''Secret Asian Man'' is a discontinued weekly

comic strip A comic strip is a Comics, sequence of cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often Serial (literature), serialized, with text in Speech balloon, balloons and Glossary of comics terminology#Captio ...

written and drawn by

Tak Toyoshima Tak Toyoshima (born April 11, 1971, in New York City, New York, New York (state), New York) is an American art director with the Weekly Dig and the author of the comic strip ''Secret Asian Man''. According to an interview with AArisings, Toyoshi ...

. The strip covers the author's biography and

Asian-American Asian Americans are Americans with ancestry from the continent of Asia (including naturalized Americans who are immigrants from specific regions in Asia and descendants of those immigrants). Although this term had historically been used for ...

issues. ''Secret Asian Man'' often centers its discussion on what it means to be Asian American, as well as other race- and ethnic-related issues. Its title is a

mondegreen A mondegreen () is a mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase in a way that gives it a new meaning. "A misunderstood or misinterpreted word or phrase resulting from a mishearing, esp. of the lyrics to a song". Mondegreens are most often create ...

referring to the song " Secret Agent Man".

Publication history

The strip appeared weekly starting in 1999, and was published in ''

Boston's Weekly Dig ''DigBoston''—formerly known as the ''Weekly Dig'' and colloquially as ''The Dig''—was a free alternative newspaper in Boston, Massachusetts. It covered news in the Greater Boston area and offers commentary on music, arts, politics, business ...

'', ''

Metro Silicon Valley ''Metro'', also known as ''Metro Silicon Valley'', is a free weekly newspaper published by the San Jose, California-based Weeklys media group for four decades, a period during which its readership area became known as Silicon Valley. Metro was ...

'', ''

San Jose Mercury News ''The Mercury News'' (formerly ''San Jose Mercury News'', often locally known as ''The Merc'') is a morning daily newspaper published in San Jose, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is published by the Bay Area News Group, a subsidia ...

'', ''

RedEye ''RedEye'' was a publication put out by the ''Chicago Tribune'' geared toward 18 to 34-year-olds. It was published every weekday since its inception in 2002 until February 3, 2017. Publication was reduced to weekly starting February 9, 2017. ...

'', ''

Nichi Bei Times The ''Nichi Bei Times'' (日米タイムズ ''Nichi Bei Taimuzu'') is a Japanese American news agency operated by the Nichi Bei Foundation and headquartered in San Francisco. As of 2009 it was the oldest Japanese American newspaper in Northern Cal ...

'', ''

AsianWeek ''AsianWeek'' was America's first and largest English-language print and on-line publication serving East Asian Americans. The news organization played an important role nationally and in the San Francisco Bay Area as the “Voice of Asian Americ ...

'', '' Georgia Asian Times'', ''

The Everett Herald ''The Everett Herald'' is a daily newspaper based in Everett, Washington, United States. It is owned by Sound Publishing, Inc. The paper serves residents of Snohomish County in the Seattle metropolitan area. History Sam Perkins (1901–1905) ...

'', and on the internet. ''Secret Asian Man'' was picked up for syndication by

United Feature Syndicate United Feature Syndicate, Inc. (UFS) is a large American editorial column and comic strip newspaper syndication service based in the United States and established in 1919. Originally part of E. W. Scripps Company, it was part of United Media ( ...

(

United Media United Media was a large editorial column and comic strip newspaper syndication service based in the United States, owned by the E. W. Scripps Company, that operated from 1978 to 2011. It syndicated 150 comics and editorial columns worldwide. ...

) for its daily run on comics.com, which ran from July 16, 2007, to September 19, 2009. On May 12, 2013, Toyoshima announced that the strip was going on hiatus.

Characters and story

All episodes of ''Secret Asian Man'' feature Osamu "SAM (Secret Asian Man)" Takahashi, who is a

Japanese-American are Americans of Japanese ancestry. Japanese Americans were among the three largest Asian American ethnic communities during the 20th century; but, according to the 2000 census, they have declined in ranking to constitute the sixth largest Asi ...

artist modeled after the author. SAM has three major friends: Richie, a white man; Charlie, a black man; and Grace Patterson, an East

Asian American Asian Americans are Americans with ancestry from the continent of Asia (including naturalized Americans who are immigrants from specific regions in Asia and descendants of those immigrants). Although this term had historically been used fo ...

who was adopted by

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

parents. Along with them, SAM also has a cynical and sarcastic spiky-haired cousin named Simon. SAM's wife Marie is Italian, and they have a son named Shintaro, and a newborn son, Bob.

References

External links

Interviews with Toyoshima

* Attitude: The New Subversive Cartoonists
IMDiversity.com

CurrentVine.com

1999 comics debuts 2009 comics endings Male characters in comics Humor comics Satirical comics Autobiographical comics {{comic-strip-stub

Publication history

Characters and story

See also

References

External links

Interviews with Toyoshima