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

If you look at our world, we're becoming so much more diverse in every sense of the word. It's not just about culture or identity. It's also about the different ways we communicate.

I think a lot of us go through a period where we feel like outsiders, and deal with that by wishing we were insiders. So that was the emotional core of American Born Chinese.

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

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.

Zombies aren't about zombies. It's not about the dead bodies. I think it's a very hopeful subgenre. It says that regardless of what happens, humanity will get through it. We'll figure out a way to survive.