Wanna give a shout-out to Ali at Worducopia and Susan at Color Online and say thanks for starting this. It’s giving me an opportunity to actually provide opinions about things instead of posting news items all day and hopefully I’ve attracted a few new readers as a result.

Susan says next month is Asian Heritage Month, so the theme this week is Asian and Asian-American creators. And since manga is not exactly something I’m knowledgeable about, I’ll stick to discussing comics by Asian-Americans.

Two of the most prominent AA creators right now are Derek Kirk Kim and Gene Luen Yang. The former is Korean, the latter Chinese, and both creators weave elements of their respective cultures in their work while keeping them accessible to all audiences.

Kim’s books, like Same Difference and Other Stories, are marked by a love of geek culture and the awkwardness of young adult relationships. His autobiographical stories have a self-depreciating humor that also pokes fun at certain unusual aspects of Korean life. He can take on a variety of art styles, and the anthology Same Difference alternates from the semi-realistic style of the title story to a broad, almost diagrammatic technique for some of his single-page gag strips.

Yang’s books, like the critically-acclaimed American Born Chinese, have a more spiritual bent to them, though they stop short of proselytizing. CO and Worducopia readers may recall that ABC made history in 2006 by becoming the first graphic novel to be nominated for a National Book Award.

The two recently teamed up to create a new graphic novel anthology, The Eternal Smile. I just finished reading it. While I think the three stories in this book rely a little too much on the M. Night Shyamalan-like twist (which Yang did use to magnificent effect in ABC), it’s still enjoyable enough to serve as an introduction to the two creators’ work if you’ve never read them before.

In addition: Adrian Tomine has done a variety of quiet, introspective relationship comics, including his long-running series Optic Nerve… My friend Stan Yan makes humor comics, my favorite being The Wang. He really has gotten better and better as an artist over the years, so if you like raunchy-yet-geeky humor, give his comics a try… This spring has seen the release of an anthology of AA talent called Secret Identities. (Here’s an interview with one of the editors.) Haven’t read it yet, but the buzz is positive… The first time I saw Jen Wang’s work, it was as part of the phenomenal anthology Flight, and I thought she was one of the brightest spots of what is by all accounts a superlative collection of young comics talent.

And while I’m not that much into manga, there is one manga that I’ve read that left a huge impression on me: Eagle: The Making of an Asian-American President by Kaiji Kawaguchi. Long before America even heard of Barack Obama, here was a story of a minority running for – and winning – the White House. Written during the Clinton administration, some of it may seem dated, especially in this post 9-11 world, but it does a superb job of chronicling the suspense of a political campaign, with all the double dealing, intrigue, highs and lows that come with it.