This weekend is the first annual Asian American Comic Con! It’s this Saturday, July 11, 10:00am - 5:00pm at the brand-new Museum of Chinese in America in New York City. You can register here – but do so quickly, as there are only 250 tickets available. It’s a full day of programming, with panels, the presentation of the first Kiyama Award to the legendary Larry Hama, and even an artists alley! Ken Chen, of the Asian American Writers Workshop, describes it as “a mash-up of a fan convention, an Asian American Studies conference and a literary festival… a one-of-a-kind event that’ll put superhero comic artists, professors, and novelists at the same table to discuss how we read comics today.” Along with myself, there’s great list of guests, including:

Larry Hama (writer, G.I. Joe)

Bernard Chang (artist, Wonder Woman)

Derek Kirk Kim (artist, The Eternal Smile)

Greg Pak (writer, Incredible Hulk)

Khoi Pham (artist, Mighty Avengers)

Sean Chen (artist, Iron Man)

Christina Strain (colorist, Runaways)

Fred Chao (writer/artist, Johnny Hiro)

Christine Norrie (artist, Breaking Up)

Tak Toyoshima (writer/artist, Secret Asian Man)

Misako Rocks! (writer/artist, Biker Girl)

Kuo-Yu Liang (VP Sales & Marketing, Diamond Book Distributors)

Sharad Devarajan (CEO, Liquid Comics)

William F. Wu (writer, Hong on the Range)

The Editors of Secret Identities

Other special guests of the con will include: Ben Nugent, author, American Nerd; Hua Hsu, professor, Vassar College; Ed Lin, author of Waylaid and This Is a Bust; Monica Ferrell, author, The Answer Is Always Yes; Monica Youn, author, Ignatz (forthcoming); Vyshali Manivannan, author, Invictus; Paolo Javier, author, 60 lv Bo(e)mbs; Jennifer Lee, former editor, Marvel Comics and DC Comics; Kai-Ming Cha, comics and manga reporter, Publishers Weekly; Aimee Bahng, assistant professor, English, Dartmouth College; Ken Okabayashi, founder of Piggy Back Studios; Tyler Chin-Tanner, artist/writer, American Terrorist; Daniel Ketchum, editor, Marvel Comics; Karl Taro Greenfield, author, Speed Tribes; and Arune Singh, sales coordinator, Marvel Comics.

I’ll be participating in a “Visual Storytelling” panel in the morning, and will spend the rest of the day signing and sketching for fundraising at the Secret Identities table (or wherever I can find a seat!). Hope to see you there.