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PORNSAK PICHETSHOTE
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DF Interview: Pornsak Pichetshote reflects today’s world in his ‘30s Chinatown murder mystery, ‘The Good Asian’

 

By Byron Brewer

 

Following Edison Hark – a haunted, self-loathing Chinese-American detective – on the trail of a killer in 1936 Chinatown, The Good Asian is Chinatown noir starring the first generation of Americans to come of age under an immigration ban, the Chinese, as they're besieged by rampant murders, abusive police, and a world that seemingly never changes.

 

Writer Pornsak Pichetshote’s long-awaited follow-up to the critically-acclaimed Infidel with art by Alexandre Tefenkgi (Outpost Zero) is coming, and DF caught up to its scribe to get the full 411.

 

Dynamic Forces: Pornsak, Infidel from Image Comics marked your first major comics work as a writer, to the best of my knowledge, and now we are discussing The Good Asian. But before that, if you will, recount a little about your time in comics pre-writing. It is certainly an admirable stint.

 

Pornsak Pichetshote: Thanks for saying so. I started off as a comic book editor for DC’s Vertigo imprint, working as Vertigo founder Karen Berger’s assistant editor, and, in the process, some of my favorite comic book creators from Grant Morrison to Neil Gaiman to Dave Gibbons. Then I became an editor in my own right, editing comics perennials like Swamp Thing, Mike Carey and Peter Gross’s New York Times Bestseller The Unwritten, and the Eisner-award winning Daytripper, as well as being one of Jeff Lemire’s first editors.

 

From there, Geoff Johns, who at the time was DC’s CCO, recruited me out to Los Angeles to be part of a think tank to turn comics into other media. I eventually became head of the TV department – well, at the start, I was the DC TV department – overseeing and helping develop and produce shows like Arrow, Flash, Gotham, Constantine, and iZombie.

 

DF: Wow, that must have been exciting! What was the impetus to begin writing comics and how did Infidel come about?

 

Pornsak Pichetshote: Comics has and will always be my first love. Before I started at DC, I was on the writing path, so DC became this wonderful decade-plus digression. But I hit a point where I just needed to tell my own stories. The original impetus for Infidel happened in 2009, when America was patting itself on the back for having beaten racism for electing a black president even though Islamophobia was skyrocketing throughout the country. The germ of Infidel became this idea I played with on my off hours and around 2016, after I left DC, I realized the story was too pressing and relevant to sit in a drawer and that I needed to share it with people.

 

DF: I understand that The Good Asian is very personal to you, in light of both your heritage as a Thai-American and unnerving actions in today’s very headlines. Tell readers why you decided to write this comic book.

 

Pornsak Pichetshote: The Good Asian is a genre we call Chinatown noir – a 1936 detective story about the first generation of Americans to come of age under an immigration ban of their own kind – the Chinese. I’m ethnically Chinese on my Dad’s side, and in his later years he became obsessed with his Chinese roots. After he passed, processing that loss led me to learn more about Chinese-American culture, which is where I learned about the Chinese Exclusion Act and the Immigration Act of 1924 – which both prohibited Asians from entering the country at different points in history -- and couldn’t believe I hadn’t known about it before. Originally, the idea of something this important being that obscure collided with my fascination with the Asian crimesolvers of the 1930s – Charlie Chan, Mr. Moto, Mr. Wong – and made me think I could find a new flip on the genre that also had interesting things to say about Asian-American history.

 

I honestly had no idea it would turn out to be as timely as it is -- from the shootings in Atlanta to random attacks to Asian elderly in broad daylight all across the country. But just as unsettling is what’s not making headlines. I just learned my best friend won’t let his Vietnamese wife leave home alone because she was yelled and spit at walking their kid to school, and it wasn’t the first time she’s been accosted. And he’s not the first of my friends to ask their Asian wives not to leave home unaccompanied. These stories went from being infuriating news on the internet to becoming one degree of separation away from me and my family, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried about them getting closer.

 

In regards to how it all relates to my book, all I can say is there’s so much that’s happened in the Asian-American community that we don’t talk about. Our history being one of them, and whether it’s through books like mine or other sources, learning more about that history and where this apex of anti-Asian hate comes from is vital if we’re going to address it.

 

DF: I am very excited about this comic’s goal of exploring race injustice through a noir mystery lens. How did this idea come about, and is that genre a favorite of yours?

 

Pornsak Pichetshote: I’ve been fascinated with the Asian crimesolvers of the 1930s ever since I was a kid. And it was fascinating to me that these stories existed while never acknowledging the racial history of how America refused to allow so many Asians entry into the country. The fact that it gave me the chance to play into noir conventions and an excuse to read Hammett, Chandler, MacDonald, and Mosely novels as research was the icing on the cake.

 

DF: Introduce us to Edison Hark and tell us a little about who he is, what he’s up to and what he faces in 1936 Chinatown.

 

Pornsak Pichetshote: Edison Hark is one of America’s first Asian detectives – which means he’s from Hawaii, because that’s the only state America had Chinese cops during that time (Mainland America wouldn’t have an Asian cop until the late 1950s; America’s first Asian police officer Chang Aparna was from Hawaii and also the inspiration for Charlie Chan). But being a Chinese cop at that time meant mostly policing your own people, and considering how little regard for Asian lives there were at that time, Hark finds himself wondering if upholding the law is just sanctioning abuse against Asians. We’ll see as the story progresses exactly what “policing his own” means and whether readers think he’s being too hard on himself – or too easy.

 

As for what he’s doing in 1936 Chinatown, his adopted brother, Frankie Carroway, has called Hark to San Francisco to find their missing ex-maid, Ivy Chen. His father, millionaire Mason Carroway, was in love with the woman, and Frankie hopes Hark tracking her down when none of the local detectives can and reuniting her with Mason might spark his father’s return to health.

 

DF: I admire nothing of a writer more than research and, as with Infidel, I understand your research into the matters which take place in The Good Asian is especially meticulous. Tell readers about that, especially as it relates to the storyline of this limited noir series.

 

Pornsak Pichetshote: There’s not a ton written about Chinese-Americans in the late 1930s, especially on the topic of what it was like to live under the shadow of the Chinese Exclusion Act by this point. So much of it was taken for granted. Plus, the way we look at immigration and policing has changed so much in just the last ten years, much less almost a hundred years ago, so even what was written would be measured very differently by today’s standards. As a result, it was a lot of cross-referencing different materials to get a bead on the picture I was searching for.

 

I spent years off and on researching the different aspects the book goes into. There’s no less than a dozen books on my desk at a time, and I’ve read countless books, articles, documentaries, etc. on the topics.  I’ve visited San Francisco Chinatown, took a ferry to Angel Island, the immigration station where the Chinese came through, as well as having gone to the CHSA (Chinatown Historical Society of America) which preserves so much Chinese-American culture.  That doesn’t include my research on the noir genre itself, reading classics from Hammett, Chandler, McDonald, Mosely and more, just to make sure I got the feel of the genre right, as well as Asian-American detective novels like the works of Leonard Chang or Henry Chang to see what other writers were doing in a similar vein.

 

And finally, my last – and probably most important -- line of defense is my historical consultant Grant Din who reads over everything just to make sure nothing slipped through the cracks. Even though this is a work of fiction, I really wanted to make sure everything I talk about regarding the experience for the Chinese at the time was backed up by some kind of historical precedent.

 

DF: Why is Alexandre Tefenkgi the right artist for this mag? Talk about your collaboration.

 

Pornsak Pichetshote: I honestly feel so lucky to be working with Alex on this, and we’ve become such friends in the process. Alex has such a clean, precise, yet still emotive line. One of the most amazing things about his art is how good his characters’ acting is and how he’s able to convey multiple emotions in a look. Which is a dream working on a noir book like this. On top of that, he’s just an incredible draftsman, and then when you add his storytelling skills and sense of collaboration… It’s just been an incredibly amazing experience.

 

DF: Pornsak, are there any other projects, inside or outside comics, coming up that you can share with readers?

 

Pornsak Pichetshote: I try to juggle TV and comics work, so comics-wise, I only try to focus on one major project at a time (which makes me ashamed when I compare myself to real comics writers who seem to be writing 4+ books a month). I’m also writing on a TV show for HBO Max which I’m actually not sure if I can talk about yet, but I think / hope people familiar with my work will be excited by it when I finally can.

 

Dynamic Forces would like to thank Pornsak Pichetshote for taking time out of his busy schedule to answer our questions. The Good Asian #1 from Image Comics is slated to be on sale May 5th!

 

 

For more news and up-to-date announcements, join us here at Dynamic Forces, www.dynamicforces.com/htmlfiles/, LIKE us on Facebook, www.facebook.com/dynamicforcesinc, and follow us on Twitter, www.twitter.com/dynamicforces. 



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