Gene Luen Yang

Gene Luen Yang (born August 9, 1973) is an American cartoonist.

He is a frequent lecturer on the subjects of graphic novels and comics, at comic book conventions and universities, schools, and libraries.

In addition, he was the Director of Information Services and taught computer science at Bishop O'Dowd High School in Oakland, California.

After graduating in 1995, Yang worked as a computer engineer for two years.

However, after a five-day silent retreat, he felt he was meant to teach, and left his job as a computer engineer to teach computer science at a high school.

As a teacher, he drew comics afterschool and during weekends.

In 1996, Yang began self-publishing his own comics under the imprint Humble Comics.

Yang went on to be published with First Second Books (an imprint of Macmillan Publishers), Marvel Comics, DC Comics, SLG Publishing, Dark Horse Comics, HarperTeen, The New Press, and Pauline Books & Media.

In 1997, Yang first published comic Gordon Yamamoto and the King of the Geeks under his Humble Comics imprint, and it won him the Xeric Grant, a self-publishing grant for comic book creators.

Yang later published two more installments in the Gordon Yamamoto mini-series and a sequel, Loyola Chin and the San Peligran Order.

In 2006, Yang published American Born Chinese with First Second Publishing.

Drawing upon the Chinese folk character of the trickster Monkey King, the book tells the story of a school-age second-generation immigrant who struggles with his Chinese-American identity.

Although Yang drew from his own experiences, the book is not autobiographical.

In 2021 Disney+ ordered production of a television adaptation of the book.

Yang's other works have been recognized as well.

In 2009, Yang was awarded another Eisner Award for Best Short Story for his collaborative work The Eternal Smile which he wrote and Derek Kirk Kim illustrated.

Yang was nominated for Eisner Awards for both Prime Baby and his collaborative work Level Up.

In 2010, both Gordon Yamamoto and the King of the Geeks series and Loyola Chin and the San Pelgrino Order were published together as Animal Crackers by Slave Labor Graphics.

In 2012, Yang joined the faculty at Hamline University as a part of the Low-Residency Master of Fine Arts in Writing for Children and Young Adults (MFAC) program.

Yang wrote the Avatar: The Last Airbender comics series for Dark Horse Comics, the first volume of which was released in January 2012.

Yang's graphic novel, Boxers & Saints, which was published by First Second Books in September 2013.

In 2016, the U.S. Library of Congress named him Ambassador for Young People's Literature.

That year he became the third graphic novelist, alongside Lauren Redniss, to receive a MacArthur Fellowship.

Yang believes he was born in either Alameda or Fremont, California.

He is the child of an electrical engineer from Taiwan and a programmer who grew up in Hong Kong and Taiwan, both of whom emigrated to the United States.

They met at the San Jose State University Library during graduate school.

He has a younger brother.

He grew up in a Catholic family, and his parents instilled in him a strong work ethic and reinforced their Asian culture.

In a speech at Penn State, where he spoke as a part of a Graphic Novel Speaker Series, Yang recalled that both of his parents always told him stories during his childhood.

Yang was a part of a small Asian-American minority in his elementary school.

He grew up wanting to be an animator for Disney.

In third grade, he did a biographical report on Walt Disney, which is where he says his obsession started.

This changed in fifth grade when his mother took him to their local bookstore where she bought him his first comic book, issue 57 of the Superman series DC Comics Presents, a book she agreed to buy because Yang's first choice, Marvel Two-in-One issue 99, featured the characters The Thing and Rom on the cover, which she thought looked too frightening.

Yang attended the University of California, Berkeley for his undergraduate degree.

He wanted to major in art but his father encouraged him to pursue a more "practical" field so Yang majored in computer science with a minor in creative writing.

In July 2016, DC Comics released the first issue of New Super-Man, featuring a separate Chinese character in the Superman mold, written by Yang and drawn by Viktor Bogdanovic.

In October 2019, Yang created a limited series, Superman Smashes the Klan, a loose adaptation of a famous 1946 story-arc from The Adventures of Superman radio series, "Clan of the Fiery Cross", in which an Asian-American family is threatened by the Ku Klux Klan and a young and unsure Superman is determined to protect the children from the terrorists.

Making his Marvel Comics debut in 2020, Yang wrote a miniseries starring the martial arts superhero Shang-Chi.

According to Yang, the series explores the relationship between Shang-Chi and his archenemy father Zheng Zu, who was originally the infamous villain Fu Manchu.

In May 2021, in celebration of the Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, DC Comics launched the hero Monkey Prince, created by Yang and Bernard Chang.