Next month, a  landmark collaboration manifests itself in the stories and visuals of a crazy slew of prominent and creative Asian Americans. Started by Jeff Yang, Parry Shen (Better Luck Tomorrow), Keith Chow, and Jerry Ma, Secret Identities is a comic book anthology of the Asian American experience. They’ve rounded up 66 AA personalities, including Gene Yang (American Born Chinese – He teaches high school computer science and we live in the same area code!), Tak Toyoshima (Secret Asian Man), Kelly Hu (Asian Sorceress Babe in The Mummy), Yul Kwon (Survivor survivor, and my friend‘s ex – Hah!)

It won’t be all old school CRASH BOOM BANG, in fact, it aims to be subversive in the sense that it won’t be overdone sensationalism. After all, real life can’t always be chronicled in action bubbles, and Secret Identities is all about covering everything Asian American – from surreal to everyday. “We wanted to use the conventions of the superhero comic book to expose the real face of the Asian American experience, usually hidden behind the mask of misperception and stereotype,” says Parry Shen, managing editor of the anthology.

The New Press releases Secret Identities to the public on April 15th, and a national tour for the book is already under way. (Unfortunately, it looks like the only Bay Area stop so far is Davis on a Monday night. [April 20th, if you're around then.] Also, the embedded Google Calendar is pretty ridiculous to navigate on their homepage. Oh well. Maybe a redesign will come later.)

I’ve been waiting for this book for months, ever since Martin Hsu blogged that he’s contributing a piece. His dragon boy Long is going to make an appearance, and I’m also excited to report a contribution by my favorite Asian American actress, Lynn Chen! Probably the best AA film of this generation (Yes, tons better than Better Luck Tomorrow), Saving Face is Lynn Chen’s most well-known work to date. In it, she plays a lesbian ballerina who – I know I lost you at “lesbian ballerina.” – is dealing with an in-the-closet girlfriend and life overall. It’s a very solid good film, also starring one of the most well-known Chinese actresses in the entire industry, Joan Chen. Definitely rent, buy, or somehow view it whenever you have the chance.

Anyway, Lynn Chen’s contribution deals with body image and reveals that – surprise! – Asian girls can be bulimic, too. (Not all Asian girls have that tiny, skinny physique. If that were true, I would not be Asian.) Here’s a preview:

The story follows a bulimic teenage girl, Ting on her birthday. What she initially perceives as a “gift” from grandma to help with her eating disorder, in actuality begins to expose Ting towards discovering a healthy Yin/Yang balance of food — with surprising effects.

“Y.A.W.Y.E.” was written by Lynn Chen (Saving Face, Lakeview Terrace) and drawn by Paul Wei (Maxwell Wong).

There’s a lot of promise in this book. Can’t wait to get my own copy!