We’re excited to chat with the Denver-based author-illustrator Stan Yan, known for his unique, spooky stories, as a first-generation American born Chinese creator with decades of comic experience. His upcoming late middle-grade graphic novel, The Many Misfortunes of Eugenia Wang (Atheneum, September 30, 2025), is already a 2025 Junior Library Guild Selection — and it’s packed with humour, horror, and heart. We sat down with Stan to discuss the inspirations behind Eugenia, his creative process, and why human connection is at the heart of his work.
About Stan Yan
Stan is an award-winning, first-generation American-born-Chinese, Denver-based writer, illustrator, caricature artist, and instructor. He is currently the Co-Regional Advisor for the Rocky Mountain Chapter of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (RMC-SCBWI), a professor at the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design, and co-founding professor of the CuddlefishAcademy.com kidlit art school. His late middle-grade graphic novel debut is the 2025 JLG Selection, The Many Misfortunes of Euginia Wang (Atheneum (S&S), September 30, 2025). His work was the grand prize recipient of the 2022 SCBWI-FL Conference Portfolio Excellence Award!
Thanks for talking with us, Stan. Let’s get started!
What went into the creation of the character Eugenia Wang? Were there any people or stories that inspired her design and personality?
Eugenia is primarily an amalgamation of my big sister, Greta, and myself. Her passion for comics is obviously mine, and her contentious relationship with Mom is Greta. Her friendship with Keisha is also based on my sister’s friendships with friends that my mom didn’t necessarily approve of. From a design standpoint, I really kind of just brainstormed a bunch of ideas I thought might match her personality, but ended up with a character that I felt reminded me of a mix of one of the most influential Chinese-American authors in my life, Andrea Wang, and my comic book artist friend and animator, Ellen Yu.
Do you remember what the original idea for The Many Misfortunes of Eugenia Wang was? What were you doing when the initial concept came to you?
Yes, I do, and I kept records. The original idea for this story was a story called Olfactory Memory: Morty Chen, a typical 12-year-old Chinese-American boy, living in the town of Arvada, Colorado, in 1981 — except for one thing: he has what his dad calls “an extremely acute sense of gei sing mei — olfactory memory.” In other words, Morty’s keen nose can bring back memories of vacations as a toddler, family holidays as an infant, and — yes — even visions of the delivery room where he was born. All fond memories until the day that he got hit in the head by a softball — the day he started having memories of what he began to realize were past lives! But, they were always memories of the moment he died in these past lives! And, he was always dying on his 13th birthday, which was coming up this Halloween: in just TWO WEEKS!
Although this isn’t completely true either. The original concept didn’t include a Chinese-American protagonist. His name was Morty Rose. But after reading a bunch of books by Chinese-American kidlit authors, it became important for me to make him Chinese. I don’t know if I remember where I was when the idea came to me, but I do remember abandoning the idea of writing it as a novel on a road trip to visit my sister. Anyway, I consider this concept was conceived from a challenge I gave myself to write and illustrate a comic that genuinely scared me, because I’ve never been one to be very spooked by horror comics, somehow (which was probably why I was trying to write it as a novel).
What would you say makes the graphic novel format such an important element in your storytelling?
They say “lean into your strengths.” I don’t know who “they” are, but I do think they’re right. I’ve been drawing comics since I can remember. My earliest memories of holding a pencil are of me drawing the same stick figure doing different things in boxes I later found out were called “panel borders.” I was drawing comics before I realized it. Anyway, it’s something that comes very intuitively to me, much more than teaching my craft. When I first started teaching comics, I had to reverse-engineer my process to figure out how to teach it.
What do you think makes the human aspect of art and creativity so critical to the creative process and art production? How has AI art affected this?
To me, art has always been a mode of communicating my stories — my interpretation of the human experience in my own unique way. I feel like AI will never replicate the unique touch of the individual storyteller’s experience because, by definition, it is training itself across artists and authors. I don’t know about you, but I do not want my children to be molding their minds by reading something not authentically human. Things that are not quite human often give you that creepy “uncanny valley” experience for a reason. It certainly feels very dystopian to think a generation of our children would be shaped and molded in this “uncanny valley.” Not to mention the ethical and moral implications of these companies stealing the work without permission from the creators who help train their programs.
Personally, I feel like AI won’t effectively replace humans in children’s books, especially graphic novels, in the near future, just because of the incredibly complex chain of interconnected things that need to work together in this medium to create a successful story. But I have already seen major publishers, wittingly or unwittingly, putting out AI cover art for some of their books, so maybe I’m overly optimistic.
At the many conventions you’ve attended and posted about on Instagram, you always make sure to prop up your fellow creatives. Why is connecting with and supporting other authors important?
From my earliest days on the convention circuit, I’ve always felt like our first fans will be our peers, because we’re the ones who understand what the others are going through with similar goals. We’re not adversaries, we’re in this together. I remember years ago at the inaugural Small Press and Alternative Comics Expo (S.P.A.C.E.), which wasn’t well attended, we joked that there was probably only one $5 bill going around the entire convention centre from table to table. Some of my convention connections become lifelong friendships or fans. Being an author or illustrator in the publishing industry is a community, and I believe we’re very much stronger if we’re on the same side.
Many of your works include zombies, characters facing their fears, and some pretty existential questions like “How do we want to be remembered?” Additionally, right on the home page of your website, you say that you’ve “always been a little too fascinated with creepy things.” What draws you to the creepier things in life?
That’s a great question. I know a lot of my exposure to scary, creepy things came from my mom’s TV watching habits, but I wasn’t always a fan of being scared. I WAS, however, always FASCINATED with being scared. I remember purposely going into the haunted house ride at the local amusement park to challenge myself. Often, I’d ride the whole thing with my eyes closed the whole way, but it was still exhilarating to me. I think in the end, I’m really interested in anything that evokes reactions and emotions from people, which is what I find myself trying to do in my live caricatures and my stories.
You allude to some of my regular single-panel gag cartoons, which to me are my attempt at influencing readers without coming right out and telling them I’m disappointed in them. I figure if I can frame things a different way, readers can really think about their own actions in a different way. Does this work? I don’t know, but I am definitely a student of human psychology and the human condition. I think a lot of that probably comes through in my longer-form stories, too.
On your website, there are “Coming Soon” banners that tease some intriguing projects. Could you share some details with readers about what you’re working on now?
Hopefully, there’s ONLY a couple of things showing that. Of course, my next graphic novel is The Many Misfortunes of Euginia Wang, and that’s not out until September 30th, so that’s coming soon. The other things on my website, I think, are coming soon, are just resources that I hope to make available to fellow writers and illustrators, as well as my services as a professional live note-taker, specifically my #OutofContextNotes, which I often post on social media. I’ve already done two gigs, but I eventually want to make my services public for this — more for entertainment purposes than serious note-taking, since as my hashtag implies, I like to humorously take things out of context (hopefully in a way that doesn’t get anyone in trouble with HR).
If there’s anything else that I missed, it’s because you’ve probably gotten to an area of my website that shouldn’t be public (but maybe is still searchable).
To close out, do you have any advice for aspiring creators who wish to get into the comic book/graphic novel industry?
It’s not for the faint of heart. I’ve been doing comics for over 50 years of my life, did the 24-hour comic book day challenge ten years in a row (write and illustrate a 24-page comic in 24 consecutive hours), and can draw 15 subjects an hour at live caricature gigs. In spite of this, I don’t think I could’ve met my publishing deadlines if I did this five years ago. Comics are a lot like karate, according to Mr. Miyagi from The Karate Kid: “Walk on road. Walk right side, safe. Walk left side, safe. Walk middle, sooner or later, you get squished just like grape. Here, karate is the same thing.” And comics are the same thing. I’d only recommend it to those who are passionate about it. I’d also like to quote my good friend and critique partner, Geisel Honor, winning author and illustrator of Worm and Caterpillar are Friends, Kaz Windness: “If you can quit, you should.”
If you find you’re a person who doesn’t let a couple of scary quotes deter you because you were going to make comics whether or not you’re getting paid for them, you’re like me, and it might be your path towards the top of your Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. The money part can change that. But for me, there’s no question. I AM living my dream.
Huge thanks to Stan for sharing his delightful thought behind The Many Misfortunes of Eugenia Wang, and for giving us a peek into his creative world. Don’t miss this unique graphic novel — out September 30, 2025! In the meantime, keep up with Stan’s work and artistic adventures on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook.
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Find The Many Misfortunes of Eugenia Wang on our Young Readers and Children’s Holiday Recs on our bookshelf at Bookshop.org
