Finding Wonderland talks with cartoonist Gene Yang about American Born Chinese:
FW: What inspired you to tell this story in graphic novel/comics form? What about the story do you feel was uniquely suited to visual narrative?
Well, I’ve been an avid reader of comic books since the fifth grade. I think the comics medium is a vast, unexplored territory. There’s so much inherent power that is just beginning to be exploited. Cartooning is really about distilling an image to its essence, about perceiving the core meaning of something and conveying it in an economical way. This is a very powerful way to communicate. For instance, stereotypical cartoon imagery really packs a punch. We can see evidence of this from people’s strong reactions, both positive or negative, to political cartoons. In American Born Chinese, I wanted to leverage that punch for my story.
The Q&A kicks off the “Summer Blog Blast Tour” of author interviews organized by young-adult literature blogs.
