SANTA CRUZ — Walk into any bookstore or library, and you will be guaranteed to find a plethora of graphic novels, maybe even entire sections dedicated to them. The combination of text and vivid imagery to tell long-form stories is a very popular format for both telling original stories and adapting comics and pre-existing books.
Related Articles
Move over, Fabio. Romance novels have changed — and so has the community
Alice Munro dies at 92; beloved Canadian author revered as short story master
Los Gatos resident’s new bookstore goes Beyond Text
Los Gatos Library accepts $500 donation from local student
Cinco de Mayo in California has evolved and endures as an important reason to celebrate
Marvel and DC had early success with the medium in the ’80s with series such as “Marvel Graphic Novel” and “Watchmen,” and cartoonist Will Eisner is considered the father of the graphic novel with the publication of “A Contract with God” in 1978. However, a year before that, artist Phil Yeh published “Even Cazco Gets the Blues,” kicking off a long and successful career and giving him the title of “Godfather of the Modern American Graphic Novel.” He will be stopping in the Santa Cruz area for an appearance at Atlantis Fantasyworld May 29 and a pair of workshops at the Felton and Downtown Santa Cruz libraries June 1.
Yeh said he was going to be in the area anyway as he was planning to see folk singer Natalie Merchant at the Mountain Winery in Saratoga for a show that had been rescheduled from September. He was recommended to appear at Atlantis Fantasyworld by a friend.
“I don’t like to travel unless I’m doing something,” he said. “We’re doing a signing, and then I’m doing a couple of library events.”
Yeh has been drawing and painting since he was 2, a hobby encouraged by his engineer father who would frequently bring home computer paper from work as well as pencils, paints and crayons.
“He never gave me any toys, so I didn’t have any toys, but he said, ‘Here’s paper,’” he said. “I didn’t really miss toys.”
By the time he was a teenager, Yeh became interested in becoming a cartoonist and attended the first Comic-Con in San Diego in 1970. Two of the guests that year were Marvel’s Jack Kirby, who helped create characters like the X-Men and Captain America, and Ray Bradbury, author of “The Martian Chronicles” and “Fahrenheit 451.” Yeh met both of them, telling Bradbury he wanted to become a writer but was not very good at spelling. Bradbury told him, “Just write because they have editors. Editors will fix your spelling.”
Yeh told Kirby he wanted to be a comic book artist and asked if he would need to go to college. Kirby said “There’s no college for comic book artists. Just do it.”
This inspired Yeh to start his own publishing company called Eastwind Studios/Fragments West, and he joined the staff of California State University Long Beach’s student newspaper The Daily 49er and then launched the alternative paper Uncle Jam, where he interviewed people such as French cartoonist Jean Giraud and Mad Magazine creator Harvey Kurtzman.
At the urging of his friend Richard Kyle, the owner of Wonderworld Books in Long Beach who first coined the term “graphic novel” in a 1964 essay, Yeh was encouraged to create his first graphic novel. Kyle felt graphic novels would have more durability than comic books, which had short shelf lives due to being printed on cheap pulp paper.
“He said, ‘Comic books should be like graphic novels because it should be on the shelves forever,’” he said.
Yeh published “Even Cazco Gets the Blues” in 1977, based on a comic he had written for The Daily 49er called “Cazco in College” about a Tibetan foreign exchange student. He would go on to write or illustrate many graphic novels over the decades, including the “Frank the Unicorn” and “Winged Tiger” series, and the Children’s Choice Award-winning “Dinosaurs Across America” in which a group of dinos teach readers about the states.
Yeh is pleased about the enduring popularity of graphic novels, especially given how long it took for them to catch on.
“It took a long time to really convince libraries especially that they should have a section for graphic novels,” he said. “I went around the country, I went to the book fair in Los Angeles that year in 1977 and really started promoting the concept because at the time, nobody really had the concept. Comic books were really seen as disposable, except for collectors.”
One of Yeh’s proudest achievements is his longtime efforts to promote literacy. In 1985, he interviewed Wally Amos — founder of Famous Amos cookies and future “Learn to Read” host — who hosted a summer reading program and gave out cookies at the library Yeh went to as a kid, inspiring him to combat the growing illiteracy rates.
“I told Wally, ‘OK, I can’t really do anything about curing cancer, but I can do something about literacy,’” he said.
Yeh founded Cartoonists Across America & The World, which has partnered with different artists to paint murals promoting literacy at libraries in 49 states, three Canadian provinces and 15 countries. Guest artists have included “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” co-creator Kevin Eastman and celebrities such as Alan Alda, Mr. T and former first lady Barbara Bush who helped paint a mural in the Library of Congress.
Yeh believes comics and newspaper cartoons are effective ways to inspire kids to read.
“The cartoons are something that everybody can read, and a lot of people do read,” he said. “It’s a natural thing to increase literacy.”
Another proud moment for Yeh came a decade earlier when he interviewed Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel. Shortly before the iconic superhero’s debut in 1938, Siegel and collaborator Joe Shuster sold the rights to Superman to Detective Comics, depriving Siegel and Shuster of compensation for many decades following the character’s runaway success. Both twice unsuccessfully sued the company, which cut ties with them after 1966, after which Siegel fell into financial hardship.
When Warner Bros. announced it would be producing a “Superman” movie in 1975, Siegel issued a nine-page press release denouncing the film, detailing how he and Shuster were denied credit and cheated out of royalties and requested an interview to tell his story. The press release was reportedly sent out to thousands of publications, but only Yeh responded. At the time, he was publishing an arts newspaper called Cobblestone, which did its typesetting at the Marina News offices in Long Beach. He was presented with the release by that paper’s editor, and he went to interview Siegel in his LA apartment. The story resulted in Warner Bros., DC’s owner, agreeing to pay Siegel and Shuster a lifetime stipend of $30,000 a year as long as they did not contest Superman’s copyright ownership.
“We were instrumental in getting them money and also credit,” said Yeh. “Their names are restored as creators of Superman.”
Yeh’s newest book is “Places,” a collection of watercolor paintings of some of the places Yeh has visited over the years, including New York, Paris, San Francisco and, yes, Santa Cruz, which features a Boardwalk backdrop.
“Places” by Phil Yeh features watercolor paintings of places Yeh has visited over the decades, including Santa Cruz. (Contributed — Phil Yeh)
“I’ve been traveling on my own since I was 16, and I’ve been all over the world,” he said. “I’m going to be 70 this October, so these are the places that really meant the most to me. I had significant events happen to me in each of these places.”
Yeh will be bringing some of his books to Atlantis Fantasyworld for a book signing. Following that, he will be hosting a pair of library workshops to demonstrate writing comic books, creating characters and incorporating principles of humor. One thing he wants to impart is the same thing Bradbury and Kirby told him: Just go for it.
“I believe that if you want to be creative, be creative,” he said. “It’s a unique experience because most people have a fallback job. I’ve never had a job really, so I really explain that to people that I made my living just strictly from doing my art. I think it’s important that people hear that, especially young people because a lot of young people want to be creative, but they don’t know where to start.”
Yeh will be at Atlantis Fantasyworld 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. May 29 at 1020 Cedar St., Santa Cruz. The June 1 workshops are 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the Felton Branch Library, 6121 Gushee St., Felton and 3:30 to 5 p.m. at the Downtown Santa Cruz Library, 224 Church St.
