Gene Luen Yang, DRAGON HOOPS
[0:08]Hi, I'm Zivi Owens, and you're listening to the award-winning podcast,
[0:11]Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Please sign up for my newsletter at ziviowens.com
[0:17]for updates on podcast guests and lots of live events.
[0:21]Today's episode has been sponsored by a startup stationary company called Dear Annabelle.
[0:27]They make engraved no cards and place cards and really cool, fun pads.
[0:31]It's super luxury, but also a little bit irreverent and whimsical.
[0:34]And right now with so much of this social distancing and all of us being separated from all the
[0:39]people we love, there's really no better time to take out a beautiful piece of stationary
[0:43]and write a letter to somebody you miss. In fact, this is making me want to do this right this
[0:47]very second. So check out Dear Annabelle.com, D-E-A-R, Annabelle.com, and the code is Zivi15, Z-I-B-B-Y15,
[0:57]and you'll get 15% off of all of this amazing stuff. So definitely go check it out.
[1:02]Thank you so much to Dear Annabelle for being our sponsor.
[1:05]I'm so excited to be skyping with Gene Luen Yang today on the day after his pub day,
[1:11]which is really exciting. He's the author, illustrator cartoonist of American-born Chinese,
[1:16]which was the first graphic novel ever to be nominated for the National Book Award
[1:20]and the American Library Association's Prince Award, which he won. He also won an
[1:25]Eisenhower Award for Best Graphic Album, New, and many other awards. His two volume graphic novel,
[1:30]Boxers and Saints, was nominated for a National Book Award also, and won the LA Times Book Press.
[1:35]He's written and illustrated many other graphic novels like Secret Coders and the Avatar series.
[1:40]His latest graphic novel, which just came out, is Dragon Hoops. He also received the MacArthur
[1:45]Fellowship, a graduate of UC Berkeley with a master's degree from California State University,
[1:50]East Bay. Gene is a teacher currently through Hamline University's MFA in writing for children
[1:55]in Young Adult. He currently lives in California with his four children. And his wife,
[1:59]welcome Gene. Thanks so much for coming on Momstone. I have time to read books.
[2:03]Yeah, thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.
[2:05]Can you please tell us, Nairs, what your latest book, Dragon Hoops is about?
[2:09]Yes, Dragon Hoops just came out this week. I've been working on this book since
[2:14]2014, so it took me about five years to finish it. And if I'm first nonfiction graphic novel,
[2:21]up until this point, all the stories that I've told I've made up, I followed a high school basketball
[2:26]team. I used to be a high school teacher. I followed the Washington men's team of that school for a
[2:30]season, and the book is about them. Yeah, I thought it was really good. I'm here with myself.
[2:36]Oh, thanks. My son is here. Thank you. Are you a basketball fan?
[2:39]Kinda. Not really. I like to watch him more than play.
[2:42]I'm not that good at basketball. He's a you fan because he's read your books, so
[2:48]so it took you five years. What inspired you to write it?
[2:50]You know, I was in this weird spot. I'm kind of in the same spot right now where I just finished
[2:55]a big project. So before that, I did a book called Boxers and Saints, which is about the boxer
[3:00]rebellion. Yeah, and that took me that took me like, I don't know, five, six years to finish.
[3:05]And I was kind of fishing for another idea. So I was, you know, reading books to see if I
[3:11]can get some ideas. And then people on campus, on the campus where I was teaching, sort of
[3:15]talking to my basketball, because supposedly the varsity men's team of that, of that year was
[3:21]really good. I'm not a basketball fan. I don't even like watching it. You know, not like you
[3:25]own. I don't even like what. I don't like anything about it because I was really terrible at it.
[3:29]Like when I was a kid, it wasn't even like I didn't have talent at basketball. It was like
[3:34]I had an anti talent. You know, it was like when I walked on the court, anything that could go wrong,
[3:39]it would actually go wrong. Like I jammed my fingers up, ball would hit me in the head.
[3:43]I like passing. Yeah, like I would shoot in the wrong basket. You know, like it was terrible.
[3:48]So I never liked anything about it. But then the more I found out about this team, the more I
[3:53]realized there was a story there. And I love stories. It was really scary because I didn't know
[3:58]anything my basketball, but I decided to chase after that story.
[4:01]So it sounds like in the story. And I have to say, oh, and read this book on my behalf
[4:06]since he's such a big fan that the members of the team really end up bonding together despite
[4:11]their years of losing to ultimately sort of triumph through teamwork and all the rest.
[4:16]Tell me about some of the messages behind that and what made us such a great story for you.
[4:20]Well, have you guys ever been on a like a team of any kind?
[4:24]Yeah, my, you know, do you play any else?
[4:27]I play hockey and football for the most part.
[4:29]Okay. Okay. So you've been on teams, right?
[4:32]Yeah, I, I don't know if I've ever been on, I mean, I ran across country when I was in high school
[4:36]and I did track. I was not going to use those, but those are more like individual sports,
[4:41]you know? So I've never been on a team. And I'm sure you felt this. Like it seems like
[4:48]when you have a group of people and they're all kind of chasing after the same goal,
[4:52]that it kind of automatically bonds them, even if they're from really different places,
[4:56]even if they're from really different backgrounds, it reminds them. And I saw that.
[4:59]I saw that with this particular team. Like some of those players had played on Varsity for a
[5:04]couple of years already. So they're really good friends. But then there were other players.
[5:08]Like there's a, a kid named Alex Zhao, who was an exchange student from China. He came here
[5:13]specifically because he was good at basketball. He wanted to, you know, experience what American
[5:17]basketball was like. And this was his first year on Varsity. And I watched, I watched as the season
[5:23]went on. He slowly bonded with the other guys on the team. So I think it's kind of neat.
[5:28]I think it's kind of neat to see that you can find common ground with people who might
[5:33]at least on the surface seem very different from you, as long as you're all pursuing the same goal.
[5:38]And what about the role of the coach? How did he just not give up despite all the setbacks?
[5:44]Yeah, dude, that coach. So we're pretty good friends now. We've been texting in the last few weeks
[5:49]a lot because of the book's launch and because of what's going on in the world. But his name is
[5:53]Lu Ritchie. He and I had actually been on the same campus for like a decade over a decade. But we
[5:59]were not really friends before this season. Like I would say, I don't want them in the halls and stuff,
[6:03]you know. But we never really had a sustained conversation. But then I went into his office under
[6:08]the gym and we have this long conversation about his life. And he just lived a really crazy life.
[6:15]I think the amount of stuff about him that I put into the book is maybe just like 10% of what he
[6:20]told me. He told me just all these really crazy stories. And they're so crazy that I didn't
[6:25]really believe them, you know, until he gave me like proof. So for instance, chapter one is all
[6:31]about him. He's in a lumb of that same school, Bishop about that high school. And he graduated in
[6:36]the late late 80s. He actually went to the California State Championship when he was a junior.
[6:42]And that was played at the, it used to be called the Oakland arena, but now it's the the Oracle
[6:47]arena up until recently. It's where the Golden State Warriors played. It's a big deal. Like he
[6:51]was like a 17 year old kid in this giant stadium playing in front of thousands of fans. And he's
[6:57]on the court with seven seconds left. He gets the ball in his hand. He puts it up at the buzzer.
[7:03]It goes through the hoop. So his team wins. They're freaking out. And then that shot gets
[7:07]invalidated because supposedly the center of his team had a hand on the, on the hoop, you know.
[7:16]And when he told me this, I was like, that sounds like something out of a movie. Is that,
[7:20]is that real? But then he gave me the tape and it was totally real. So I mean, I think a big part
[7:27]of that book is built on him, on his stories, you know, on the fact that he lives such an interesting
[7:34]way. Yeah. Is he now like super excited to have this book at? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he, he, he is.
[7:40]He was all this crazy stuff happened. He's still excited. He's still super supportive. I mean,
[7:46]that's part of why we've been talking a lot. He's been talking a lot just to check up on each other,
[7:50]but also just to talk about how crazy things are. I mean, maybe the thing that the reason why
[7:55]things are so crazy now is because his life is kind of crazy. Like this is part of his life now,
[8:00]right? Like we're laughing about Lou Ritchie's life. And it's so fitting for it to be so
[8:05]nutty right now. Oh my gosh. So how did you get into writing graphic novels? I know you started from
[8:13]a really young age, but like, how did you, how did you know that this was your calling? Yeah,
[8:17]well, I always like drawing. I started drawing one now is two years old. I think most kids do,
[8:22]but I, some of us just don't stop. We just, we just keep going. Right. So I kept going. And then
[8:28]I knew from a pretty early age that I wanted to tell stories through drawing. And I first
[8:33]thought I was going to do that by becoming a Disney animator. That was actually my big goal.
[8:37]But then into fifth grade, my mom bought me my first comic book. It was a Superman comic.
[8:43]And that kind of set me off, right? I realized like I could actually, I don't have the wait
[8:49]to get hired by some animation studio to start telling stories by drawing. I could just do it
[8:54]immediately. That's what my favorite thing is about comics. Anybody can make a comic.
[8:58]So that's what I started doing in fifth grade. And eventually, it became a career.
[9:02]And when did you realize that you could actually sell it, that it wasn't just a fun past time for
[9:06]you, but that it could, you know, be it, be it actually be a job for you. Oh, fifth grade,
[9:11]fifth grade. But I had a friend named Jeremy Kenyoshi. Yeah, we'd made comics together. And then his
[9:17]mom was like super excited about it. My parents weren't as excited. But parents love me to be a
[9:23]daughter, a lawyer or an engineer. But his mom was super excited. So she would take the pages
[9:29]that we drew and she would take them to work and then photocopy them for us, right? And then we
[9:33]take these photocopies and we'd staple them by hand and we sold them for friends for 50 cents a
[9:38]piece. We made like eight dollars. I mean, it's not a lot now. But in the 80s, it was a big deal.
[9:42]Right? You make eight dollars for the fifth grader. It was amazing.
[9:45]I was like coloring in my own bookmarks and trying to sell them door to door for 25 cents.
[9:51]Yeah. So we had to let go. How much did you sell them for? I was selling each bookmark for 25 cents
[9:58]and it was out here on the line.
[10:00]And I was going around to everybody's house.
[10:02]And this one house, I'll like never forget it.
[10:04]Like tried to dampen my entrepreneurial spirit.
[10:07]I went to the door and I said I was selling bookmarks
[10:10]and they said, well, what's it for us?
[10:12]And I was saving up to buy a record
[10:13]that's just to date myself even further.
[10:15]Anyway, I was like, well, I'm saving up to buy a record.
[10:17]And they said, you know, just go home
[10:19]and have your parents buy your record.
[10:20]And they didn't buy it.
[10:21]Oh, that's so lame.
[10:24]Is that the worst and the worst part
[10:26]is that they lived right across the street from us
[10:28]or like the next 20 years.
[10:31]I was like, I don't think you can do that.
[10:33]I know.
[10:34]So now I have a rule that like any time a child tries
[10:37]to sell me anything.
[10:38]I always like pull over on the side of the road
[10:40]and buy lemonade and all of that, you know.
[10:43]Oh, that's great.
[10:44]That's great.
[10:44]But I mean, people across the street
[10:46]from me are like villains from a children's book.
[10:48]That's what they say like.
[10:49]Totally.
[10:50]You can write a comic about that.
[10:51]Do I count it out?
[10:53]Do you count as a child?
[10:54]Can I sell you stuff?
[10:55]Can you sell me stuff?
[10:56]Maybe.
[10:57]I mean, I don't know.
[10:58]I'm not living.
[10:59]You can't sell me stuff that I bought you.
[11:02]OK.
[11:02]Anyway.
[11:04]Well, it just goes to show that like what you do
[11:07]when you're young.
[11:07]It really has such staying power, right?
[11:09]You got such positive reinforcement from your work
[11:12]that now look at you.
[11:13]It's like amazing.
[11:14]And you're the national ambassador
[11:16]for young people's literature appointed
[11:18]by the Library of Congress.
[11:19]Like that sounds very important.
[11:21]Yeah, I was.
[11:22]I was.
[11:22]I was the fifth one.
[11:23]So Jason Reynolds was the current one.
[11:25]He's the seventh.
[11:26]And then Jackie Woodson was in between us.
[11:30]That was like the fanciest job title I've ever had, right?
[11:33]National ambassador of young people's literature.
[11:36]And it was important.
[11:37]It basically just meant I would fly around the country
[11:40]back when we used to be a little fly.
[11:42]Fly around the country and I'd give these presentations
[11:45]to different communities about reading, you know,
[11:47]about how we can really get to know the world through reading.
[11:51]And you had a whole TED talk about why you believe
[11:54]graphic novels belong in the classroom.
[11:56]So what's your, what's your like two minute takeaway from that?
[12:00]Well, you know, I think in some corners of the country right now,
[12:07]people are super excited that graphic novels
[12:10]are starting to come into classrooms.
[12:12]And then other corners people are kind of freaked out.
[12:14]And I think the reason why they're freaked out
[12:15]is because they're worried that graphic novels
[12:18]are going to replace like prose novels.
[12:20]They're going to replace novels with no pictures in them.
[12:24]And I have to tell you just from a comic book guys perspective,
[12:29]I just don't think that's the case.
[12:31]Pretty much all the comic book creators that I know
[12:33]are also fans of prose novels.
[12:36]And what we really want is we want comics to kind of
[12:39]take their proper place alongside the other forms
[12:42]of storytelling in America.
[12:45]There are some stories that are best told through prose
[12:48]through just words.
[12:49]And there are some stories that are best told through comics.
[12:52]And I think the current popularity of graphic novels is that,
[12:56]you know, like smile, for instance,
[12:58]rain a tug of my smile,
[12:59]you would not be able to tell that stories effectively through prose,
[13:02]in my opinion.
[13:03]Good to know.
[13:04]Do you read a lot of graphic novels?
[13:06]Yes, that's the only kind of book I read.
[13:08]OK.
[13:09]OK.
[13:10]Of course we should try other kinds of books too.
[13:11]Do you have any current papers?
[13:13]Well, I see the boxes and scenes have been my favorites for a while.
[13:15]I really love this.
[13:16]Oh, thank you.
[13:18]That's awesome.
[13:19]Thank you.
[13:19]That's great.
[13:20]I did not pay, I did not pay him
[13:21]to say that.
[13:24]Have you tried Nathan Hale's stuff?
[13:26]Like, if you like history, Nathan Hale's stuff.
[13:28]I'm trying that, I'll try it.
[13:30]Yeah, yeah, check it out.
[13:32]You know, it's funny, so I interviewed Mark Segal,
[13:34]which is how I got to you from first, second.
[13:36]OK, OK.
[13:37]And I talked to him at length about the graphic novel form,
[13:40]because my son at that time was really
[13:43]only reading graphic novels.
[13:44]And I was always encouraging him to read other types,
[13:46]feeling like it was in some way cheating.
[13:48]And he convinced me.
[13:49]And now, of course, I've come to the other side.
[13:51]And realize that no graphic novels
[13:53]are this amazing way of consuming literature.
[13:56]And that it's such a gift.
[13:58]But I feel like I was one of those early,
[14:01]like it took me a minute to understand.
[14:03]Because especially if you don't read it yourself at first,
[14:06]then you don't understand the magic of it.
[14:08]And now it's ubiquitous.
[14:10]Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[14:11]I mean, I think that's all true.
[14:12]But I do also, in the same way,
[14:15]like when you eat, you're supposed to eat
[14:17]lots of different kinds of food.
[14:19]I think that's true for reading, too.
[14:21]I think we should all read lots of different kinds of books.
[14:24]Like, for instance, if you like dragon hoops,
[14:28]calming Alexander's crossover or a new variant
[14:32]or a big deal, it's awesome, right?
[14:34]It's a great book, yeah.
[14:35]And there are actually, there are lots of great sports stories.
[14:39]In comics, there's one called Flame Dunk.
[14:40]Can you try that?
[14:41]Slam Dunk?
[14:42]It's a series.
[14:44]Yeah.
[14:45]Yeah, it's a Japanese comic.
[14:46]Oh, yeah.
[14:47]And it's, like, he does action super well.
[14:51]He does, he does like on-core action super well.
[14:53]I read that book over and over again to figure out
[14:55]how to do action dragon hoops.
[14:57]Hey, check it out.
[14:58]You should check it out.
[14:59]And then Matt Jalapeniam has a book called Baldwin Line,
[15:02]which is, I think it's holding first person.
[15:04]It's been a while since I read it.
[15:06]But it's the pros novel about basketball.
[15:08]Are you sure you should be recommending
[15:09]like all your comps here?
[15:11]Yeah.
[15:13]Well, I just think, I think like reading diversity is awesome.
[15:16]I think it's a great way of developing the brain.
[15:19]Diversity in every sense of the word, right?
[15:20]In terms of format, in terms of subject matter,
[15:24]in terms of the kind of characters that are being represented.
[15:27]And you're also now, I believe,
[15:29]turning some of these into TV shows, is that right?
[15:32]Well, we're working slowly.
[15:34]We'll see.
[15:35]I'm definitely a comic book guy, you know,
[15:36]like the comic, the graphic novel,
[15:38]that is what I am truly passionate about.
[15:41]And I kind of think any possible adaptation
[15:44]that may or may not happen,
[15:45]that would just be icing on the cake.
[15:47]But we are.
[15:48]We're like, I have a media agent
[15:49]where we're talking to some folks
[15:51]and we'll see if anything comes with it.
[15:53]And can you tell us a little more about the process
[15:56]of writing a book and illustrating and the graphic?
[15:58]Like, which, how do you even approach it?
[16:00]Do you have like the story structure in mind?
[16:02]And then like, just take us through a sample book of yours
[16:05]and like, where and when you do everything,
[16:08]if you have like it, sketching off it,
[16:09]and just the whole process.
[16:11]So I usually start by with the idea
[16:14]and once I can see a beginning, middle, and end of my head,
[16:18]then I'll write like a synopsis of the story of an outline.
[16:21]So this will be like a real short kind of summary
[16:25]of everything that will happen in the book.
[16:27]And then from that, if I'm writing for like a big company
[16:30]like DC Comics or Nickelodeon,
[16:32]I'll do a script, it kind of looks like a movie script.
[16:34]But if I'm just doing it for me
[16:36]or for one of my friends to illustrate,
[16:39]I'll usually do thumbnail sketches,
[16:40]which are these small sketches of what every page looks like.
[16:45]From there, I'll do the final art.
[16:46]And lately, like Dragon hopes is the first book
[16:49]that I did all on computers.
[16:51]So I have a whack on tablet,
[16:52]which is like a screen that you can draw on
[16:54]and I draw on that.
[16:56]Before that, I used to draw using just a pencil
[16:59]and a Japanese brush pen.
[17:02]I remember I was once in like another country
[17:04]and I got a really bad sun tan.
[17:06]So I had to stay indoors all the time.
[17:08]And it was terrible because it was on a beach.
[17:09]And I just remember every day,
[17:11]I'd read American-born Chinese.
[17:13]We were just so good.
[17:14]Oh, well, I'm sorry for your sun tan,
[17:17]but thank you for reading my book.
[17:20]I didn't know where that was going.
[17:21]I didn't know what you were saying there.
[17:24]I'll take you to heal.
[17:25]About a week by the notifications that were really fun.
[17:28]Okay.
[17:29]Yeah, I guess I said I'm super easy too.
[17:31]I should be able to comment about that.
[17:34]So what projects are you working on now?
[17:36]Well, I do have another book coming out of May.
[17:39]I mean, this is not the best time to debut books,
[17:41]but I have this book right here coming out from DC Comics.
[17:45]It's called Superman Smashes the Clan.
[17:48]The art is not by me.
[17:49]The art is by these Japanese artists.
[17:52]They call themselves Guri Hero
[17:53]and they're freaking amazing.
[17:55]Let me show you.
[17:56]See, that's their rendition of Superman.
[17:58]Oh, wow.
[17:59]But this is actually a retelling of a story
[18:01]from the old 1940s Superman radio show
[18:04]where Superman actually takes on the Ku Klux Klan.
[18:07]That story is considered one of the most important
[18:09]in Superman's history,
[18:11]but it's never been told in comics form.
[18:13]So Guri Hero dot I are putting it in comics for the first time.
[18:17]Wow, cool.
[18:18]Very cool.
[18:19]Yeah, it's not super fun.
[18:19]And do you have any questions?
[18:21]No, I have no questions.
[18:22]No more questions?
[18:23]No.
[18:25]Well, do you have any advice to aspiring authors,
[18:27]or particularly authors who are trying to be graphic novelists?
[18:30]Like you?
[18:31]Yeah, I mean, I think you just don't wait.
[18:33]You just start now.
[18:34]You start making comics as soon as you can.
[18:37]Like I said, comics are one of these things
[18:39]where you don't really need permission to make them.
[18:42]You can just make them.
[18:43]All you really need to distribute them
[18:45]is like a Xerox machine,
[18:46]or you can even do it on the web now,
[18:48]which is not available to me when I was in fifth grade, right?
[18:50]You can scan it in, put it on a website,
[18:52]start making comics now.
[18:53]That's my biggest advice.
[18:54]Well, that would definitely give us something to do
[18:56]during this home confinement situation in the country.
[18:59]So thank you for that.
[19:00]Yeah.
[19:01]What's that?
[19:02]That's a great time in the big comics.
[19:03]Yeah, I'm sure.
[19:05]Well, Jean, thank you so much for coming on Mom's No Time
[19:08]to read books.
[19:08]I really appreciate it.
[19:10]Yeah, thanks.
[19:11]Thanks, you both.
[19:12]All right, awesome.
[19:13]Thank you.
[19:14]All right, well, have a great day.
[19:15]Thank you.
[19:16]Thank you for your time.
[19:16]OK, thanks, Jean.
[19:17]Bye-bye.
[19:18]Bye.
[19:19]You've been listening to Mom's and have time to read books
[19:21]with Zibi Owens.
[19:22]Please make sure to sign up for my newsletter
[19:24]at zibiowans.com to get more updates about episodes like these
[19:28]and also lots of live events.
[19:30]Thanks again to Dear Annabelle.
[19:31]Today's sponsor of the podcast, Dear Annabelle.com.
[19:35]Code Zibi15 to get 15% off of engraved stationary, notepads,
[19:39]place cards, and more.
[19:41]You can follow me on Instagram at Mom's Don't Have Time
[19:44]to Read Books.
[19:45]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound
[19:47]for the Sound Editing.
[19:49]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[19:50]for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music.
[19:53]Thanks for listening.
[19:54]You can always email me at zibiatzibiowans.com.