2009 Rewind: The Year of Secret Identities, Part Three

As promised, we're continuing our end-of-the-year recap focusing on Springtime in the SI Universe. After spending a good portion of April doing media appearances, including events at NYU and Williams College--and, as documented yesterday, a swing through some awesome schools in Illinois and Indiana--the month of May was one major event after another. I think it had something to do with May being Asian American Heritage Month.

I don't think having the book published close to APA month was a coincidence. I mean, what better time to showcase Asian American superheroes than Asian American Heritage Month, right? The month included a slew of press, including an extensive feature on the State Department's official website America.gov! We also launched the first of six special Teacher Guides (the rest of which will be released throughout 2010).

We also kicked off the month-long festivities attending Free Comic Book Day in Baltimore with Greg LaRocque and on a wet, wet Sunday in New York City for the 30th annual A/PA Heritage Festival. Despite the torrential downpour, we had the opportunity to meet a ton of people and make new fans. The CAPA fest wasn't our only major appearance in New York, however. For the entire month, original artwork was on display in the Time Life building on Sixth Avenue. The gallery was meant to promote a special reception and panel held on May 21 and presented by Time Inc's Asian American Association. In addition to myself, Jeff & Jerry, we were joined on the panel by SI Senior Artist Jef Castro, and comic superstar artists Christine Norrie and Cliff Chiang. The whole thing was expertly moderated by DC/Vertigo editor Pornsak Pichetshote.

Check out photos from the panel on Facebook.

A few days later, the six of us were joined by the Man himself, G.I. Joe creator and living legend Larry Hama, for a special signing at the world famous Midtown Comics in Times Square. Facebook photos available here. The website Pop Culture Shock was there to capture the whole thing on video:


A week later, we capped off APA month with a whirlwind weekend of events in and around Los Angeles. Basically, if you were a bookstore or library in Southern California, chances are, somebody from Secret Identities was there! Outside of San Diego Comic-Con, I'm pretty sure our main event at the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo was the biggest gathering of Secret Identities contributors ever. Jerry's excellent recap -- with some great candid photos -- of the weekend can be read at his blog here.

And that does it for April and May. But we weren't finished quite yet because Summer = Convention season! And not only did we have a presence at the trifecta of Comic-Cons (i.e., New York, San Diego, and Baltimore), we decided to throw our own Asian American ComiCon too! Read all about it next time!