Gil Asakawa's Nikkei View | comics
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November 8, 2010

visualizAsian is back for November with a killer fun live conversation, an hour with Jeff Yang and Bernard Chang on the role of superheroes and comics, and why there aren't many Asian American superheroes. The chat will be Tuesday, Nov. 16 at 7 pm PT, 10 pm ET, and if you haven't registered for a visualizAsian call before, you...

May 17, 2010

I wanted to grow up to be a Marvel comics artist Once upon a time, I went to art school. And although I graduated with a completely useless (career-wise, anyway) BFA in Painting, I chose art school because once upon a time, I wanted to work for Marvel Comics. Real bad. See above. When I was a kid, I loved Marvel's lineup of superheroes because they had all-too-human frailties when they weren't busting up crime in their empowered alter-egos. Spider-man, Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Dr. Strange, Silver Surfer, Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., Daredevil, The Mighty Thor, The Avengers, The X-Men... I collected 'em all. I also had a few issues of Superman and Batman and other DC comics lying around, but I wasn't a DC fanatic. I was, however, card-carrying member of the Merry Marvel Marching Society, the fan club started in 1964. I had posters (Thor against a psychedelic rainbow in black light in my room looked very cool), stickers, notepads and lots and lots of comics. I had a comic-fan penpal in Australia that I still think about now and then. And, I wrote letters to Marvel about every other month in the hopes of having one of my missives published. Alas, none of them ever ran. I also drew comics. I wish I'd kept some of them, with dialogue, panels and all. They sucked of course, but they were drawn with the complete self-absorption of of a pre-teen, and that passion eventually turned into some bit of talent, enough to get me into Pratt Institute in New York... a few steps closer to Marvel than high school in Denver. The rest, as they say, is history. Punk rock, college radio, guitar, big ol' canvases, The Village and New York's many distractions distracted me away from my commercial art career, and I eventually ended up a writer -- go figger -- much to my tuition-paying parents' chagrin. Besides, my too-Japanese mom decided to eliminate my brother and my clutter when we went off to college, and threw out anything of consequence from our childhoods... including my remaining boxes of comics. But I still have a soft spot for superheroes, especially ones of the Marvel variety. So it's been great over the past decade to watch the Merry Marvel Marching parade of comic-bound characters spring to glorious computer-animated life on the movie screen, with each new movie taking advantage of ever cooler, ever newer technology to create the best special effects ever. Of all of these, I have to say that I've enjoyed the smart, funny spectacularly entertaining Iron Man movies best.
December 22, 2009

Secret Asian Man: The Daily Days by Tak Toyoshima Tak Toyoshima is a pioneer. He's been publishing "Secret Asian Man," a smart, funny Asian American comic strip, since 1999 in various Asian American and Japanese American newspapers and websites. He's a visual AAPI blogger, tackling issues of the day, racial stereotypes, friendships, the foibles of family life and of course, Asian American Pacific Islander identity. SAM is an autobiographical reflection of Toyoshima. In fact, the main character, Sam, is, according to the cast of characters rundown in the book,"an aspiring cartoonist who works as an art director at his local alternative newsweekly. He is an incurable dreamer who is fascinated by what makes us all tick." The Boston-based artist has been the art director of a alternative newspaper, the Weekly Dig, the whole time that he's been building a following for SAM. A couple of years ago, SAM was picked by by United Media, which syndicated the strip in mainstream newspapers across the country. That was great for Tak, because he was able to reach a much wider, mainstream audience with his witty, observant social jabs. Earlier this fall, though, Toyoshima parted ways with United Media to concentrate on promoting SAM once again through AAPI channels and with a new, full-color comic every Sunday on his own website. And now, he's collected every strip syndicated by United Media into his first book, "Secret Asian Man: The Daily Days," which is available now for pre-order from Amazon.com. I ordered my copy -- be the first one on your block to have a copy!