Superheroes are also about immigrants. Superman, the prototype of all superheroes, is a prototypical immigrant. His homeland was in crisis, so his parents sent him to America in search of a better life. He has two names, one American, Clark Kent, and the other foreign, Kal-El. He wears two sets of clothes and lives in between two cultures. He loves his new country, but a part of him still longs for his old one.

What is China but a people and their stories?

In the '40s and '50s, a lot of teachers and librarians saw the graphic novel as the enemy of reading.

One of the ways [racism] pops up is when they turn a comic into a live-action movie and there's this temptation to make Asian characters white.

Coming from the world of comics, I was very surprised that writers and illustrators, for the most part, don't talk, and they don't collaborate.

I think a lot of us who are in books now were nervous children.

I find that nowadays it's just gotten harder for me to read for fun. It feels like all of my reading is research-based.