Secret Identities

Lately I've been making quite a few posts about Asian American issues, but not too much in terms of what I'm doing in my pursuit of a writing career, so I'm combining the two and bringing you this here post.

Sometime last year my friend Jerry Ma of Epic Proportions contacted me about a comic book anthology, with a focus on Asian American superheroes, that he would be having a hand in putting together. I was immediately interested and told Jerry as much early on, then the call for submissions came around.

At first I had nothing. I didn't want to just create a superhero who happened to be Asian. I felt as though if I couldn't use this opportunity to say something about Asian Americans, what was the point in participating? I began to think about what I knew about the history of Asians in America and the Japanese Internment Camps came to mind rather quickly since I had done a few research papers on the topic before (and a speech, I milked that research for all it was worth).

I knew what I wanted to write for a few days, but stayed away from the computer to let the ideas marinate in my head for a little while. When I did sit down to write the short, four page story it came easily. It's about a young Nisei Japanese American superhero who gets arrested and put into an internment camp during WWII. I entitled it "9066" after Executive Order 9066.

The name of the anthology is entitled Secret Identities and you can find their Myspace page here. The anthology isn't scheduled to come out until 2008, but there will be a preview comic coming out later on this year that will have "9066" in it. Up above are some design sketches of the hero drawn by Jerry Ma.

If you plan on being at New York Comic Con stop by the Epic Proportions booth and say hello to Jerry. You might also run into me there.

Oh and new blog layout, what do you think?