How to use this Page

Graphic novelist Gene Luen Yang has been appointed the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature by The Library of Congress, the Children’s Book Council (CBC) and Every Child a Reader (ECAR).

In his two-year role, Yang will travel around the country promoting “Reading without Walls,” a program designed to encourage kids and teens to make reading a central part of their lives. He will also be speaking to parents, teachers, librarians to help give advice on how to foster a life long love of reading among kids.

The inaugural ceremony is on Thursday, Jan. 7 at 11 a.m. in room LJ-119 of the Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson Building, 10 First St. S.E., Washington D.C. The event is free and open to the public.

“I’m thrilled and humbled to be appointed National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. Reading breaks down the walls that divide us. By reading, we get to know people outside of our own communities,” stated Yang. “We gain knowledge others don’t expect us to have. We discover new and surprising passions. Reading is critical to our growth, both as individuals and as a society. The Library of Congress, Children’s Book Council and Every Child a Reader all empower people by getting them to read. I’m honored to take up that mission myself and to carry on the amazing work of the ambassadors before me.”

By Victor Van Scoit

A great comic book let’s your brain relax and enjoy as you take in each page of the story. You’re not trying to figure out which panel to read next, or be taken out of the story unexpectedly. Instead the creator has made choices in storytelling that take you smoothly through the story and subconsciously informing your mind with all the metaphors, themes, and subtext required. First Second’s What’s in a Page panel aimed to give the audience some insight into those choices from four of their creators: Asuf Hanuka (The Divine) Aron Nels Steinke (The Zoo Box), Scott McCloud (The Sculptor), Gene Luen Yang (The Shadow Hero).

The panel limited each of the creators to just one page from their graphic novels to walk the audience through. Calista Brill of First Second moderated the panel and asked each of the authors for additional insight.

It was mentioned to Steinke that when constructing a page of comics for a western audience it’s expected they will read from left to right and from top to bottom, as is true with text. Being a teacher was that something he thought about when putting together comics for kids and using ways of reinforcing easy reading?

Aron Nel Steinke – Panel from The Zoo Box

Aron Nels Steinke: “I definitely think about that. Most of my students I’ve worked from 1st-3rd grade. It’s very rare when a student doesn’t understand how to go left to right. But there are times where they do but they kind of get it after a while. If you make it so there really only is one way, then they’ll understand that really this is the next sequence.”

Hanuka had chosen a very vivid page and it was noted how the lead character is handsome, and nice and symmetrical. You’re not afraid to get really grotesque. What drove that choice?

Asuf Hanuka – Sample Panel from The Divine

Asuf Hanuka: “It’s really hard to do something beautiful without showing something ugly. I guess it’s just a way of creating contrast. We did have red lines for stuff we didn’t want to do.”

The notion of a red line, or line the creators wouldn’t cross, was a bit humorous considering the amount of violence in in the book where people have brains and spines ripped from their bodies. So it was surprising to hear there were lines the creators wouldn’t cross. The crowd laughed at McCloud’s quip regarding how that violence was portrayed.

Scott McCloud: “But tastefully”

For McCloud’s page he kind of cheated having chosen a two-page spread. This spread in particular from The Sculptor was chosen to show how he was experimenting with auditory experience of the main character.

Scott McCloud – Presenting Panel from The Sculptor

Scott McCloud: “The reason I like this spread is because it was an opportunity when I’m doing everything visually to see if I could do something auditory. Where it’s all about somebody trying to find a real person in a crowd. And so I just have voices, and voices, and voices and this is what Times Square is. I wanted you to have a sense of what it is to be like inside of his head.”

Gene began with two pages from separate the separate books of his two volume series Boxers & Saints. He joked that he immediately regretted the choice as they’re probably not comics in the McCloud definition. He picked them so he could talk about the duality of the two scenes based on the themes in the graphic novels

Gene Yang – Panel from Boxers and Saints

Gene Yang: “The reason I did two volumes [Boxers and Saints] was because I couldn’t decide who I sided with. I couldn’t decide who the protagonists are. So the protagonists in one book are the antagonists in the other. So that’s what these two panels are all about. I just wanted to visually represent that resonance between the two cultures.”

After having gone through each creators selected pages the floor was opened up to questions. The first one allowed for some interesting insight from the creators. It was asked “What informs your choices when choosing the panel layout and which panels or pages will be contained vs a full bleed?”

Yang’s response came from a narrative point of reference—

Gene Yang: “I actually had a debate in my head about whether or not to make these [the two pages selected] bleed. I think visually it would’ve been more striking. But narratively each of the larger images represents something that is happening in the heads of the characters that are at the bottom. So by containing it in something kind of a panel it’s sort of a visual representation of that.”

while Steinke’s was born from humorous practicality.

Aron Nels Steinkie: “First my answer involves the laziness on my part. When you do a bleed you’re drawing art work that won’t actually get printed. It’ll get printed and it’ll get chopped, by the chopper. Because it bleeds and goes off to the edge of the page. One of my favorite cartoonists is the cartoonist Joe Socko and he does a lot of bleeds. And I think about all the inches of artwork that we don’t get to see because it’s been chopped from the paper cutter. That’s one reason and another is I try to use it for emotional impact. So whenever I do go to the effort to make that extra effort it’s got to be for a reason.”

Hanuka’s response was more rooted in the experience of comics and it’s physical medium—

Asuf Hanuka: “I think it’s a question of taste. For me I prefer to never go to a bleed because I believe the magic of the comics language is that you’re seeing a universe through a window. And so you need the window. And if it goes all the way to the end of the page, then you’ve seen the end of the page—and it’s paper and something about the illusion disappears. But I think that in some cases you can do it. But for me it has to be really—like—if the Earth explodes. Yeah, let’s go to the edge. Save it for the important moments.”

and as to be expected McCloud’s response blended metaphor, theory, and art.

Scott McCloud: “I do use bleeds a lot. I think the most important thing for me about bleeds is that they are well named. It’s a really good name—bleed. If you think of any panel as a kind of container it’s like an organ that contains fluids. And it contains time. If you have three panels in a row—boom, boom, boom—then it has this nice staccato rhythm. It’s telling you “Here’s an instant. Here’s an instant. Here’s an instant.” Or maybe a span of time. But it’s a container. It contains your sense of the duration of the panel. That this thing is—holding, time, in— and so it has a nice feeling of containment. When you lose that edge something happens in our perception”…

“What happens when you have a panel bleed is it really almost literally bleeds time. As it goes to the edge of the page there’s a sense the duration just flows outward. If you have a bleed at the beginning of a spread for example, that instant will seem to become a lingering moment. It has an echo. It has a reverberation. And it tends to bleed throughout that spread. You can sort of feel it sinking in. That’s why they’re so good for establishing shots. You have a nice bleeding establishing shot and then that sense of place in that one little box becomes a sense of place for the whole spread. If the whole scene takes place in that place, then you have that sense of place throughout. It escapes time. Time—bleeds—out. It’s well named.”

Another audience question brought up how audiences are also reading digitally now, and how that’s increasing with, “I’m curious about what kind of impact digital is having as far as laying out the page?” At this McCloud had to leave so he could make it to the other side of the convention center to participate in another panel. It was another humorous moment for the audience considering McCloud’s many thoughts on the topic, hence his own jab at himself leaving on the digital topic.

Scott McCloud: “And also, I’ll never stop talking.”

The rest of the panel seemed to still be working that question out for themselves as they work, realizing it’s two worlds still very much sharing space from a creative endeavor.

Asuf Hanuka: “Personally I don’t read any digital comics. I only read on paper. But everything I do and create is digital. It’s on computer. Even the penciling—it’s called penciling, but it’s really a Cintiq pen on a screen. The thing I like about digital is that I know the color will look exactly like it looked on the screen. And the printing quality will be always [sic] perfect for everyone and that’s amazing. But I don’t have any specific changes that I will make in the layout design, or the storytelling, or the drawing style because it’s going to be on the screen and not on paper. For me it’s the same thing.”

Aron Nels Steinke: “My published work I’m generally thinking about turning a page in a book. That’s how I enjoy reading comics the most.” …

“I would like to see digital versions of my books or any other books done panel by panel. I really like the way my friend Zac Soto—who has a group called Study Group—a lot of times when they put their work online it’s an infinite canvas going vertically. Because that’s how you’re scrolling if it’s online.”

At this the moderator mentioned “Design for devices and print should be designed for that medium. But usually not both.”

Gene Yang: “When I am writing my own comics, and making my own comics, I almost always am just thinking about the print version. Mostly because like Aron—I love that page turn. I can’t imagine doing without it. It seems to me that most comics, even if they’re presented digitally, are still formatted for print. There’s still the concept of the page which is purely a print thing.”

In finishing his thought Yang helped the moderator sign off the panel on another laugh.

Gene Yang: I know Scott—it’s too bad he left!

Moderator: If he had stayed this would be a whole other panel.

The Los Angeles Times Book Prizes were handed out last night and the winner in the graphic novel division was Ulli Lust’s Today is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life, published in the US by Fantagraphics.

Gene Yang’s Boxers and Saints won in the YA Literature category—a strong win for a GN in a traditionally prose only category. Yang’s work—he’s also a two time National Book Award nominee—continues to help define the new role for graphic novels as literature.

JK Rowling won in the Mystery category for The Cuckoo’s Calling which she wrote under a pen-name to avoid being ghettoized in Potter’s field.

The other nominees in the graphic novel category were • David B., “Incidents in the Night: Volume 1,” Uncivilized Books
• Ben Katchor, “Hand-Drying in America: And Other Stories,” Pantheon
• Ulli Lust, “Today is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life,” Fantagraphics
• Anders Nilsen, “The End,” Fantagraphics
• Joe Sacco, “The Great War: July 1, 1916: The First Day of the Battle of the Somme,” W. W. Norton & Co.

I would have been pleased with any of the winners, but Lust’s book was one of my favorites of the year and is truly a novel with a dense examination of youthful ignorance, gender roles, the limits of friendship and early punk culture viewed through an impromptu trip to Italy by two Austrian girls without money. If you haven’t read it, do so!

The complete list of winners.

Biography: “Bolivar: American Liberator” by Marie Arana
Current Interest: “Five Days at Memorial” by Sheri Fink
Fiction: “A Tale for the Time Being” by Ruth Ozeki
Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction: “We Need New Names” by NoViolet Bulawayo
Graphic Novel/Comics: “Today is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life” by Ulli Lust
History: “The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914” by Christopher Clark
Mystery/Thriller: “The Cuckoo’s Calling” by J.K. Rowling writing as Robert Galbraith
Poetry: “Collected Poems” by Ron Padgett
Science and Technology: “Countdown: Our Last, Best Hope for a Future on Earth?” by Alan Weisman
Young Adult Literature: “Boxers & Saints” by Gene Luen Yang

Took me a couple minutes to get into this one, but once I remembered the premise it helped.  This is basically The Wizard of Oz redone with pop songs.  A lot of which, sad to say, I have never heard of.  Fortunately I could at least recognize the weird genius of the line, “You’re just a lion on the cold hard ground” from Taylor Swift’s “Trouble”.  I’m not completely out of it.  Plus you should check out The Wizard himself.  A more badass Wiz I’ve yet to see.

Thanks to Marci for the link.

Next up, I’m just a tiny bit mad that there was a trailer for Boxers & Saints out there that was THIS GOOD and yet it took me roughly six months to discover it on my own.  Your required watching of the day:

Tweet

Over at his blog, Sonny Liew’s been posting some lettered pages from his as yet untitled upcoming book with Gene Yang for First Second, and it looks pretty great, particularly that 50′s inspired pulpy cover. As a fan of Liew’s work, I’ve been keeping up with this project for a while, (although aware of Yang  -as the author of American Born Chinese and Level Up- I’ve yet to get round to reading any of his books), so I knew it was a retro superhero book, but that’ s about it. Here’s an exclusive, and intriguing, little synopsis from Liew:

‘It’s basically a origins story of a character created back in the 40s – his distinction being that he was meant to be Asian American. Gene has been exploring identity issues with his comics, of course, so this is another angle.

One of the interesting things about the comic was that the artist and creator (Chu Hing) has to go out of his way never to show his face in the comic – which apparently was due to his publishers or editors not wanting to reveal too  clearly that he was, in fact, Asian! We did try to incorporate those elements into the book.’

Chu Hing is credited for working on 29 issues in the 40′s and 50′s, 4 of which were on a title called Blazing Comics (the book Liew’s homaged in the cover above). These books featured the character Yang and Liew are reviving: Green Turtle- ‘the first Asian superhero’, a ‘mysterious individual who almost never let anyone see his face (the reader included). Armed only with his wits, combats skills, a remarkable light aircraft (the Turtle Plane,) and a mystic jade dagger, he and Burma Boy, a youngster he saved from the Japanese, flew across Asia battling the Imperial Japanese Army. While having no obvious powers granted by his jade dagger, he did seem to cast a shadow that had a bright pair of eyes and face.’ (via Comic Vine)

No projected release date for this yet, but another title to add to your list of ‘books to keep an eye on.’

I feel bit of a Johnny-Come-Lately introducing this wonderful young adult graphic novel called American Born Chinese by Gene Yang.   PaperTigers has already done a lot with this ground-breaking Asian American graphic novel; for example, you can see Yang’s work featured in the PT gallery.  But the book really only came to my attention through this blog called An Introduction to Comics by Paul Moffett.

When my son was younger, he sometimes requested a comic book for me to read to him at bedtime.   He developed an appetite for the form quite early.  Now, he reads to himself at night and he prefers graphic novels or comics.  I picked up American Born Chinese, more or less, hoping that he would read it on my recommendation.  But then, I got hooked!  And then my husband got hooked, too.   What I found compelling about Yang’s novel was its incorporation and intertwining of the Judeo-Christian story with the mythical one of the Monkey King.  While the Monkey King struggles with his identity as a monkey, so too, does the boy Jin Wang struggle with his identity as Chinese American.  Although at first these stories seem unconnected, they join up at the end in an unusually satisfying way.  Monkey King’s advice to Jin Wang?  — “You know, Jin, I would have saved myself from five hundred years’ imprisonment beneath a mountain of rock had I only realized how good it is to be a monkey.”

May is Asian Heritage Month or Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, and if there’s ONE book you might consider reading for it, I would recommend American Born Chinese.  It’s destined to become an Asian American classic.  Soon after my husband and I were finished with the book, I saw my son casually pick it up, peruse its pages, and carry it off to his bedroom for his own night-time reading.

Well, we’ve finally started this year’s Reading the World Challenge in our household!

As our together-read, we’re “doing” Europe at the moment. We’re about half way through Dickens’ Oliver Twist, which I’m really enjoying, since it’s a good few years since I read it, and the boys are revelling in. I suggested it because I was getting a bit fed up with continued allusions to Oliver via the musical Oliver! and felt (poor kids, purist that I am!) that they needed to get back to grass roots here… I did wonder if we were biting off a bit more than we could chew but in fact they are completely caught up by the narrative and Dickens would be happy with his effect on their social consiousness/consciences! It’s definitely proving to be one of those books that they wouldn’t read on their own but that, with frequent, unobtrusive asides to gloss the meanings of words, they are more than able to enjoy having read to them. It’s just very long and now that term-time is back in full swing, it’s hard getting the sustained reading time all together that we would like.

We have also read The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne (David Fickling Books, 2006). This is an extraordinarily powerful book about a nine-year-old German boy, Bruno, who becomes an unwitting witness of the Holocaust when his father becomes the Commandant of “Outwith” concentration camp (as Bruno mistakenly calls it), and who makes friends with a Jewish boy, Shmuel, on the other side of the perimeter fence. If you have read this breath-taking, punch-in-the-stomach book, do take a look at the discussion that Janet got underway here on PaperTigers on the Tigers Bookshelf. Although it says on the back cover that despite being a book about nine-year-olds, “this is not a book for nine-year-olds”, and I therefore, again, had some reservations of reading it with the boys, I was glad we did. Because we were reading it together (and not at bedtime – this is definitely not a book to read just before you go to sleep), we couldn’t read it in one sitting as has been recommended – but we all mulled over it deeply and all brought our own ages to it. I know that Little Brother’s nine-year-old perspective was very different to mine (as, indeed was Older Brother’s), but it was still valid; and I hope they will both read it again independently when they are older.

Little Brother’s own read was also focused on Europe with Starry Messenger: Galileo Galilei by Peter Sís – this is what he says about it:

I liked The Starry Messenger because you could always recognise Galileo in the pictures because there were always stars near him. Sometimes he was wearing them and sometimes he was drawing them in the sand. It was hard to rea

0 Comments on Reading the World Challenge – Update #2 as of 1/1/1900

Add a Comment