The first annual Asian American Comicon will be held on Saturday July 11 at the Museum of Chinese in America in New York City. Organized by Jeff Yang, editor of the New Press’s anthology of Asian-American superhero stories, Secret Identities, as well as some of the book’s contributors, the AACC is intended to “recognize and celebrate what Asians are doing in comics, [Asians] who straddle both worlds of superhero and alt-indy as well as OEL [manga],” according to Yang.
Kuo-Yu Liang, v-p, sales and marketing at Diamond Book Distributors, a corporate sponsor of the convention, told PWCW in an interview that, “Asian Americans produce some of the most popular comics in the world in both English and Japanese. This seems a good opportunity to highlight this phenomenon and encourage more Asian Americans to get into the comics business and more people to read them.” Diamond, said Lang, is “donating books and offering free shipping for sales during the show to benefit the museum.”
Yang explained that discussions about starting the AACC can be traced to an early Secret Identity panel, when Greg Pak, a writer for Incredible Hulk and other Marvel comics, suggested that Asian Americans had never had a chance before to talk together about their place in comics. Using the connections forged through Secret Identities, the books contributors started organizing the convention a little over a month ago. The Museum of Chinese in America had recently reopened in a new space in lower Manhattan, and were looking for programming to slot into their fall season, so when Yang and the other organizers approached MOCA about hosting the AACC, they “loved the idea,” said Yang.
Yang said that convention started as “something more of a meet and greet amongst creators,” before evolving from “a convention, to a conference, to a conversation.” Along with Asian Americans involved in comics, he said the AACC will feature “literary authors, academics, historians, sociologists, and TV creators, who will speak next to comic creators about where things intersect and [attempt to] bring in the community at large.” Confirmed guests include Larry Hama, a writer of GI Joe; Derek Kirk Kim, the Eisner Award winning cartoonist and co-creator of Eternal Smile with Gene Yang, author of American Born Chinese; Christine Norrie, the artist of Breaking Up; and William Woo, a sci-fi writer who recently donated his personal collection of works displaying Asians to the New York University Library. There will also be an artists’ alley at the event, which Yang said will “include emerging artists, creators still making their mark and some in the establishment.” He explained they are “doing [their] best to get as many people in the space as possible.”
The one-day event will feature three separate tracks of programming examining “comics and how they connect to the community.” The first track, entitled Reading Comics, will explore such topics as “how Asians are depicted in comics, how east meets west, and how manga influences the United States and United States influences manga,” explained Yang. One panel in this track will examine new images of villains in comics in relation to current events, such as tensions with North Korea. He said the panel will take a look at how “pop culture gravitates towards current events, the politics of caricature and how images turn into the stereotypes of today.”
The second track, Making Comics, is being organized by Greg Pak and will focus on the industry and craft of comics. In this track one can “get the artists’ standpoint, the writers’ standpoint, what jobs are available, and the expansion of the industry,” Yang said. He also pointed to a “class about how you depict multiculturalism in a sensitive fashion in visual storytelling that goes beyond the straight white male and female, how to depict super-people in new and challenging ways.” The third track is composed of Spotlight Sessions, which, Yang explained, will be “one on one conversations between comics creators with people outside comics.” He cited a Spotlight Session in which Derek Kirk Kim will either be paired with a literary author or a TV creator. Yang said these sessions offer an opportunity for Asian American comics artists, professionals and fans to be specifically included in the discussion around comics issues. “The Asian American community will just come up in conversation, since the people [involved] are Asian American and it’s part of their experience,” he explained.
In addition to Diamond, sponsors include, among others, Stonebridge Press, AdHouse Books, Midtown Comics, Bank of America Asian Leadership Network and the Asian American Writers Workshop. While Yang expects the inaugural AACC to be “intimate and casual,” he acknowledged that he is “not 100% certain what will happen, it might go way beyond capabilities, could be a couple hundred [people] or we may end up turning people away.” Yang expects the show to be a continuing event, asserting, that the organizers “wouldn’t have done it if it was not expected to be annual. I expect next year to be bigger and better planned.” Although Yang doesn’t “expect more than tacit support form publishers right now, by proving there’s an audience and creative pull, next year we’ll do bigger things.” He claimed the AACC will “evolve from an awesome fun spontaneous event to something that will shape the dialogue of what comics mean.”
