For ‘Boxers & Saints,’ I started by reading a couple of articles on the Internet, then writing a really rough outline, then getting more hardcore into the research. I went to a university library once a week for a year, year and a half. Gene Luen Yang Read Quote
Both my mother and my father grew up in Asia, in a time of political instability. They’d earned college degrees before setting foot in the States but had to work menial jobs early on in order to make ends meet. Gene Luen Yang Read Quote
My experience of Chinese culture is indirect, through echoes. When I approach the cashier at my local Chinese supermarket, they switch to English before I’ve even said a word. They somehow know that I’m not quite Chinese enough. Gene Luen Yang Read Quote
Nobody really knows for sure how the Boxer Rebellion started. It began among the poor, and the history of the poor is rarely written down. Gene Luen Yang Read Quote
As I was researching, I was struck by how similar the Boxers were to Joan of Arc. Joan was basically a French Boxer. She was a poor teenager who wanted to do something about the foreign aggressors invading her homeland. Gene Luen Yang Read Quote
Avatar: The Last Airbender’ is, to my mind, the greatest American animated series ever produced. The characters lived and breathed. Gene Luen Yang Read Quote
With my own comics, I try hard to get the vision in my head onto paper, to have one match the other as closely as possible. With the ‘Airbender’ comics, I’m working with someone else’s vision, an already-established vision. I want to stay true to what’s come before. Gene Luen Yang Read Quote
Many Japanese families moved to Taiwan during the occupation. Then, when the war ended, they were forced to move back. And at the macro level, the Taiwanese had every reason to cheer when the Japanese left. The Japanese military could often be incredibly brutal. The Taiwanese lived as second-class citizens on their own land. Gene Luen Yang Read Quote
Figuring out a way to balance the Boxer story with the Chinese Christians was difficult. Gene Luen Yang Read Quote
