Level Up page 30 by Thien Pham

In the original graphic novel Level Up (2011) written by Gene Yang and drawn by Thien Pham, protagonist Dennis Ouyang studies to become a doctor while fighting his urge to play video games. The authors dedicated the book to their brothers who work in the medical field and being "good Asian sons.". In this chapter, Dennis Ouyang meets his friend Takeem at an arcade and they battle each other.

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.