Graphic novelist Gene Luen Yang has always preferred Marvel to DC.
Funny, since the National Book Award nominee is the author of a new comic from DC Comics. New Super-Man is a series about a Chinese teenager that takes on the super hero role. Yang didn’t come up with the idea, he took the job when DC came to him.
In an interview with The New York Times, Yang talks about backlash from fans that don’t like characters updated. Here is an excerpt from the interview:
So much of the monthly superhero market is driven by nostalgia. But at the same time, we live in a world that’s very different than the one we grew up in. The larger readership wants our stories to reflect what America is today. If we care about diversity and representation, then the approach we need is two-pronged: We need new characters establishing new legacies, and we also need characters that use a pre-existing legacy to attract eyeballs. Ultimately, what you do is never going to please 100 percent of the audience. I do think if you tell a great story, maybe you’ll get some of them to switch over.