Gene Luen Yang bought a copy of DC Comics Presents #57 in fifth grade and it changed his life. Superman and S.T.A.R. scientist Marene Herald were brought to the isolation tank of Gardner Grayle where Gardner’s mind was focused on Atomic Knights in a post-holocaust world.

It was riveting stuff for a 10-year-old.

“The combination of words and pictures did something inside my head that had never been done before, and I immediately fell in love with the medium of comics,” Gene Luen Yang said. “I became a voracious comic book reader, but I never brought them to school. Instinctively, I knew that comic books didn't belong in the classroom.”

The emergence of a true superhero‍

Gene was born in California in 1973, the same year The Amazing Spider-Man and Ironman battled it out at the top of the comic book charts. Things were going to heat up in the world of superheroes from thereon in but Gene’s father, a computer programmer, was definitely not a fan.

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Gene’s school didn’t sell comics at book fairs and they weren’t used in class, so Gene kept his guilty pleasure to himself, reading surreptitiously and learning how to draw his own comic books. Gene figured that life was difficult enough as a child of Taiwanese/Chinese immigrants. He was already an outsider. Gene didn’t want to draw any more attention to himself.

Gene initially wanted to be an animator for Disney, an obsession that started in grade three when he completed a report on Walt Disney, but comics quickly took over. Gene’s father disapproved of his plan to study art at university, so Gene majored in computer science with a minor in creative writing at the University of California, Berkeley.

Before long, Gene had graduated and ditched his job as a computer engineer to become a high school teacher. He self-published comics on the side. His imprint was appropriately called Humble Comics - Gene lost money every time he published anything.

By 1997, however, Gene had self-published Gordon Yamamoto and the King of the Geeks and won a Xeric grant for independent comic book creators. 
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Comics as a teaching aid‍

It wasn’t enough money to quit his day job at Bishop O'Dowd High School in Oakland, California where Gene taught math, art, and computer science. It did reinforce his belief in the power of comic books, however. Gene tried to incorporate comics into his classroom without success.

”My students didn't think I was cool. They thought I was kind of a dork,” he recalled. “And even worse, when stuff got hard in my class, they would use comic books as a way of distracting me. They would raise their hands and ask me questions like: "Mr. Yang, who do you think would win in a fight, Superman or the Hulk?"

Gene was determined to use comics as a teaching aid, however, so he began drawing his lectures as four- to six-page-long comics, which he Xeroxed: “Much to my surprise, these comics lectures were a hit.”

Unlike math textbooks, comics taught students visually. The rate of information flow was in the hands of the reader. When students didn't understand something, they just reread the passage. An idea was born. Gene set out to change how American children were taught.

American Born Chinese‍

Gene’s career as an author catapulted forward with the publication of American Born Chinese (2006), a graphic novel following Jin Wang, a boy who struggles with his identity after moving from San Francisco’s Chinatown to a white suburb. Essentially, the book deals with ethnic stereotyping and won the Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature, the Eisner Award for Best Graphic Album, and a handful of others. 

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He followed up with Boxers & Saints (2013) which deals with anti-foreigner uprisings in China in the 20th century, and received his second National Book Award nomination.

By 2016, Gene was awarded the MacArthur Fellowship ‘genius grant’ which comes with a $625,000 gift. The Foundation recognized Gene for bringing diverse people and cultures to young adult literature and confirming the place of comics as a creative force within literature, art, and education.

The US Library of Congress named him Ambassador for Young People's Literature, noting: “Gene's message of inclusion and acceptance of all people is especially relevant today.”

Exploding the myth

Gene wasn’t sitting on his laurels though. While working on his Master's degree in education, Gene also wanted to know why US educators were reluctant to use comic books in classrooms. He traced the problem back to a psychologist, Dr. Fredric Wertham, who wrote Seduction of the Innocent in 1954. Dr. Wertham argued that comics caused juvenile delinquency. US Senate hearings into the claims damaged the reputation of comics further and educators backed away - and stayed away for decades.

Gene is doing what he can to change the perception that comics cause trouble. He's created several educational tools including the comics series Secret Coders, which aims to teach kids computer science. His online comic Factoring with Mr. Yang & Mosley the Alien offers a new way to teach math.

“America is finally waking up to the fact that comic books do not cause juvenile delinquency,” he said. “They teach visually. They give our students that remote control. The educational potential is there just waiting to be tapped.”
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Justice for all

In his spare time, Gene - who's also behind New Super-Man And The Justice League Of China - joined the board of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, which fights to defend free speech in comic books. The group suffered a major setback in 2020 with a spate of resignations over the board’s handling of sexual harassment complaints. The executive director also resigned.

Gene is committed to carry on for ideological reasons, however: "I believe creators ought to have the freedom to create and readers ought to have the freedom to read. I also believe that the First Amendment, properly understood and applied, is one of our society's most effective tools for self-improvement. Comics have a vital role to play in all of this."