Asian American Superman and Wonder Woman

Now that's more like it. That's exactly what I saw (and failed to photograph) outside the NYCC Exhibit Hall right after I posed for photos at the Secret Identities panel. After we've seen the quarter-Japanese Dean Cain play Superman for four seasons of Lois & Clark and the half-Chinese Olivia Munn suit up as Wonder Whoa-man! in one of her most memorable Attack of the Show sketches, I love that we finally get a full-blooded Asian Superman and a full-blooded Asian WW.

Damn, Asian WW is fine. And the Supe is rocking a cool replica of Cain's shiny version of the iconic suit. The armpit sweat stains must be a shout-out to Christopher Reeve's pit stains during his Superman: The Movie screen tests.

(Speaking of WW, last Friday, I caught an early NYCC screening of the Bruce Timm-produced Wonder Woman, which reunites Keri Russell with her Waitress co-star Nathan Fillion. Thanks to sharp and witty dialogue reminiscent of the writing on Justice League Unlimited, the involvement of current WW comics scriptwriter Gail Simone and rousing battle sequences that really look impressive on a big screen, director Lauren Montgomery's WW is easily the strongest of the four straight-to-DVD DC Universe animated movies so far. This new WW did the impossible: it actually made Steve Trevor interesting.)

[Via channelAPA]

Secret Identities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology at NYCC

NYCC's Secret Identities panel on Saturday was an exciting moment for myself and everyone else at the con who was involved in the New Press graphic novel of the same name. Secret Identities editors Keith Chow and Jeff Yang, whom I'm standing behind in the above pic (Jeff's the one who's holding a not-quite-final copy of the novel), unveiled the official trailer for the novel and discussed the project at the panel, which kicked off a Secret Identities promotional tour. The novel will hit stores in mid-April and contain my comic book scriptwriting debut, "Sampler."

The standing-room-only crowd delighted us, but I was even more jazzed about how the audience consisted of readers of all races who are interested in our novel. That's a great sign. It means we've been doing something right. We created these stories for everyone to enjoy.

Like the creators of the Harold & Kumar flicks (yeah, those guys are white, but they understand what us Asian Americans have been going through), I wrote about a protagonist who happens to be Asian American, and I tried not to delve into identity politics too much, which is what a lot of pre-Harold & Kumar movies about young AAs would do as a response to past one-dimensional portrayals of AAs on the screen (and sometimes these films would counter that problem not very effectively or not very subtly). But at the same time, I wanted to insert little moments into "Sampler" in which the title heroine recognizes there's racism out there and she responds to it either with humor (she wears an "I suck at math" T-shirt) or--because this is the superhero genre--mucho bitchslapping.

Here I am sitting in the audience, talking to another Secret Identities contributor, Secret Asian Man creator Tak Toyoshima, before the beginning of the panel:


It was awesome to finally meet Tak, whose strip I've read for years. Tak's contribution to Secret Identities is an interstitial Q&A with legendary G.I. Joe and Wolverine comics writer Larry Hama.


Right after the Secret Identities panel, Tak and I saw an Asian guy in a Superman costume and an Asian woman in a Wonder Woman outfit posing for photos together--an amusing epilogue to the panel. I was disappointed that my camcorder somehow deleted my footage of Asian Supes and Asian WW. Apparently my camera's racist and it hates Asian superheroes.

I found a pic of the Supe posing with Jeff and Keith (Asian Supes' other identity is Bryan Nguyen)...


... but I'm still looking for a shot of Asian Supes' scantily clad sidekick.


At my left is multitalented Incredible Hercules writer and Robot Stories director Greg Pak, who scripted "The Citizen" for Secret Identities.


At my right is Giant Robot's Anne Ishii, who moderated the Secret Identities panel and is the first person to tell me she dug "Sampler." Later, Anne and I were stunned to discover we both were Banana Slugs who attended Uncle Charlie's Summer Camp at about the same time (we never crossed paths during our years at UCSC).


A full shot of the Secret Identities crew after the panel discussion. Back row, left to right: Anne, moi, Greg, Ken Wong (writer of "Justified"), Jonathan Tsuei (writer of "9066"), Tak, Bernard Chang (illustrator of "The Citizen"), Larry Hama. Front row, left to right: Keith, Jeff, Sarah Sapang (illustrator of "16 Miles"), Jef Castro (illustrator of "Peril"), Alexander Tarampi (illustrator of "Gaman").


A Joker/Monarch team-up would rock a nerd's world.

The two Jimmy Aquinos at NYCC

This is like one of those Doctor Who episodes where the Doctor meets another incarnation of himself.

At NYCC over the weekend, I finally met Comic News Insider podcaster Jimmy Aquino, who interviewed me about Secret Identities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology, A Fistful of Soundtracks and the fact that we share the same name. At one point on his blog, he joked that I'm the Earth-2 Jimmy Aquino (heh!).

CNI will post the interview soon. Also on this very special episode of CNI, Blossom gets her period.

The interview marked both the first time I've ever been interviewed by a podcaster and the first time I've been given the opportunity to plug Secret Identities and "Sampler" in an interview. Props to CNI's Jimmy for giving Secret Identities some coverage on his podcast.

Right after we recorded the interview, I showed Jimmy one of my baby pictures because I once rocked the long hair like Jimmy does now:


Later on, I had fun kicking it with an exhausted-sounding Jimmy(*) and his friends at Phonogram artist Jamie McKelvie's party at the Nolita dive Botanica, a joint that reminds me of the Red Room from my Santa Cruz days. That night, I overheard cute or gutsy karaoke renditions of tunes ranging from "Punk Rock Girl" to "Wanted Dead or Alive." The night was also scored by the worst mangling of "Bohemian Rhapsody" I've ever heard (it sounded like it was being sung by Christian "Mr. Sunshine" Bale in his Batman voice).

I got to meet THE BEAT's Heidi MacDonald, who has helped plug our Secret Identities novel on her blog (thanks, Heidi!). I was disappointed that I wasn't able to attend NYCC's Chuck panel and say hello to another favorite blogger of mine, Chuck panel moderator Alan Sepinwall, so meeting Heidi, whose blog I also read everyday, made up for that.

Despite a scratchy, under-the-weather voice that made her sound like a Bouvier sister (or me when I was 13), Heidi chatted with me about topics ranging from the clever British educational filmstrip spoof Look Around You to the Stephen Chow flicks Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle (she said Chow knows how to write for an ensemble cast, and then I told her that's why those two Chow films are superior to Bryan Singer's X-Men installments as superhero flicks--Singer and the X-Men screenwriters weren't as good at writing for an ensemble).

(*) I hope Jimmy's voice has recovered in time for his podcast because I've occasionally had to record my voice when it was really shot, and it's no picnic.

My next post will contain pics of me at NYCC's Secret Identities panel.

NYCC bound

From February 5 through 8, I'll be making my first visit to the New York Comic Con to get interviewed by the Comic News Insider folks and to meet other comics writers, as well as artists who are way better at this drawing thing than I am.

This will be my first trip to NYC since 2005. On my old jim.aquino.com site, I posted a gallery of snapshots I took of Manhattan when I hung around there in '05. Because jim.aquino.com is no longer on the Web, I'm reposting some of my favorite shots from my NYC photo gallery, as well as the original gallery text, which is in italics.

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From 2005:

I flew to New York in early October for a long-overdue break from work and radio projects. During my brief trip, I enjoyed my first-ever egg cream (do believe the hype) and checked out both the first annual New York Television Festival in Chelsea and a screening of the controversial Korean movie The President's Last Bang at the New York Film Festival (a terrific film--my favorite politically charged dark comedy since Three Kings). I would love to live in New York someday. It's my kind of town. I wonder if there are any Fistful fans in NYC. If you're a New Yorker who tunes in, next time I'm in town, holla at me. However, I'm an Internet radio show host, and we're not quite known for having recognizable faces, so hollering at me can be kind of tricky.


The East River, where hundreds of disobedient Mafiosos are dumped each year.


King Kong climbed this and got killed. Sixty-seven years later, that guy from Rage Against the Machine pulled a King Kong onstage at the MTV Video Music Awards, and it was his band's career that got killed.


Who's this handsome fella?


Too bad I wasn't there the day those guys in Stormtrooper costumes goosestepped all over Times Square to pimp some new Star Wars PS2 game. When I saw that Times Square Stormtrooper photo online, I thought it was some archive photo from 1999 showing how Giuliani enforced his homeless policies.


Hey, it's Robert Blake on the NBC Astrovision. And even when Baretta's face is as tiny as it is in that photo, he still creeps me out.


I don't know why I like looking at this billboard. Can someone find out why?


"In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the parasites known as the tabloid press and the jurors who'd rather not be there. These are their stories."


"Shame on you when you step through to the Ol' Dirty Bastard, Brooklyn Zoo!"


The Sung Tak Buddhist Temple. Wow, I didn't know BJs are that cheap in Manhattan.


Hey, young Meredith Baxter, easy on the cigarette. It's only a Marlboro, not Tommy Lee's cock.