A few years ago, I read an article about Chu Hing and the Green Turtle on the Internet. I thought about how exciting it must have been to be a part of those early days of superhero comics. I also thought about how hard it probably was to be a Chinese American artist at a time when people of Chinese descent often weren’t accepted as Americans. I was so inspired by Chu Hing that I teamed up with my friends Sonny Liew and Janice Chiang to create the Green Turtle story that you just read. We also made a graphic novel called The Shadow Hero which tells our version of his secret origin. Over seventy years after Chu Hing created him, we are still telling stories about the Green Turtle. This Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month, join Panda Express and me as we celebrate not just Asian Pacific American heroes, but all the heroes in our lives. Some of these heroes are made-up, like the Green Turtle. Others are real, like Chu Hing. All of them inspire us to never give up. If you like drawing pictures, keep drawing pictures. If you like telling stories, keep telling stories. Don’t give up. After all, you never know who you’ll inspire. Gene Luen Yang National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature Blazing Comics, 1944 The Shadow Hero, 2014