GN: First Second Books: Level Up by YANG and PHAM

In the original graphic novel Level Up written by Gene Yang and drawn by Thien Pham, Dennis Ouyang seeks to become a doctor while fighting his urge to play video games. I acquired two pages from Thien Pham in a typhoon relief fundraiser many years ago. Thien is a San Francisco Bay Area resident and I saw him at various local events. I arrived early to his appearance at the Milpitas Library and we had the chance to talk before and after his presentation.
At the inaugural Comic Con Oakland, Thien Pham presented me the chance to choose pages from this collaboration with Gene Luen Yang. These published watercolor pages were entirely by Thien after First Second Books rejected the original submission. Thien had pencilled those original pages and Gene inked them on vellum. I have a single Yang page from American Born Chinese on the same vellum. Gene became the biggest name from First Second Books with his American Born Chinese graphic novel in 2006. The book was a finalist for the National Book Award in the category of Young People Literature and won the Printz Award