>> From the Library of
Congress in Washington DC.
>> Michael Cavna: So, to
give you a little history
about this event first.
You know, I'm a cartoonist,
and for me this, it's you know,
with graphic novels it,
they've been seen as sort
of the kids' section
for a while, right.
They got seen and, so my
job, part of it is to.
Gene said the kindest
thing I've ever,
compliment I've ever
received I think.
He called me a comics ninja.
>> Gene Luen Yang: Yes.t
>> Michael Cavna: Which means we got
to sneak in and we got to, you know,
it's an ongoing fight to bring
legitimacy to graphic novels
because they've earned it.
As a kid I started cartooning
professionally when I was 12.
I think it was to get attention,
and so I was constantly,
you know, just going around.
And my mom, just to get her
attention, I would do two things.
I would take out a
harmonica and I would end up,
I would walk up right
behind her and I would go.
[ Harmonica ]
She would take me in the
corner, hand me drawing materials
and buy me all the cartoon
equipment I'd wanted.
She said, please stop playing.
[ Laughter ]
And that was the start of my
comics career, and that's why I'm
at the Washington Post today.
Similarly, this event has its
own sort of auspicious beginning.
Graphic Novel Pavilion,
this began really over beer
because there wasn't a
special graphic novel event
at the National Book Festival
until the website Brightest
Young Things said,
hey you guys need graphic novels.
They took them out for drinks.
They liquored up the National Book
Festival, and kids don't do this
at home, but this is why
we have what we have.
Anyway, so here's to
beer and bad harmonica.
[ Laughter ]
So, let me tell you
about Gene Luen Yang.
He's amazing.
He started cartooning as well,
I believe about fifth grade.
>> Gene Luen Yang: Yeah.
>> Michael Cavna: You
were reading DC.
You were reading Marvel.
You had your favorites.
Today, he's writing Superman,
so you can do one thing
as a kid and grow up and do it.
Yeah, big hand for Superman.
[ Applause ]
He did web comics.
He, this led to his great
book, American Born Chinese,
which was a National
Book Award finalist.
He did Boxers and Saints, another
National Book Award finalist.
Last year, the library here
named him the Youth Ambassador,
the Ambassador for Young
People's Literature.
So, you've spent a year travelling
to schools and being pelted
with questions, the toughest
crowds, and also last year,
he was named the Macarthur
Genius Grant winner recipient.
[ Applause ]
So, tonight we will have Reuben
and Pulitzer Award winners.
We'll have bestsellers, and we'll
have a bona fide genius with it,
and as part of that, his new book.
He has a series with Mike
Holmes and this is brilliant
because he blends puzzles
with comics,
and it's the Secret Coders series.
So, you know, you should
get this signed by him.
You should buy it any
way you can get it.
Travel to his home with
these books out front,
and maybe you would
sign it, you know.
So, I have some questions.
So, what I want to
know from you Gene,
you've spent the past
year travelling
and you taught for 17 years or so.
>> Gene Luen Yang: I did.
>> Michael Cavna: You
were in schools.
So you had to convince,
first of all,
you're doing comics on the side.
So, as a comics creator, you're
this rock star, were you a rock star
in the classroom to your kids?
>> Gene Luen Yang: No, no.
Not at all.
I started teaching in 1998.
I taught high school
computer science for 17 years,
and I remember the first few years
that I taught, on the very first day
of each of my classes,
I would tell my students
that I was also making
comic books at home.
Because I thought that
that would make them think
that I was cool, and it did not.
Back in the 90s, those
of you who were alive
and who loved comics might
remember this, but back in the 90s,
especially the late 90s,
nobody was reading comics.
People were talking about how
we were about to see the death
of the American comic book industry.
Marvel Comics, I think, declared
bankruptcy around that time.
A lot of comic book
stores were shutting down.
So, the students that were sitting
in my classroom just
didn't read comic books.
I very quickly learned that I could
not use comics to make me cool,
so I had to just keep them separate.
So, for years, the way I lived was
I would teach high school by day,
and I would draw comics at night.
They were totally separate worlds.
>> Michael Cavna: So, at night,
did you put on like a
cape, or did you nerd out?
>> Gene Luen Yang: [Laughing] I
took off my pants, and I sat there
in my underwear and I drew comics.
[ Laughter ]
>> Michael Cavna: Yikes.
We'll save the rest of that
one for the last session.
There's visuals for that.
Speaking of visuals, I want
to make sure to get to this.
I think that's the
first slide, right?
Okay. This is you with
pants on fortunately.
Thank you.
So, one thing I want get
about, you've created a lot
of the characters, but you know,
you have to, they always say,
draw from yourself even if you're
creating a character that's nothing
like yourself, to speak to, it
has to be something about you.
Could you talk a little bit about
what about you, finding your voice
from who you are as a creator?
>> Gene Luen Yang: Yeah.
I mean, I actually, I majored
in computer science in college.
I mean, I like computers, but
also I have a Chinese dad,
so I majored in computer science.
I minored in creative writing,
and I did take this one class
that was super helpful for me.
It was a creative writing
class taught
by a woman named Thaisa Frank,
who is an award-winning author.
She wrote a book called Finding Your
Writer's Voice, a non-fiction book
about how to write fiction.
And that book totally helped me.
I felt like the class itself was
like a physical manifestation
of her ideas in the book,
and I really feel like during
that semester that I was with her,
that's when I actually
found my voice.
And it's exactly what you're
talking about, like every character
that you write, whether
they're hero or villain,
even if on the surface they seem
completely different from you,
you have to find some sort
of common humanity in order
to get it out on the page.
>> Michael Cavna: Absolutely.
Yeah, as I understand it,
your parents said find a
practical career, right?
>> Gene Luen Yang:
Yes, my dad especially.
My mom was a little bit more
understanding, but my dad was.
>> Michael Cavna: Are they
still saying that to you?
>> Gene Luen Yang: Yeah, yeah.
My dad, I mean, it's hard to,
it's just, I can't compete.
Like, I have a younger brother, he
was always better at school than me.
He is now a medical doctor.
He's an ophthalmologist.
He owns his own clinic.
Exactly! Exactly.
>> Michael Cavna: Even here!
>> Gene Luen Yang:
Is my dad out there?
[ Laughter ]
>> Michael Cavna: Even
here you get your brother.
Somewhere he's like, yeah, yeah.
>> Gene Luen Yang: It's also my mom.
My parents, my dad is very
proud, very proud of me,
but like when something's wrong
with his body, he's not going
to call his cartoonist son.
>> Michael Cavna: No, no.
>> Gene Luen Yang: Right?
When his back hurts, he's
going to call the doctor son.
>> Michael Cavna: Yeah, you
can draw how it should look,
but does he have a piece
of paper, your brother,
that literally says genius on it?
>> Gene Luen Yang:
He doesn't need it.
He can help with the back problems.
He doesn't need it.
>> Michael Cavna: Okay,
well I make an appointment
with your brother when
we're done, so.
>> Gene Luen Yang:
You totally should.
>> Michael Cavna: Can
we go to the next slide.
So, you've spent the last year,
you know, have this mission,
you know, Reading Without Walls.
And even within comics there
are walls, but, you know,
you spoke several years ago at
the gala for this very festival
about writing across
cultures and diversity.
And comics have this
power, I have found,
to speak to especially young
people across cultures in a way.
And the power of those images
can speak across cultures.
Could you talk about your mission?
>> Gene Luen Yang: So, at the
beginning of last year, of 2016,
I was appointed by the
Library of Congress
as the fifth National Ambassador
for Young People's Literature.
Which is amazing because
out of all of my job titles,
that is the fanciest
sounding one ever.
But the whole point of the position
is I get to talk about reading.
I get to talk about the importance
of reading, so for the last year
and a half, I've been travelling
around America, around the nation,
talking to different
communities at libraries
and bookstores and
schools about books.
I've gotten to hear about the kind
of books that kids are reading.
I've gotten to talk to aspiring
cartoonists and aspiring writers.
It's been a phenomenal,
phenomenal experience.
So, every National Ambassador
picks some kind of platform,
something they want to focus on.
For me, that platform is reading
without walls, by which I mean,
I want kids, I want
everybody really,
to read outside of
their comfort zone.
I think all of us have a section
at the library, or the section
at a local bookstore that we always
gravitate towards, and it's awesome.
I think it's great that we
each have a home in books.
But I also think that every now
and then you've got to go outside
of your home because that's
how you grow as a human being.
I've been going around,
issuing what's called the
Reading Without Walls challenge.
So, here's how the challenge works.
You pick a due date, and you
can do this either for yourself
or for your community,
and by that due date,
you just do one of three things.
Number one, you read a book
about somebody who doesn't look
like you or live like you.
Somebody who, at least
on the surface,
seems really different from you.
Or two, you pick a
book about a topic
that you might not
know anything about.
Or three, you pick
a book in a format
that you don't normally
read for fun.
So, if normally all you read
for fun are prose books,
I want you to try a graphic novel.
If normally all you read are graphic
novels and comics, then I want you
to try something with
no pictures in it.
>> Michael Cavna: Yeah,
and did you have success?
Did you get the kids to?
>> Gene Luen Yang: It's been
kind of stunning, I have to say.
It's been stunning
to see communities really
embrace this challenge.
I could not have imagined that
things would go the way they did.
My publisher, Macmillan,
really got behind it,
so they created these Reading
Without Walls kits with bookmarks
and with posters and
with reading lists.
And they gave away, I
think they gave away three
or four thousand of them.
In addition, they put
all of that material
on a readingwithoutwalls.com.
>> Michael Cavna: I
was going to say,
is there a website
they can go to get?
>> Gene Luen Yang: Yep.
You can just go to
readingwithoutwalls.com.
They have a goofy video of me,
but they've totally put
a ton of work into that.
You can download all sorts
of like, printable materials.
You can download certificates
of completion.
You can download book
recommendations,
and it's been awesome.
So, on social media, like
on Facebook and on Twitter,
I get all these photos from these
amazing wall displays that teachers
and librarians and bookstore
owners have put together.
>> Michael Cavna: So, you
are legitimately cool now.
>> Gene Luen Yang: No,
I wouldn't go that far.
I can tell you though,
I can tell you though,
I went into Catholic schools,
so they have these
retreats for their students.
And I went to a sophomore
retreat to speak about a year
and a half after I left the school.
And at the end of my speech,
it's a speech that I've done
before for that community.
And at the end of my speech,
they gave me a standing ovation.
And I was like what?
Where was this when I
was an actual teacher.
>> Michael Cavna: That's right.
You had to leave to be appreciated.
>> Gene Luen Yang: I think it's
just impossible to impress teenagers
that you see on a daily basis.
No matter who you are.
>> Michael Cavna: What about
your, you have kids at home,
aren't they impressed
when you come home.
>> Gene Luen Yang: They
are not impressed at all.
Like, I will give them one
of my books as a galley.
I'll give them a book and say
tell me what you think of this.
And then they'll read it and they'll
be like, eh, it was all right dad,
but Raina's so much better than you.
>> Michael Cavna: Raina Telgemeier.
Wow, okay.
Well, I just hope your brother
doesn't start making comics.
>> Gene Luen Yang: Me too.
Me too.
>> Michael Cavna: Can
we go to the next slide,
and maybe the one after that.
And, so talk about,
you know, you read DC.
You're more of a Marvel kid, right?
>> Gene Luen Yang: I was.
>> Michael Cavna: But now Superman,
and you're doing this amazing thing
where you have a Superman
of Asian descent, right?
>> Gene Luen Yang: Yeah.
>> Michael Cavna: Can you talk
about getting to this dream?
Living this dream?
>> Gene Luen Yang: I started
collecting superhero comics
when I was in fifth grade.
The very first comic
in my collection was
actually a Superman comic.
It was a DC Comics
Presents, so to actually get
to write Superman now
has just, it's been nuts.
The fifth grader in me is
just freaking out every day.
It's been crazy.
I was a Marvel kid though, growing
up, and I became a Marvel kid
because I just thought back
then DC was kind of dumb.
I apologize if you're
like an 80s DC fan,
but I learned that there's
this character named Aqualad
in the DC Universe.
And I was just like, that's so
dumb, it's such a dumb name.
>> Michael Cavna: So, if
they offered you Aqualad?
>> Gene Luen Yang: Well, now I
think Aqualad is kind of cool,
because of the Young Justice show.
I think they made him cool,
which is an impossible task.
It just shows how far DC has
come, that they made Aquaman cool.
>> Michael Cavna: But,
as we know with Marvel,
they had flawed characters.
We know Spider Man and all
that, you saw flaws, and so,
when you're a kid,
if ever, you know,
they talk about Superman being
just the big blue boy scout.
He seems too perfect,
and Batman's pretty dark.
But like, there's some Marvel
you could relate to that.
>> Gene Luen Yang: Yeah, I
think that was part of it too.
I have since become a
huge DC fan of course.
Not just because they give
me paychecks, but also,
I think there's something very
classic and iconic about DC
that even Marvel, as great as that
universe is, doesn't approach.
I kind of think of,
like, the relationship
between the Catholic Church
and the Protestant Churches,
it's kind of the relationship
between Marvel and DC, right.
DC being the Catholic Church.
Like, DC established the
genre, Marvel cannot be Marvel
if DC had not originally
put out this idea
that Superman ought
to be perfect, right?
>> Michael Cavna: Wow, okay.
>> Gene Luen Yang: That's my theory.
>> Michael Cavna: I want to know how
DC and Marvel [inaudible] right now.
It could be a mess, but [inaudible].
>> Gene Luen Yang: So, this
is a page from New Superman,
which is my current
project for DC Comics.
It's a monthly series, issue
number 15 just came out,
and this was not my idea.
I did a ten-issue run on the main
Superman title, and then after that,
they called me up and they're like,
they actually said this, they go,
okay, don't get mad about
this, but we just want
to find out what you think.
What do you think if we have
a Chinese Superman character?
And I was like, that
sounds terrible.
I don't want anything
to do with that.
That sounds like a horrible idea,
and part of the reason why I was
so allergic to the idea was
they wanted it set in China.
And I'm of Chinese descent,
my mom was born in China,
but I have no experience
living in China.
You know, I'd be writing as an
outsider, and I just felt like,
because of my last name,
people would expect
that I was an insider, but I wasn't.
I didn't feel like
I could pull it off.
I had these meetings at the
DC Comics Burbank offices,
which are amazing by the way.
They have like, in front of the
offices, there are giant windows
with DC characters on them.
So like, Jim Lee is the co-publisher
there, he has Batman and Robin.
You actually walk into Batman
and Robin in a [inaudible].
Amazing. So I had these meetings
with them, and at the end,
this character, Kenan Kong
ended up like talking to me.
And anytime that happens, if
you're a writer, you know this.
When you have a character
talking in your head,
you've got to just do the project.
So I ended up doing the project.
>> Michael Cavna: But that's
because the DC editors
actually piped in his voice.
>> Gene Luen Yang:
Yeah, that might be it.
That might be it.
That might be it.
But it's been a ton of fun.
I felt like, they said they
gave me like a little corner
of the DC Universe to plan.
>> Michael Cavna: And that is great.
Well, that's the key too.
I've talked to a lot of creators
about, a jumping off point is
when your characters
start speaking to you.
So, you felt like you
got to that point
where your Superman
is speaking to you.
>> Gene Luen Yang: I
got to that point, yeah.
>> Michael Cavna: Was Superman
respectful in how he talked to you?
>> Gene Luen Yang: No.
No.
>> Michael Cavna: Did he
sort of slap you around?
>> Gene Luen Yang: He was a jerk.
Yeah, he was a jerk.
He was a jerk, and that
shows up in the book.
He's a complete jerk.
We wanted him the opposite of
what Clark Kent is today, right.
So, Clark Kent right now,
he is the moral compass,
but he didn't start off that way.
If you read early Superman
comics from the late 1930s,
he actually kind of started
off as a jerk as well.
He used to be very full of himself.
He would laugh at people
who couldn't figure out
his secret identity.
He would love to like beat somebody
up and then like sermonize at them.
That was like his favorite
thing, and then eventually, he,
throughout the decades, he's gone
through this huge character
arc that's taken, you know,
through the 40s and 50s and 60s,
to become the character
that we know today.
To become this moral paragon.
So, I wanted Kenan
Kong's character to,
his arc, to reflect that as well.
>> Michael Cavna: Well, let's
run through these images
to make sure we get through them.
So, there he is, and I think I'm
going in the wrong direction.
>> Gene Luen Yang: Yeah, so that
was Chinese Batman and Wonder Woman.
I asked if I could introduce
a Chinese Justice League,
and then they were like, sure.
And then I asked if I could make
Chinese Batman a chubby Asian,
and they're like, I guess.
[ Laughter ]
I wanted to do that.
I wanted to do that because I
feel like there are not a lot
of chubby Asians in American
media, you know what I mean?
There's like the kid from
Up and that's about it.
And they're always comedic.
They're like played for
laughs, but if you look at like,
old school Kung Fu movies, there's
always like this, there's often,
not always, there's often
like this chubby Chinese dude
who everybody writes off.
And then he just whoops you.
That's what I wanted
Chinese Batman to be like.
>> Michael Cavna: You
wanted that style?
>> Gene Luen Yang: Yeah.
>> Michael Cavna: Okay, so Secret
Coders, you know, here you worked
in the industry for two years.
You taught, but now you're tricking
even kids who might not otherwise be
into computer puzzles, you're
teaching them coding in a way.
>> Gene Luen Yang: That's the hope.
That's the hope.
So this is my first
explicitly educational comic.
I took a lot of what I was doing
as a computer science teacher
on my white board, and I
stuck it into a graphic novel.
So, I'm hoping to teach
kids in like fourth, fifth,
sixth grade the basics of computer
science through a graphic novel
that I'm doing with a
fabulously talented cartoonist
by the name of Mike Holmes.
So, Mike and I originally decided
to do three of these books,
but the first one's done well
enough that we're now doing six.
>> Michael Cavna: Wow,
congratulations.
So, also, so you taught and you
decided to do a non-fiction book,
and you decided at your school,
you would follow the basketball
team for a season, right?
And at Bishop O'Dowd
in the Bay Area,
and track that, and now I think.
Have you been blowing deadlines
since you've been travelling
the country?
>> Gene Luen Yang: I've
been blowing deadlines.
I'm so behind on this project,
but these are some of the sketches
that I did for this project.
At that school where I taught,
it was Bishop O'Dowd High
School in Oakland, California.
Right at the end of
2013, beginning of 2014,
I had just finished a big project.
I finished a graphic novel
called Boxers and Saints,
which up to that point
was my longest project.
It's about the Boxer Rebellion, a
war that was fought on Chinese soil
in the year 1900, and I felt
kind of lost afterwards.
I didn't feel like, I didn't
know what story to pursue next.
I started getting interested in
basketball for a variety of reasons,
including my son joining
his basketball team
at his elementary school.
And including Jeremy
Lynn, and then I got
to know the basketball
coach at this school.
This coach's name is Lou Ritchie,
he is very different from me,
so writers and cartoonists, we are
famous for having low self-esteem.
This dude does not have
low self-esteem, right.
He's like a, at least on the
surface, he's a stereotypical jock
and I was a nerd, but as I sat
down and I started talking to him
about basketball, this
really amazing story emerged.
And I followed his team for
a season, and at the end,
I was like I need to do
a book about these guys.
>> Michael Cavna: And you said
it was a very diverse squad,
but you said.
>> Gene Luen Yang: Well, it's
diverse in a certain way.
>> Michael Cavna: And
but the team also,
some of the players
encounter prejudice
and so you have all of that.
>> Gene Luen Yang: Yeah, I mean I've
always been interested in culture.
I've always been interested
in identity,
and all of that played
into this team.
So, the school itself
is pretty diverse.
There's no one group that has
over 50 percent of the population,
but it's still like the largest
ethnic group is still folks
of European descent.
Students of European descent.
The squad that I followed was
almost all African-American.
There were only three
players on that team
that were not African-American.
There was a white kid,
and there are two Asians.
One who was Sikh.
He was the only Sikh
on the court, ever.
Like, all the time.
His whole life, he was
always the only Sikh kid.
And I sat in the crowd
watching them play.
When I sat in the crowd watching
them play, I was shocked at the kind
of stuff both students and
adults would say to the Sikh kid.
You know, would yell
at the Sikh kid.
It was just, it was
crazy, it was crazy to me.
And so, I do talk about that.
He's one of the players
that I focus on.
>> Michael Cavna: Wow.
We have time for, I think,
one question for Gene before we
bring a couple more cartoonists out.
Is there someone who'd like to step
to the microphone and
ask a question?
I see a girl walking very
purposefully right here.
I love it.
Hello. What would you
like to ask Gene?
>> Gene Luen Yang:
I met you earlier.
Cadence. Did I get it right?
>> Michael Cavna: Wow.
>> Gene Luen Yang: That
doesn't always happen.
My brain usually is
terrible at that.
>> Michael Cavna: Nicely done.
>> Gene Luen Yang: Thanks
for coming, Cadence.
>> Michael Cavna: Can someone
help her with the microphone?
>> If you could have any
super power, what would it be?
>> Gene Luen Yang: If I could have
any super power, what would it be?
>> Michael Cavna: Yeah.
>> Gene Luen Yang: I would want
to be able to multiply time,
because if I did that, I
could hit my deadlines.
[ Laughter ]
>> Michael Cavna: Nice.
>> Gene Luen Yang: Thank you.
>> Michael Cavna: Nice.
Thank you, Cadence.
We have time for one more.
>> Do you think that Bruce
Lee would argue with you
that he was the first
Asian Superman?
>> Gene Luen Yang: Yeah, Bruce Lee?
He would have a great argument
for being the Asian Superman.
I think it's hard to
underestimate the effect
that Bruce Lee has had on,
not just Asian America,
but America in general.
>> Michael Cavna: I think
he'd have a forceful argument.
>> Gene Luen Yang: Yes, he would.
He would have a very
forceful argument.
>> Michael Cavna: Okay.
>> This has been a presentation
of the Library of Congress.
Visit us at loc.gov.