MF GALAXY

In 1967, actor Scott Wilson delivered a chilling performance in In Cold Blood that put him on the cover of Life Magazine when he was only 24 years old. He went on to appear in numerous celebrated films including The Great Gatsby, The Right Stuff, Dead Man Walking, and Monster, and he was a recurring guest on CSI.

But it’s his work on the highest-rated US television show, The Walking Dead, in which Wilson plays veterinarian and farmer Hershel Greene, that has done more than anything before to make Wilson a star. He now earns more from his autograph-signing sessions at conventions than he does from acting, and The Walking Dead is the focus of our conversation: the physical difficulties of playing Hershel; the dramatic power of Hershel’s personality and character arc; and the series’ outstanding acting, directing, and production.

Throughout this episode, Wilson refers to Ernest Dickerson, the acclaimed television and feature filmmaker who directed many of the most action-packed episodes of The Walking Dead. Wilson also refers to Dickerson in the context of the 1992 Spike Lee feature Malcolm X, for which Dickerson was the director of photography. At the end, Dickerson joins us to discuss working with Scott Wilson

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Acclaimed for stunning performances in films such as In the Heat of the Night and In Cold Blood, actor Scott Wilson is and best known to today’s audiences as Hershel Greene on AMC’s adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead.

Wilson got an early boost from superstar Sidney Poitier who respected his work on In the Heat of the Night. Poitier alerted In Cold Blood director Richard Brooks about the young actor who went on to beat out Steve McQueen and Paul Newman for his role as real-life murderer Dick Hickock. His chilling performance put him on the cover of Life Magazine when he was only 24 years old.

Wilson went on to appear in numerous celebrated films including The Great Gatsby, The Right Stuff, Dead Man Walking, and Monster, and he was a recurring guest on CSI. Although by his own description he was devoted to the craft of acting and never sought fame, Wilson is now so much of a fan favourite that he earns even more from his autograph-signing sessions at conventions than he does from his acting. Wilson spoke with me via Skype from the backyard of his home in Studio City, California, on January 13, 2015, when he discussed his approach to acting, and how he came to craft his iconic performances in In the Heat of the Night and In Cold Blood, and The Walking Dead.

Gene Luen Yang is the celebrated graphic novelist behind the recent LA Times Book Prize-winner Boxers & Saints and the award-winning American Born Chinese.He’s the first comic creator to be nominated for the US National Book Award and the first to win the American Library Association’s Printz Award. He’s also the writer of the graphic novel sequels to the animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender. Somehow while he’s changing the face of American comics, Yang finds the time to teach high school computer science and graduate-level creative writing.

In part two of our conversation, Yang discusses:

• how and why he joined three previously unrelated stories together to create his career-defining graphic novel American Born Chinese
• how story and structure drove each other in American Born Chinese and Boxers & Saints
• the anti-colonial movement featured in Boxers & Saints, a militia of traditional Chinese fighters called the Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists that the British occupiers blandly described as the “Boxer Rebellion,” since they didn’t know the terms wushu or kung-fu
• why the Saints volume is so much larger than the Boxers volume, and why his publisher scuttled his plans to publish the Saints volume on deliberately inferior production materials
• how he created the Saints protagonist Four-Girl, cruelly rejected by her own family and one of Yang’s few female protagonists, who is in fact partly based on one of his own relatives
• the difference between being auteur on his own properties and the writer who has to explain everything for an artist, including the Japanese female art team Gurihiru that illustrates his Avatar scripts
• how difficult it is to earn a living through comics, and why he hasn’t yet crowdfunded his work, and
• his favourite Asian, African, and Indigenous American graphic novelists and writers

Gene Luen Yang is the celebrated graphic novelist behind the recent Boxers & Saints and the award-winning American Born Chinese, and a remarkable force in the world of American comics. While thoroughly enthralled by the artistic traditions and lore of US superheroes, Yang is equally engaged by other artistic traditions such as Chinese opera, which is full of super-powered heroes and villains in primary-coloured costumes, and massive backstories with centuries of continuity behind them.

Although Yang laboured for years at making comics and losing money, he eventually struck adamantium with American Born Chinese. The 2006 graphic novel features a contemporary Chinese-American boy, an outrageously offensive fictionalised sitcom character named Chin-Kee, and the Monkey King from classical Chinese literature. The book is Yang’s fascinating fusion of three stories exploring alienation, racial self-hatred, and transformation of social consciousness and personal self-concept.

The graphic novel established Yang as one of the most important graphic novelists in the United States. It won the Eisner Award for Best Graphic Album, and became the first graphic novel to be nominated for a US National Book Award, and the first to win the American Library Association’s Printz Award. His 2013 two-volume Boxers & Saints explores the Chinese anti-colonial struggle that also pitted traditionalist Chinese against Chinese Christian converts, and by taking sides with neither, the book humanises both. It received a nomination for a US National Book Award and won the L.A. Times Book Prize.

In addition to having written and drawn many other works, Yang currently writes the sequel graphic novels to the animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender, where he ceded art-creation duties to the Japanese duo Gurihiru. He’s also taught high school computer science for almost twenty years and creative writing through Hamline University’s MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults.

Gene Luen Yang spoke with me via Skype on December 10, 2014, from his home office in Oakland, California. In our conversation, Yang explains:

• What keeps him from migrating to an all-digital workflow in comics creation
• Why he regards his own art style as simple
• Why he doesn’t illustrate the Avatar: The Last Airbender graphic novels that he writes
• His surprising opinions of Marjane Satrapi’s award-winning Persepolis,
• How dramatic, personal comics demand an inverted Kirbyist style, and
• What links Roman Catholicism, computer science, and comic books.
  

Comic book writer Brandon Easton’s original graphic novel Shadowlaw received an Eisner Award nomination for Best Single Issue and won the East Coast Black Age of Comics (or ECBAC) Glyph Award for Best Writer.

For scripting Watson and Holmes #6, Easton won three Glyph Awards, including Fan Award, Story of the Year, and Best Writer. He’s also written Miles Away, Roboy, The Joshua Run, and Arkanium, the motion comic Armarauders, and a bio-graphic novel about pro-wrestler Andre the Giant.

In addition to being the documentary film-maker behind Brave New Souls: Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Writers of the 21st Century, Easton is a screenwriter who’s worked on Transformer Rescue Bots and the 2011 reboot of ThunderCats.

In part 2 of our conversation, we discuss:

Screen animation and comic book writer Brandon Easton has written for the animated series Transformer Rescue Bots and the 2011 reboot of ThunderCats, and for comics including Shadowlaw, Watson & Holmes, Miles Away, Roboy, The Joshua Run, and Arkanium, and the motion comic Armarauders. He’s also authored a bio-graphic novel about pro-wrestler Andre the Giant.

News outlets such as Forbes and Wired have noted Easton’s work, and so have awards juries. Easton's original graphic novel Shadowlaw received a 2014 Best Single Issue nomination from the Eisner Comic Industry Award. In 2014, the East Coast Black Age of Comics, or ECBAC, gave Easton three Glyph Awards, including Fan Award, Story of the Year, and Best Writer, for scripting Watson and Holmes #6, and in 2013, the Best Writer Glyph for Shadowlaw.

Easton is also the documentary film-maker behind Brave New Souls: Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Writers of the 21st Century.

Easton spoke with me on December 18, 2014 via Skype from his office in Los Angeles. We discussed what writers need to do—other than write—if they want to work in Hollywood; the differences between writing for animation and writing for live action; how to write scripts for comic books.

This episode begins with our discussion of what the recent Sony hacks revealed about why major US studios exclude African-American movie stars from even being contenders for casting in countless motion pictures.

Dr. Lorraine Monroe has been a teacher and professor of education for decades, and has made a significant impact on the way that children are educated and teachers are taught to teach in New York City.

Dr. Monroe is the founder and Executive Director of School Leadership Academy, an educational consultant, and was the Chief Executive for Instruction at the NYC Board of Education. She founded the Center for Minority Achievement at Bank Street College and is a member of the Board of Trustees at Columbia University Teachers College.

I spoke with Dr. Monroe after she’d just given a talk about the schools that she oversaw, and how their transformative mission requires them to fight the many ways that Euro-American schools poison African-American children.

She spoke of the necessity of getting city kids out of the city and into nature, and in particular to a healing camp that provided meditation that they loved, a camp whose quiet restored their serenity and gave them the blessing of stillness.

Monroe spoke of learning and teaching compassion by taking care of hurt or abandoned animals as means to help children become better citizens, and she emphasised the importance of, as she put it, putting the feet where you want the feet to go, and planting the seeds where you want the seeds to grow—that is, taking children who are the victims of the American political-economic-social-educational system to visit colleges and universities so they will be more likely to see post-secondary education as a natural part of their own futures, thereby transforming them into victors in their own lives and communities.

For 15 years African-American comedian Darryl Lenox has been touring across North America and headlining at comedy clubs, becoming one of the best stand-ups in the game.

In addition to appearing on the Conan O’Brien Show, A&E's Evening at the Improv, BET's Comic View, The Best of Just For Laughs Comedy Festival New Year's Eve Special, and Comedy Central Jamie Foxx's Laffa Polooza, Lenox has performed at the HBO Comedy Arts Festival and the comedy festivals of Boston, Chicago, and Vancouver, and won the Seattle Comedy Competition and Best New Play at Vancouver Fringe Festival.

Lenox has even had his own hour-long special on Starz Network called Blind Ambition, whose title referred to his own serious eye problems, which motivated him to work with the Third World Eye Care Society that provides eye exams and donated eye glasses to people in developing countries. The following is the promo for Blind Ambition.

In part 2, Lenox explains how he used European orchestral music to transform his suicidal terror of going totally blind into a comedy routine that has become the most important performance of his career. He also explains his own perspective on comedy career development.

Darryl Lenox is one of my favourite comedians, and while his routines are hilarious, I respect the intellectual weight he brings to his work that arises from his education, his socio-political perspective, and his international experience.

For twelve years we got to claim him as an African-Canadian, but he’s originally from the US and to the US he has returned. He’s spent 15 years touring and headlining comedy clubs, researching human behaviour and calibrating his comedic lasers.

But no matter where Darryl Lenox goes, he’s hilarious. He’s had his own hour-long special on Starz Network called Blind Ambition, a reference to his own serious eye problems that led him to work with the Third World Eye Care Society that provides eye exams and donated eye glasses to people in developing countries.

In addition to appearing on the Conan O’Brien Show, A&E's Evening at the Improv, BET's Comic View, The Best of Just For Laughs Comedy Festival New Year's Eve Special, and Comedy Central Jamie Foxx's Laffa Polooza, Lenox has performed at the HBO Comedy Arts Festival and the comedy festivals of Boston, Chicago, and Vancouver, and won the Seattle Comedy Competition and Best New Play at Vancouver Fringe Festival.