Long Distance Relationship: Asian American Comics Artists and the Complexities of Connecting

Eddie Ahn, Rina Ayuyang, Tessa Hulls, MariNaomi, and Thien Pham

Long Distance Relationship presents five creators employing a range of styles and techniques to explore their complicated relationships with family, culture, and community.

Eddie Ahn’s renderings unpack his conflicted feelings about his profession and his Korean parents’ expectations. Rina Ayuyang’s hand-made and digital drawings detail her zeal for entertainment and its place in the Filipino-American experience. In pen and ink, Tessa Hulls interweaves Chinese history and three generations of trauma and love. With ink, colored pencil, and humor, MariNaomi’s projects chronicle their relationships with family, friends, Northern California, and Japan, often challenging simplistic concepts of identity. With a focus on food, Thien Pham’s digital creations tell his Vietnamese family’s immigration story and what it takes to survive and belong.

Culled from recently published books, as well as sketchbooks, zines, and commissions, the artworks in Long Distance Relationship demonstrate the power of comics to depict emotional depth and the universal need for connection.

–Glori Simmons and Jenifer K Wofford, Curators

Image credit: Tessa Hulls, from Feeding Ghosts, A Graphic Memoir, ink on paper, 2024

About the Artists

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Eddie Ahn

Eddie Ahn (he/him) is the writer and artist of a graphic memoir, Advocate, (Penguin Random House, 2024) that chronicles his professional trajectory from college to the San Francisco environmental justice organization, Brightline.

 

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Rina Ayuyang

Award-winning cartoonist Rina Ayuyang’s (she/her) newest book, The Man in The McIntosh Suit, (Drawn & Quarterly Press, 2023) is a Filipino-American take on Depression-era noir featuring mistaken identities, speakeasies, and lost love in San Francisco’s Manilatown.

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Tessa Hulls

Tessa Hulls (she/her) is an artist, a writer, and an adventurer and the author of Feeding Ghost (MCD, Farrer, Strause and Giroux, 2024), a graphic memoir that explores three generations of women from China to the US.

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MariNaomi

MariNaomi (they/them) is the award-winning author and illustrator of numerous graphic memoirs and YA novels, including Turning Japanese (2dcloud, 2016; Extended edition Oni Press, 2023), the Life On Earth trilogy (Graphic Universe, 2018-2020), and I Thought You Loved Me (Fieldmouse Press, 2023). Their work has appeared in over 100 publications.

Image credit: Tessa Hulls, from Feeding Ghosts, A Graphic Memoir, ink on paper, 2024

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Thien Pham

Thien Pham (he/him) is a graphic novelist and educator. He is the author and/or illustrator of several middle-grade graphic novels, including Sumo and Level Up. His most recent work, Family Style (First Second, 2023), is a graphic memoir about his family's immigration to America told through the lens of food.

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