Deprecated: Methods with the same name as their class will not be constructors in a future version of PHP; CBlacklist has a deprecated constructor in /home/geneyang/www/www/blog/scripts/sb_blacklist.php on line 6

Deprecated: Methods with the same name as their class will not be constructors in a future version of PHP; CBannedWords has a deprecated constructor in /home/geneyang/www/www/blog/scripts/sb_blacklist.php on line 34

Warning: ini_set(): Headers already sent. You cannot change the session module's ini settings at this time in /home/geneyang/www/www/blog/scripts/sb_login.php on line 15

Warning: session_set_cookie_params(): Cannot change session cookie parameters when headers already sent in /home/geneyang/www/www/blog/scripts/sb_login.php on line 18

Warning: session_start(): Cannot start session when headers already sent in /home/geneyang/www/www/blog/scripts/sb_login.php on line 26

Warning: session_start(): Cannot start session when headers already sent in /home/geneyang/www/www/blog/index.php on line 13

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /home/geneyang/www/www/blog/scripts/sb_forms.php on line 19

Warning: strpos(): needle is not a string or an integer in /home/geneyang/www/www/blog/index.php on line 41

Warning: strpos(): needle is not a string or an integer in /home/geneyang/www/www/blog/index.php on line 48

Warning: strpos(): needle is not a string or an integer in /home/geneyang/www/www/blog/index.php on line 55

Warning: strpos(): needle is not a string or an integer in /home/geneyang/www/www/blog/index.php on line 61
The Blog of Gene Luen Yang - Interview at The Millions
Interview at The Millions 
During my trip to Minneapolis, book reporter Paul Morton came to speak with me about comics, religion, and growing up. The Millions just put up our interview here.



[ view entry ] ( 2921 views )   |  [ 0 trackbacks ]   |  permalink
The Last Airbender Opens At Midnight 
Given the avalanche of horrifically bad reviews this movie has already been getting, arguing against its use of yellowface feels a bit like trying to beat a bag of hair at Scrabble. Most people are going to boycott it because of its suckitude rather than its racebending.

I do want to make one point, though. Director M. Night Shyamalan claims that The Last Airbender is "the most diverse tentpole movie ever." Pleeease. Having your Caucasian-playing-Inuit protagonists deliver exposition against a background of actual Inuits does not make your movie diverse. It makes your movie a modern-day equivalent of Charlie Chan.

I have to say, if The Last Airbender weren't the modern-day equivalent of Charlie Chan, I would've gone to see it despite the reviews, if only in the hopes that the sequels would be greenlit. As things stand now, the only hopes I have are for its carcass to serve as a warning against racebending in future American films. After all, nothing says blockbuster like accusations of racism.

All right. In the words of that great philosopher Stan Lee: 'Nuff said!



[ view entry ] ( 9001 views )   |  [ 0 trackbacks ]   |  permalink
Gordon Yamamoto Animated! 
Some web animator friends of mine down in L.A. put together this little clip, based on a scene in Gordon Yamamoto and the King of the Geeks (currently available as part of Animal Crackers):



Their rendition of Gordon is clearly better than mine. Thanks, Squadron B!

They also have a bunch of clips based on the comics of Kate Beaton, who is Wittiness Embodied.

[ view entry ] ( 8048 views )   |  [ 0 trackbacks ]   |  permalink
Prime Baby Beginnings 
In the interview I did with Tom Spurgeon over at ComicsReporter.com, I mentioned three inspirations for Prime Baby:

1. The sibling rivalry I witnessed at home after my second kid was born.
2. A prime numbers project I assign to my students, and their inevitable questions about its relevance to real life.
3. A free-write exercise I did several years ago.

For those of you interested in reading the original free-write exercise (okay, my mom), here it is:


PRIME BABY

“Ga ga ga ga ga ga ga ga,” the baby said with an unmistakable seriousness.

His father looked at him for a moment and scraped at the banana with a baby spoon. The father just wasn’t quite sure what to do. Babies were supposed to babble. Everyone knew that. But this baby - his baby - babbled in an extremely peculiar way. The syllables he spoke were nonsensical, but they were spoken in a mathematical pattern.

A vague, unsettling feeling had come across the father ever since his baby switched from squealing to syllables over two months ago. He’d only been able to identify its cause last week.

The baby’s syllables always came in a series, and the number of syllables in each series was always a prime number. Every morning just after six, the baby would awaken with a single “Ga.” Ten minutes later, he would continue, “Ga ga.” By the time he went down for his midmorning nap, he’d gotten to nineteen “ga”s; By dinner he was at forty-one.

The father had yet to say a word to his wife about this. She’d shown so much improvement in the last few weeks, he didn’t want to do anything to jinx it. When she woke up from the caesarian nine months ago she began to cry, and she didn’t stop for almost a full month. But even when the tears had dried, her frown remained, like a stubborn crease on an otherwise pretty face. Slowly the frown relented until now, when you could only see a hint of it if she stood under the hallway light just so.

“Ga ga ga ga ga ga ga ga ga,” the baby said. He reached for the banana in his father’s hand.

Suddenly, his father had an idea. He began to feed his baby in a pattern, organizing spoonfuls into series. First, just a single spoonful of banana. Then two. Then three. Then five. Then seven.

The baby looked up at his father as he ate. This was unusual. Normally, he looked at the banana. Eleven spoonfuls. Thirteen. Seventeen. Nineteen. The baby couldn’t swallow quickly enough to keep up, but he didn’t cry or complain. He opened his mouth at each spoonful, regardless of how full his mouth already was.

At thirty-seven, the father ran out of banana. He pulled out a small jar of mashed carrots, which lasted until 113. A small mountain of banana, mashed carrots, and drool had formed in the baby’s lap. The baby put his hands into it and squished it between his fingers.

The father went to the pantry and found an old box of Cheerios in the very back of the second shelf. He turned back towards his baby and felt his legs give way beneath him for a moment.

In the baby’s lap sat a small sculpture of what looked to be an ancient South American temple, made entirely of banana, mashed carrots, and drool. The yellow of the banana and the orange of the carrots formed intricate murals across the surface, telling of gods and goddesses long forgotten. The drool held it all together and gave the thing an eerie, otherworldly shine.

The baby smiled and clapped his hands. Bits of yellow and orange flew into the air. “Ga ga ga ga!” he said.

Four, the father counted. Four ga’s. Four, divisible by two.


If you read the story closely (i.e. you're my mom), you'll notice that there's a major mistake. It is generally agreed that one is not a prime number. Why, you ask? Because.

In the comic Prime Baby, I corrected this. Whenever prime numbers are mentioned, I always start with two. (Don't want to lose my geek card over something so silly.)



[ view entry ] ( 3742 views )   |  [ 0 trackbacks ]   |  permalink
Prince of Persia 
I gotta be honest. I probably wouldn't have gone to see this one in the theaters anyway. I loved the original video game when I was a kid, but with three little kids of my own now, making the trek out to the local cineplex is a feat of scheduling acrobatics. My wife and I both have to be really, really, really excited about a flick to go through all that. And we would've done it for The Last Airbender movie had it not been for all the racebending.

In any case, everything that's been said about Airbender can be applied to Disney's Prince of Persia movie as well. In fact, a Yahoo news article does just that.

I know Jordan Mechner, the creator of the original video game. We've broken bread together a couple of times at Comic-Con because Jordan writes for my publisher as well. He's a great guy, creative and inspirational, and I'm sure he had nothing to do with the casting of the movie. I wish him nothing but the best.

In fact, if you do have a few bucks set aside for Prince of Persia, might I suggest you spend them on the First Second Prince of Persia graphic novel instead of the movie? Jordan was heavily involved in its production; it's beautifully illustrated by LeUyen Pham and Alex Puvilland; and it's written by A. B. Sina, an actual Prince of Persia. No joke.



[ view entry ] ( 7271 views )   |  [ 0 trackbacks ]   |  permalink

<<First <Back | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | Next> Last>>