, the independent comics master Robin Ha to discuss how Alabama and Seoul, Korea are actually not that different!
Check out the episode after the jump!
Continue reading “It’s a Draw with Natalie Kim and Robin Ha”
Later this year, First Second Books will be publishing The Shadow Hero from writer Gene Luen Yang and artist Sonny Liew. Back in November, we were fortunate enough to have Gene on Hard N.O.C. Life where he talked a bit about working with Sonny and their research into the Asian American origins of a forgotten Golden Age hero named the Green Turtle.
Though the book is still forthcoming, Gene and Sonny actually published a series of Shadow Hero strips in Shattered, the anthology of Asian American comics I co-edited with Jeff Yang, Parry Shen, and Jerry Ma in 2012. For the first time, however, Gene and Sonny are unveiling these strips in full color over at Tor.com (they were originally published in black & white in Shattered).
Continue reading “Gene Yang & Sonny Liew Preview The Shadow Hero“
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.
Six years ago this month, five people gathered in a Brooklyn living room to pore through stacks of manuscripts and art portfolios in order to decide on what to include in a little project that would eventually go on to be known as Secret Identities.
To commemorate the occasion, Keith (@the_real_chow) welcomes his SIUniverse partners Jeff Yang (@originalspin), Jerry Ma (@epicprops), Jef Castro (@pointnquestion) — and a special cameo appearance by Parry Shen (@parryshen) — to reminisce about Secret Identities and Shattered.
Look for SIUniverse to represent on both coasts next week as Keith and Jerry will be holding it down at New York Comic-Con (BOOTH 2010!) and Jeff will be in Los Angeles for the opening of Marvels and Monsters at the Japanese American National Museum.
