"THE CITIZEN" can be found on page 56 of "Secret Identities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology".

The story follows Frank Murakawa, a Sergeant from the Arizona National Guard who was exposed to unknown chemicals during a training accident endowing him with amazing abilities -- turning him into... THE CITIZEN.

Incarcerated for attempting to arrest the former President of the United States for war crimes, The Citizen finds himself released from prison by the new Commander-in-Chief, enlisting his help.

Director and Marvel writer, Greg Pak (Incredible Hercules, World War Hulk, Skaar: Son of Hulk) wrote the story and directed/edited the trailer. The art was provided by Bernard Chang (X-Men, Deadpool, Wonder Woman). Visit: PakBuzz.com and BernardChang.com

"Secret Identities" will be available in stores April 2009 -- or you may pre-order your copy today on amazon.com

Book/Comic store info:
ISBN: 9781595583987
Diamond: JAN094645D

"A Day at CostumeCO." can be found on page 119 of "Secret Identities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology".

The story follows a Super Mom (both literally and figuratively) as she juggles a hectic outing with her family at the local superhero, big-box store outfitter, CostumeCO.

S.I. Editor in Chief, Jeff Yang provided the words and A.L. Baroza the art.  Try to spot a cameo appearance from a certain 6-clawed mutant! 

To pass the link around: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ej8bJZLDkKo&fmt=18

Also, below is a bonus video of  the making of  "A Day at CostumeCo."  This was the first trial attempt at these "motion comix" 5 months ago to see what was feasible, etc.  At the end, you'll also see what my daughter Avery picked up from these vids. 

I used the mic from a telephone headset, voiced all the characters (male & female) and cut it all under 45 minutes.  No b.g. music, no sound effects , didn't even bother to take out the mouse 'clicks' of me starting and stopping the recording. 

I'd like to think that I've come a long way since then:

Man!  I've been waiting forever to show you guys how this piece came out.  I blogged about it several entries ago but here it is -- "FAIRY TALE POLICE".  It was shown on Xbox - which is why you see "Rob Emerson is online" pop up a few times onscreen.

In the first segment my partner, Rachael Leigh Cook and I respond to a domestic disturbance.  At the 4:12 mark, you'll notice actor Joel Moore wound up revealing his boxers during his struggle Rachael - the fix?  The editors blurred out the spot between his legs - is that perfect or what?  How many times have you seen genitalia blurred out on COPS?  I love happy accidents like that. 

Then in the second segment, we respond to a reported hit & run with a person matching the description of a "guy wearing a red suit and in a sleigh".

 Avery had fun on the set meeting Santa AND the real reindeer - although when you see the video, you can see why she was a bit freaked out by Rudolph.

"The Blue Scorpion & Chung" can be found on Page 63 of SECRET IDENTITIES: The Asian American Superhero Anthology.

National Book Finalist writer Gene Yang ("American Born Chinese" - geneyang.com) and artist Sonny Liew ("Liquid City" - sonnyliew.com) explore the "second-banana/manservant/sidekick" relationship inspired by the 1960's "Green Hornet & Kato" dynamic -- which has been ingrained into our pop culture zeitgeist ever since.

To pass the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1xi4DYLwJM&fmt=18

The end credits also include our current slate of S.I. tour stops.  It's already a pretty darn long impressive scroll - I can't believe that we're actually handling this stuff on our own.

Then at the last minute, I wanted to add an unscripted line into the piece before layering in the music, background noises and grabbed a camera to document the whole crazy process of these videos and can be seen below. 

I think I have a disease -- I can't STOP making videos, even when I don't have to! 

Anyway, I just started watching "Celebrity Apprentice" and basically decided to start DVR-ing it to crib ideas because the stuff they do on the show, is basically a strange parallel in what we're doing -- hustling for promotional ideas, making banners, calling in favors, drumming up attention for the product, setting up the tour, etc.  And what was tonight's task for the celebs? 


Now come on, man.   That's just plain weird.  

And finally, this weekend got to see SI contrib, Jamie Ford (Pg 37 - GAMAN) when his book tour for "Hotel On The Corner of Bitter and Sweet" swung through Cali! 

The book is doing really well and already on its 4th printing!

Just goes to show how many talented guys and gals are in the pages of this anthology.  

Wow, if we got even a smidgen of the success that "Bitter and Sweet" has seen... 

Pg 100 - "You Are What You Eat"

"You Are What You Eat" can be found on Page 100 of SECRET IDENTITIES: The Asian American Superhero Anthology.  The story follows a bulimic teenage girl, Ting on her birthday.  What she initially perceives as a "gift" from grandma to help with her eating disorder, in actuality begins to expose Ting towards discovering a healthy Yin/Yang balance of food -- with surprising effects.

"Y.A.W.Y.E." was written by Lynn Chen ("Saving Face", "Lakeview Terrace") and drawn by Paul Wei (maxwellwong.com) .

To share the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SCwEzRJgwg&fmt=18

The book will be available in April 2009 -- or you can pre-order your copy today on amazon.com

ALSO -- we just got back from an awesome weekend at ECAASU -- Jerry posted a great synopsis of our trip here where you can see we had our own personal 'bodyguard' shadowing us -- thanks Dave, you were the best!

Pg 25 - "9066"

"9066" is preview video 2 of 8 that may be found on Page 25 of SECRET IDENTITIES: The Asian American Superhero Anthology.

The story centers around a Japanese American superhero who is sent into an internment camp after President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942 in reponse to the attack on Pearl Harbor -- using his authority as Commander-in-Chief to exercise war powers to send ethnic groups to internment camps.  The order ultimately led to the internment of 120,000 ethnic Japanese people for the duration of the war. Of the Japanese interned, 62 percent were Nisei (American-born, second-generation Japanese American) or Sansei (third-generation Japanese American) and the rest were Issei (Japanese immigrants and resident aliens, first-generation Japanese American).

First lady Eleanor Roosevelt was opposed to Executive Order 9066 and spoke privately many times with her husband, but was unsuccessful in convincing him not to sign it.

Executive Order 9066 was finally rescinded by Gerald Ford on February 19, 1976.  On November 21, 1989, George H.W. Bush signed an appropriation bill authorizing payments to be paid out between 1990 and 1998. In 1990, surviving internees began to receive individual redress payments of $20,000 and a letter of apology.

"9066" was written by Jonathan Tseui and drawn by Jerry Ma -- and is one of the several "shadow history" pieces in the book inspired by actual historic events pertaining to Asians in America.

The book will be available in April 2009 -- or you can pre-order your copy today on amazon.com

Here is the HQ link if you'd like to pass it around:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnHnYYnev9k&fmt=18

Enjoy!

PG 7: "IN THE BEGINNING"

Below is the first of eight promo trailers for the SECRET IDENTITIES.  This one kicks off the book on page 7 and is a fun look at the how's and why's behind the book's creation.  How the editors met, etc.

It's been a lot of work doing these things but fun as well.  My favorite part is finding audio to lay in the background (city noises, tire screeches, dog barking, music, etc) - it really brings stuff to life and makes a big difference.  I guess I never realized how important a sound mixer or music supervisor was because their jobs are to make the subtle little differences to flesh out a scene.

If you couldn't tell, for some reason I just fell in LOVE with that Japanese Song "Sailor Stars" and found as many excuses to use it in the piece - stay for the end credits!

My daughter Avery obviously overhears the audio whenever I "voice" some of these characters at home -- unfortunately, she winds up picking up only the stereotypical portions.  Every once in awhile, I hear hear exclaim, "... the wrath of... Kamikaze!" and "...  pork fried pain!" (from the Y-MEN segment at the top).

Here's the High Quality link if you'd like to pass it around (HQ makes all the difference in the world -thank you YOUTube!): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXKIfdBt0Vw&fmt=18

The full pdf version if you'd like to read along is available here. Enjoy!

SECRET IDENTITIES Catchup & Official Trailer

So here's a crash course updating things with Secret Identities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology: 

Nov/Dec 2008: 

As the completed stories came in one by one, I would cross them off my corkboard (simulated in the photo on the left via photoshop as I can't seem to find the real picture I took). 

And believe me, it was extremely gratifying "x-ing" off that last story.

But that was only the start of another part of the machine -- now we had dig deep into our personal rolodexes to get some notable folks in the comic, academic and literary worlds to blurb some kind words about our book to give us some street cred.

In the midst of all that though, I got a bleeding ulcer (where basically blood is coming out of orifices that it shouldn't be), I lost about 3 pints of blood and was hospitalized for 4 days up until Thanksgiving.  So I had to chill finding blurbers for a bit  for the first 3 days of my stay -- but on the last day, I was told the source of the ulcer was bacterial and not stress related!  So I powered up the phone/computer and started the search again! 

I remember having to type on my laptop with one hand at one point because I had an IV in the other arm.   I totally felt like Phoebe in "Friends" in that alternate world episode where she's a super-workaholic but the holidays were fast approaching and we needed to get some good wordage on the book jacket before we went to the printers -- which we did:

Good fiction opens a window into truth. And really good fiction opens a window into truths you haven’t seen or thought of or understood before.  This book is a new window on a rarely seen side of the American experience.  Take a look through it.  You’ll be surprised.

—Walter Simonson, writer/artist of “Manhunter”, “Thor”, and “Orion”

 

“Secret Identities” has hit upon one of those truths that feels surprising only because no one thought of it sooner: that our culture's superhero template dovetails uncannily with Asian American issues and identity.

 —David Henry Hwang, Playwright – “M. Butterfly”, “Golden Child”

 

These artists show how we can be funny and witty and profound all at once, turning stereotypes inside out and upside down to create new images that empower individuals to write the scripts of their own lives.  A classic on the level of “Maus” and “The Dark Knight Returns,” this is a comic book every Asian American teenager needs to read, every Asian American adult should buy, and every person of any background will appreciate.   —Frank H. Wu, author of “Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White” 

 

This book will acquaint new audiences to the Asian American experience, and inspire younger generations to explore their own history, identity and culture. —Irene Hirano Inouye, executive advisor, Japanese American National Museum

 

At long last, the Asian American superheroes I've always wanted.  Make no mistake, these are geeky comic book stories.  But they're OUR geeky comic book stories. And that makes all the difference.    —Phil Yu, AngryAsianMan.com

 

The trope of the mask and disguise works well when representing Asian Americans… as does the notion that we can choose our own masks to wear and remove at will.  —Elaine H. Kim, Professor of Asian American Studies, UC Berkeley

 

I still can't believe we got some of the folks that we got -- JIM 'Freakin' LEE! 

 

Jan 2009:

 

Then fast forward to a few weeks ago -- and we received the galleys - which are bound photocopied pages of the book sent to be sent out to reviewers - also called Advance Reader Copies (ARC's).  Now these versions still have typos in them as reviewers publishing lead times are usually months in advance -- too narrow of a window for publishers to get everything done perfectly in time.  It's even printed on them "Uncorrected Page Proofs - do not reprint without approval".

 

Then we got in the Blues, which are pages as close to the real thing before actually getting the real thing.  This is pretty much the last chance you get to proof things before the mass printing of the book takes place.   

Feb 2009:

And that brings us to the present -- after months of deliberation, we finally locked down a cover!  Now usually the publisher gets the final say regarding what the cover will look like but the designer assigned to us was pretty cool in hearing our thoughts out.  Take a look at the various incarnations from the oldest to the newest version (left to  right, top to bottom):

                 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So the large cover on the right will be the lime goodness that will be wrapped around the baby we've been gestating for the past 2 years. 

The tough part was figuring out what image to stick in the lenses.  Being an anthology, there really wasn't any one particular "main" character, so our art director, Jerry Ma mocked up this collage from 6 different stories -- overlapped they look like one cohesive piece and solved the problem nicely.

I think once we got away from the idea of having single individual images in the lenses got us on the right track.

Then this weekend we had a standing room only panel at the New York ComicCon with folks spilling out the room and the NYCC trailer made it's debut.  Unfortunately, the audio on the speakers weren't working but what needed to get seen was seen.

Back row l to r: Anne Ishii (panel moderator), Jimmy Aquino (writer, "Sampler"), Greg Pak (writer, "The Citizen"), Ken Wong (writer, "Justified"), Jonathan Tsuei (writer, "9066"), Tak Toyoshima (writer/artist, "S.A.M. Meets Larry Hama"), Bernard Chang (artist, "The Citizen"), Larry Hama (Legendary). Front row l to r: Keith Chow (Editor-at-Large), Jeff Yang (Editor-in-Chief), Sarah Sapang (artist, "16 Miles" -one of my stories!), Jef Castro (artist, "Peril"), Alexander Tarampi (artist, "Gaman").

 

And then SI editors, Jeff Yang and Keith Chow somehow even got even got an Asian American Superhero to hold the finished product in his steel-bending hands.

If you told me growing up, that someday I would have a graphic comic book published and held in the hands of a man wearing his underwear over tights in public amongst thousands of people -- I would have said, "Pinch me".

 

Now with the book being about 8 weeks away from officially hitting stores --- the promotional whirlwind is in full swing!  As usual, not a lot of money to advertise/promote - but since when does that stop anyone, right?  So it's time to dust off the old BLT-grassroots skill sets once again! 

So the reason I've been so lame on updating is that my time's been taken up editing promotional trailers/story previews -- where I'll be editing a select story panel by panel and having actor friends and myself voice the word balloons and add music, sound effects, etc.  The good news is that for the next eight weeks, I'll have something to show you all... the bad news is - I hope I can keep up the pace without getting a stress-related ulcer this time.

So to kick off the first of 9 (planned) promotional videos --  please enjoy the official trailer of SECRET IDENTITIES: The Asian American Superhero Anthology, in stores April 2009.  Pre-order your copy here! 

 

ROCK THE VOTE... again.

My fellow readers, on next Tuesday, Jan 20, 2009, 12pm EST, our country will usher in an African American as President of The United States of America. 

And on the day before that, on Jan 19th, when the voting closes on this poll from Pretty-Scary.net, with your support, an Asian American will be ushered in as....

SCARY STUD of the YEAR 2008.

If elected, I will continue to uphold my responsibilities and duties that awarded me the site's distinction as Mr. December.  To remain true to my bi-partisan beliefs on all matters Scary and Studly even in the face of adversity.

Yes, we can.

And yes, you can -- in the link below:

http://www.pretty-scary.net/?q=content/vote-scary-stud-year-2008

Happy New Year!

Your hopeful Scary Stud-Elect,

"F.T.P."

A couple of entries ago, I mentioned a new project that I'm doing with the director of "Hatchet" called "Fairy Tale Police".  It's going to be shown on Dec 17th for XBOX LIVE subscribers and then online everywhere thereafter. 

XBOX has this project that they're trying out to bring original programming to their 10 million subscribers and this one is "Horror Directors do Comedy".  So folks like James Gunn ("Slither") and James Wan ("Saw") are also doing pilot shows of their own as well.

The really cool part about this project is that each creator (in this case, Adam Green -- being arrested in photo below) retains the rights to their project -- so eventually these episodes can be brought over to say, Comedy Central, and air on there - all ready to go.  

We shot ours a few weeks ago and it was tons of fun.  It's basically "COPS" meets "SHREK" for lack of a better analogy.  And in January, we'll find out if we'll get 'picked up' to make more episodes. 

I play Officer Chad Pappas and as you can see, I sport a sweet 'stache (with my partner, Office Stacy Duffy a.k.a. Rachael Leigh Cook)! 

I actually went on a ride-along prior to shooting so I could get the mannerisms and jargon down and it was awesome!  I highly suggest everyone do it once in their lives.  All you need to do is go to your local Police Department, fill out a Ride-Along application, they run a background check and then you're off.

When I did mine, I got to take someone to jail, pull 3 people over for moving violations and respond to two "5150's" -- which is officially police code for "Mentally Disturbed Party "... or more informally "a crazy person". 

In doing the ride-along, I really got a sense of just how much cops have to deal with and understand why sometimes they seem like jerks for pulling people over for minor infractions.  Because when people ask, "Don't you have something better to do like catching rapists or murders?"... honestly, the answer is: No -- because they'd much rather be doing that than the mundane pullover.  Most of the time they're  just looking for something to do - it's not TV/CSI action going on all the time, so in between -- they'll resort to handling the minor stuff.  

But believe me, when there is a call to do something more exciting (hence: a more critical/elevated situation), they are all chompin' at the bit to all get there!

One interesting thing I started to notice and integrated into "F.T.P." was that cops talk to people the way parents do to non-behaving kids.  "You have anything in your pockets?"  "Don't lie to me."  "Stay right there and don't move."  "Now the reason why I pulled you over [substitute: 'put you on a time-out']..."  See what I mean?  But they really have to immediately take command of every situation because there are so many potential dangerous variables they need to be ready for -- and parents, good ones, have a certain tone when they need to get their kids in check.

Anyway, here's the trailer below: