In honor of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, Keith Chow recently interviewed Greg Pak and several other Asian American comic book creators for the Diamond Bookmark Newsletter. Parts of Chow’s interview with Pak can be seen at the Diamond website. But the full text of the interview has never been seen — until today! Below is the entire Chow/Pak interview, courtesy of Keith Chow and Diamond.
KC: Like any other literary genre, there’s a lot of diversity in comics that might fly right beneath the radar in most mainstream circles. So my first question is how does being Asian American inform your work?
GP: I grew up at a time when the most prominent Asian American character in mainstream media was a dude in a teen flick who’d fall out of trees to the sound of a gong. So I’ve been annoyed by stereotypical imagery in mainstream media almost as long as I can remember. At the same time, I’ve always been hugely impressed by the way films speak a universal emotional language and have the power make us fall in love with anyone. I always paraphrase Spike Lee, who once wrote something along the lines of “the more specific something is, the more universal it becomes.” The idea is that if you actually depict a character fully, with all of his or her background taken into account, the audience will get it, even if the character is completely different from the audience. In fact, it’s precisely because you’ve depicted the character so specifically that the audience gets it — something that’s true in your character’s life, if it’s presented in the right way, will resonate with something true in every viewer’s life.

Just to give you one example: Akira Kurosawa was heavily influenced by American westerns — particularly those of John Ford. Similar themes resonate through Kurosawa’s samurai movies. Sam Peckinpah was hugely influenced by Kurosawa’s filmmaking techniques and applied them to the “Wild Bunch.” John Woo, in turn, was hugely influenced by Peckinpah in making his Hong Kong heroic bloodshed movies. And now every big Hollywood movie features John Woo style action sequences. The history of film is full of these kinds of back-and-forth influences, with aesthetics and themes and stories moving back and forth between filmmakers and audience members from completely different racial and ethnic backgrounds.
So when I started making films, I was always interested in casting non-traditionally and never worried about whether audiences would accept the work — I knew that if the characters and stories were compelling, the films would find their audience. In particular, I’ve cast Asian Americans in a big percentage of my films. “Robot Stories,” my first feature film, is an anthology picture with four science fiction stories — each of which have Asian American leads. The film’s won 35 awards, played in 75 film festivals around the world, screened theatrically across the country, and is now available on DVD from Kino. The book of the screenplay is even available now from Immedium.
One of the things that might be interesting about “Robot Stories” is that it depicts so many Asian Americans in stories which on the surface have nothing to do with so-called Asian American issues. Now I’d argue that “Robot Stories” actually deals a great deal with questions of race, racism, and identity — but it does so on a second level, through subtext, which can sometimes be a more interesting, evocative, and effective way to work through the ideas. But the interesting thing about casting Asians in roles which aren’t all about the Asian thang is that it can have the effect of normalizing race. Asian American people in “Robot Stories” are neither racial stereotypes nor mere symbols to be used in a diatribe against racism. They’re human beings, just struggling with the big questions of love and death that we all grapple with. The effect is to normalize rather than exoticize or demonize. Which is still a surprisingly rare thing to see, and thus, I think, a totally worthwhile endeavor.
With a background in indie film, how did you come to the comic industry? Was it something you’ve always wanted to do?
I’ve read and loved comics since I was a kid and even drew cartoons for various school papers through high school and college. But I never had any thoughts of trying to break into the mainstream comics world – I honestly had no idea how the industry worked and it never occurred to me that I could get my foot in the door. And I was keeping pretty busy as a filmmaker, making shorts and finishing and distributing my first feature film, “Robot Stories.” But my agent found out that Marvel was looking for new writers. She sent them the screenplay to “Robot Stories,” which apparently made the right impression. A few weeks later I was working with editors on various pitches and about a year later my first comic books started hitting the stands.
You’re the only Asian American writer from a major publisher that I’m interviewing. The comic book industry is one of the most diverse when it comes to the influence of Asian American creators from Stan Sakai to Jim Lee to Frank Cho. Why do you think that is?
Honestly, I’m always hesitant to make any sweeping statements about what motivates any group of people — in this case, every Asian American comic book creator has his or her own story and none of us can speak for each other. I’m just happy to see so many people working — and I’m particularly happy about writers like Derek Kirk Kim and Bryan Lee O’Malley making the scene with Asian American characters.
What does being an “Asian American comic creator” mean to you?
On the most obvious level, it means that I’ll go out of my way to create interesting Asian American characters — like Janie Chin in the “Warlock” miniseries and Amadeus Cho in the “Mastermind Excello” story I did for “Amazing Fantasy” #15.
And maybe it also means that I’m always rooting for the underdog, always trying to see what the guy getting kicked has to say. And that’s actually a huge part of what’s made Marvel what it is today. Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and all the folks who created Marvel’s iconic characters knew in their guts that everyone at some point feels like an outsider and a reject. So Marvel’s characters were almost always the underdogs — the misunderstood heroes who always struggle to do the right thing even though the world vilifies them. Spider-Man is the classic example of that — the mythos of the X-Men takes it to the next level by making the stories a direct allegory for racism (or homophobia, depending on your take).
These notions totally resonate through the epic “Planet Hulk” storyline I’m now writing for “Incredible Hulk.” The Hulk’s been exiled to an alien planet where he’s enslaved and forced to fight as a gladiator. The planet has several different species of intelligent life. And there’s a clear hierarchy in the ruling Empire’s politics — the Hulk and his buddies are considered to be monsters, bugs, and slaves. But unlike many sci-fi and fantasy epics, the world here doesn’t break down so neatly along racial lines. It’s the central Marvel lesson — regardless of race or background (or mutation or superpower…), each person makes his or her own decisions; each one of us, no matter what our background, has the capacity to be a hero — or a monster. The result of embracing this kind of storytelling is that you and the audience can end up having a ton more fun, with more nuanced characters, bigger twists, and huge emotional and thematic payoffs.
Who are some of your influences (artistically, writing)?
Some of my favorite comics of all time include Miyazaki’s “Nauscicaa of the Valley of Wind”; Miller’s “Dark Knight Returns,” “Daredevil: Born Again,” and “Batman: Year One”; and Barry Windsor-Smith’s “Weapon X.” Other stuff I’ve loved in recent years include Jeff Smith’s “Bone,” and Brian K. Vaughan’s “Y: The Last Man.” In terms of recent mainstream comics, “Astonishing X-Men” is astonishing, “Marvel Zombies” was freaktastic, and “All Star Superman” is supersweet. And a special shout out to Stan Sakai for “Usagi Yojimbo” — this series blew my mind when I discovered it as a kid. Gorgeous black and white line art which was a big inspiration to me when I was drawing comics — and fantastic storytelling.
In terms of movies, Billy Wilder and Akira Kurosawa are probably my two biggest heroes.
When many people think of comics and Asians, I guess most people think of manga. Has the influx of manga hindered how people might perceive comic stories by Asian Americans?
I really don’t know. I think Bryan Lee O’Malley and Derek Kirk Kim have done a great job of creating their own aesthetics, which may be influenced by manga but which serve their own stories beautifully on their own terms. Have some people not picked up these books because they don’t like manga? Or have the books sold more than they otherwise would because manga fans jumped on them? I don’t know the stats — I have no idea. All I know is that their books are awesome.
What kind of insight can you give other teachers and librarians who may be reading this in regards to what comic stories by Asian American creators can bring to their classrooms and library collections?
First and foremost, I’d recommend Stan Sakai’s work. It’s great storytelling for all ages and educators might appreciate the fact that it’s meticulously researched — even though all the characters are talking animals, they’re living in feudal Japan and their adventures parallel traditional legends, fairy tales, and actual historical events. I heard Stan speak recently and he mentioned that one of his collections was being used by a professor somewhere in teaching Japanese history.
For older audiences, Derek Kirk Kim’s “Same Difference and Other Stories” is a great collection of stories with tons of Asian American characters. And I was very pleased to discover that the great Bryan Lee O’Malley, creator of the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels, is half-Korean. The Scott Pilgrim books are hilarious, trippy, and weirdly moving all at once, with some Asian American (okay, in this case, Asian Canadian) characters thrown into the mix as well. Both Kim and O’Malley’s work could be interesting to a discussion of Asian American storytelling in which characters are clearly Asian American, but the stories on the surface may not have anything to do with so-called Asian American issues. Yet on a deeper, level, there’s a great deal about Asian American experiences that can be gleaned from reading the work.
A couple of shameless plugs — I’d add my Amadeus Cho story from Marvel’s “Amazing Fantasy” #15 to this little list. And teachers and librarians may take an interest in my upcoming run on the “Battlestar Galactica” comic — like “Robot Stories,” it’s a science fiction tale that features a multiracial cast — but frames its questions of race and identity through its heroes’ conflicts with artificially intelligent robots. The first issue, a specially priced 25 cent #0 issue, hits stores in May.