Gene Luen Yang's Blog, page 3
March 12, 2020
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December 11, 2019
Computer Science Education Week: Seymour Papert
Happy Computer Science Education Week! Looking for an awesome gift for the young coder in your life? Check out the Secret Coders boxed set! Six volumes of coding goodness written by me and drawn by the incomparable Mike Holmes!
In honor of Computer Science Education Week, let me tell you why I’m a fan of a computer scientist by the name of Seymour Papert.
Seymour Papert loved two things that I love: coding and teaching. He was leagues better at both, of course. Maybe you don’t know Seymour Papert’s name, but you may have something in your home that he helped design. I’ll get to that in a moment.
In nerd circles, Papert is famous for a couple of things. First, he was part of a team that created the Logo programming language. From its beginning, Logo was meant for kids. Papert wanted young people to fall in love with coding, and it certainly worked on me. When I was in the fifth grade, I learned Logo on an Apple IIe computer. Then a decade later, I graduated from college with a Computer Science degree.
These days, Logo has been somewhat forgotten. If you’re a kid coder today, you’re most likely learning a more modern language like Scratch. Even Scratch, though, has Papert’s fingerprints all over it. Mitch Resnick, the principal creator of Scratch, was a student of Papert’s.
Here’s the second thing that Papert is famous for: In 1980s, the Lego toy company partnered with Papert to develop programmable Lego bricks. These bricks eventually developed into Lego Mindstorms. If you’re big into Lego, you may have a set in your home. Papert was so influential that Lego got the name “Mindstorms” from the title of Papert’s 1980 book on educational theory.
When Seymour Papert passed away in 2016, Lego commemorated his life by releasing a limited edition minifig of him.
That’s what a big deal he is. He has his own Lego minifig.
Mike and I also gave him a cameo in Secret Coders.
It’s one of my favorite parts of our series.
If you’ve ever experienced the joy of coding while playing with Logo or Scratch or Lego Mindstorms, you have Seymour Papert to thank.
Thank you, Dr. Papert!
November 25, 2019
How I Became a Superman Fan
Looking for a holiday gift for a Superman fan? Or a superhero fan? Hope you’ll check out my and Gurihiru’s Superman Smashes the Klan!
The first square-bound issue is available now at your local comic shop. (Not sure where that is? Visit http://www.comicshoplocator.com!) The second will be out on Wednesday, December 18th!
Superman and me, we got some history.
The very first comic of my collection was a Superman comic: DC Comics Presents #57 starring Superman and the Atomic Knights. My mom bought it for me off of a spinner rack at our local bookstore. I can’t say I was particularly thrilled.
As a kid, I thought Superman was the most boring superhero ever. He flies around Metropolis in blue tights and a cape, looking for good deeds to do, like a giant flying boy scout working on his citizenship merit badge.
He never swears, never breaks any rules, always does the right thing. Boring. Kind of like my parents.
I became a Superman fan around the time I began appreciating my parents. Both my mother and my father are immigrants, and they’re the furthest thing from boring. My mother’s family escaped from China just as the Communist Party came into power. My grandfather sent his young family to safety first, then escaped by strapping himself to the side of a train that was already overflowing with passengers.
Both of my parents came to America and earned Masters’ degrees. No easy task, especially when you’re studying in a language that isn’t your first.
My parents were always aware that many Americans (though certainly not all) saw them as foreign. And a lot of what I interpreted as “boring” was really just them trying to counteract that perception. Like many immigrants, my parents tried hard to be perfect citizens so that their citizenship would never be questioned.
I wonder if Superman is doing the same thing. After all, he’s as foreign as you can get — an actual alien from outer space. The ultimate outsider.
Another of my graphic novels, American Born Chinese, is all about being an outsider. Ever since it was first published in 2006, I’ve been lucky enough to visit schools, libraries, and bookstores all over the country to talk about its themes.
In my discussions with kids and adults, I’ve discovered that the outsider experience is nearly universal. Not everyone is an outsider because of their cultural heritage, but most of us have gone through a time when we would have given anything to fit in a little bit better.
Ironically, the outsider experience is so common that it can be a point of connection between people.
That’s actually how I finally connected with the Man of Steel. That’s how I became a Superman fan. What makes him different — the fact that he’s an alien — is his greatest weakness. Glowing green rocks from his home planet — physical pieces of his foreign heritage — can actually kill him.
Yet, what makes him different is also the source of his superpowers. And so he embraces it, not for his own sake, but so he can serve others, even people who hate outsiders like him.
Superman is a model for anyone who has ever felt like they were on the outside. Embrace what makes you different. Let it empower you. Then use that power to serve those around you.
I’ve been writing Superman comics for a few years now, but Superman Smashes the Klan is really the first time I’ve gotten to express what I truly love about Superman.
October 11, 2019
Superman Smashes the Klan on October 16!
Next Wednesday 10/16/19, the first volume of Superman Smashes the Klan debuts in comic shops!
In 1946, the year after World War II ended, one of Superman’s most iconic storylines debuted on the Superman radio show. It was titled “The Clan of the Fiery Cross.” Over sixteen episodes, the Man of Tomorrow teamed up with his friends at the Daily Planet and a Chinese American family to fight bigotry in Metropolis.
Those sixteen episodes aren’t perfect. There are moments that would make a modern audience cringe. Even so, the story they tell encapsulates an important lesson that America — and the world — learned during World War II. It seems to me that lesson is being forgotten.
Artists Gurihiru, letterer Janice Chiang, and I have the privilege of presenting this storyline as a comic book series for the very first time. We’ve kept it set in 1946. All the major pieces of the plot are still there. We’ve even dressed Big Blue in his costume from the Fleischer Studio cartoons of the early 1940s.
We’ve really put our heart and souls into this one. We hope you’ll check it out.
