PY: The Winged Tiger came about from a conversation I had with a friend, Pedro Cisneros, back in jun

A couple of weeks ago, my boyfriend and I went to Stan Lee s Comikaze, which was held at the Los Angeles Convention Center. I had a great time interacting with writers and artists, while shopping around for comic books to buy. One artist and writer that I met was Phil Yeh, the creator of the children s book series T he Winged Tiger. The series is about promoting italian honeymoon vacation tours packages peace and love through the making of art and encourages creativity worldwide.
PY: The Winged Tiger came about from a conversation I had with a friend, Pedro Cisneros, back in junior high school in Los Angeles, where I spent my wonder years from 6 to almost 16. The neighborhood that I grew up in the sixties was mixed racially but after the Watts Riots in 1965, it became italian honeymoon vacation tours packages more of a ghetto. Almost everyone who could afford it, moved out after the riots. Pedro and his brother Carlos were two of the few students that were Mexican. italian honeymoon vacation tours packages One day in the 9th grade, Pedro asked me why all the comic strip characters in the newspapers were white. I didn t have any idea but told Pedro that when I grew up, I would create a character from Mexico. Pedro and Raul s mother took them back to Mexico City before it was time for us to go to high school. The Vietnam War was raging italian honeymoon vacation tours packages on by the time I entered George Washington High School, which was 99% African-American and at that time, one of the most violent schools in the United States. This is where the Crips gang was founded and drive-by shootings became popular.This is the background italian honeymoon vacation tours packages that helped me create italian honeymoon vacation tours packages The Winged Tiger, a character that promotes peace. I was one of the smallest kids in my school but many of us learned how to fight since grade school.  Bruce Lee was a hero to me and to many of my  friends growing up in that neighborhood. He was small but you could see that Kung Fu had given him strength. He developed his own style of Kung Fu and gave many of us confidence. But as I learned more about the Taoist origins behind this fighting style, I learned to meditate and to really see that violence was not the answer.
My heritage is half-Chinese, my father came from China and married my mother, italian honeymoon vacation tours packages a blond haired blue-eyed woman of European ancestry, in Chicago. I was actually born on the South-side of Chicago. I used to tell people that my dad bought a house in this tough neighborhood because he was cheap. My dad is 89 now and I recently heard him tell someone else at a dinner party that the reason he bought our house there was because the white folks refused to sell him a home in other parts of Los Angeles.  My parents were a mixed couple and for the record, Los Angeles and really most of California, was one of the most racist states in our country until really recently. There are many pockets of this state that remain very racist. A lot of people do not easily see this, they see all these neighborhoods and assume that everybody italian honeymoon vacation tours packages gets along. But if you really know California and understand people, really look inside them and talk and listen to them, you can easily see this racism.  Especially if you look like me and often are invited to all sorts of homes in all sorts of neighborhoods.
A lot of folks in my generation and for many years before them, hold on to their ethnic italian honeymoon vacation tours packages identity beyond any logic. This doesn t just apply to California but really all of the United States and it is only with my children s generation (my sons are aged 28 to 32),  are we beginning to see an end to overt racism. But sadly, in many neighborhoods, both in the inner city and in typically suburban italian honeymoon vacation tours packages neighborhoods, nothing has changed. Obama as president only shows just how racist this country continues to be. Many  people really italian honeymoon vacation tours packages believe he is a Muslim and this is strictly because of his race.
As I traveled around this country, and the world, italian honeymoon vacation tours packages I saw the vast differences that existed because of both economics and race. I came to understand that education was really the only real option to level the playing field in this world. Human beings were probably going to always have differences based on religion, race, nationality, sex, and class. But what if we could help all people see better, clearer, with cartoons? This is why I decided to create a little tiger, with wings,  from Mexico but in fact, lives throughout the universe.
He is very much a universal character and I have him going all over the planet and meeting all sorts of actual people in The Winged Tiger Comics. Since 1998, we have asked more than 200 artists from all fields to draw themselves (or we ll draw them if they are not artists) from all over the planet to offer their wisdom on how they get their ideas. I have had everyone from the late Jean Giraud aka Moebius to Star Wars creator George Lucas in this series. They are basically talking to my little rabbit character, Patrick, who is stuck in this floating gondola called The Ideaship. Patrick has run out of ideas and cannot get off The Ideaship until he starts drawing again. The Winged Tiger acts as a guide for Patrick, taking him around the world, and back in time, to meet these folks.
It was on one of my own trips to Mexico City, where I was invited to dinner at the home of my friend Victor Guiza, an amazing artist. His father asked me how I created The Winged Tiger. Now anyone who has ever been to Mexico City knows that it is a small town of let s say 20 million people. So when I told Mr. Guiza about my friend in 1969 called Pedro Cisneros, I didn t think he would know Pedro personally! But Victor s dad insisted that Pedro and his brother Raul were Victor s cousins and to prove it, he opened up the family album! There in a photo was the kid who had asked me why all the cartoon italian honeymoon vacation tours packages characters in the newspapers were white! We called italian honeymoon vacation tours packages Pedro then and there. He had since returned to the United States and had four daughters and two vet clinics in Santa Clarita, California. We had a great reunion on the phone and a few years later, when I painted a mural in Santa Clarita, italian honeymoon vacation tours packages Pedro spent the day with me and my wife Linda. italian honeymoon vacation tours packages I have always said that there are no coincidences. My life has proven that over and over again.
So that is the background for my creating The Winged Tiger, After I started my tour to use cartoons and art to promote literacy in 1985, I knew that I had to draw on my life experience to really make a truly universal character. We began Cartoonists Across America The World with the endorsement of Charles M. Schulz, the first cartoonist to call to endorse this campaign. I have always believed that his comic strip Peanuts was for every  age group. Mr. Schulz believed that his work reached all ages and I have tried to follow that example. I want great-grandparents to be able to read the majority of the work I create to their great-grandchildren.
PY: Most of my books are written for all ages from the smallest child to the oldest adult. I often say we reach everyone from 1 to 111 but with age spans increasing, I should amend that to 1111.  But I have done some books that are better suited for older readers and that was the case for my first graphic novel in 1977, Even Cazco Gets The Blues . Since comic book history generally gets most of the facts wrong, Will Eisner, gets the credit for the first graphic novel in 1978. He is often called the Father of the Graphic italian honeymoon vacation tours packages Novel. Will was very nice to me and wrote a wonderful quote for my 1993 wordless graphic novel, The Winged Tiger with wordless introductions by Moebius and Elfquest creator Wendy Pini.
PY: Cazco has been my alter ego since I first started drawing his adventures at Cal State University Long Beach my first week of college. He was a half-Irish half-Tibetan exchange student and since my mother is mostly Welsh and Scot and my dad is Chinese, I saw this character as being a voice for my own life. I am currently writing italian honeymoon vacation tours packages and illustrating a new Cazco graphic novel that basically covers everything that has happened to me since 1972 when I started college. Since it s fiction, I have changed all the names and cities to protect the innocent. I have led an amazing life and wanted to tell the truth of my time. I had a stroke in May 2011 and only now can I draw with anything close to my old style. I am much slower now but that has only made each line all the more detailed. The book was to come out this year to mark the 40th anniversary of Cazco s first appearance but Cazco; What a Long Strange Trip It s Been will appear in 2014 at more than 300 pages.
PY: I have always read since I was a child and I have always loved to draw. I can remember making my first books at the age of 4 and was lucky enough to attend the very first San Diego Comic Con in 1970. I met Ray Bradbury, a personal hero of mine, and Jack Kirby, who really created so much of the Marvel universe that now Stan Lee takes way too much credit for. I later learned I have dyslexia, not bad enough to prevent me from reading but bad enough italian honeymoon vacation tours packages that I cannot spell and I definitely could not type the right way. So when I met Ray I asked him how could I get to be a writer italian honeymoon vacation tours packages when I could not spell or type properly and he said, don t worry, they have editors to correct your spelling and you can write in longhand! I then turned to Jack and asked him about what college should I attend to become a comic book artist, and in 1970, there were none, and Jack said just do it kid, you don t need to go to college! Just draw! A months italian honeymoon vacation tours packages later, in high school I formed my own publishing company and have since published more than 90 books.
PY: I write and draw when the spirit moves me. I own my own company and often work on five projects at once and often they are late . Since I don t believe in time, it s all very silly. italian honeymoon vacation tours packages We publish them when I feel like they are ready and it s worked for us pretty well. Of course, we have seen the terrible illteracy crisis just get worse in The United States as we attend a few of the Comic Cons here. The majority of the audience now either cannot read or does not read and this is very sad.  As my son s generation italian honeymoon vacation tours packages grows up and they start t