Joshua Luna
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About
Joshua Luna, also known as Josh Luna, is an American comic book writer and illustrator of Filipino descent. He is best known for collaborations with his older brother Johnathan as the Luna Brothers,[1] in creator-owned books such as Ultra, Girls, The Sword and providing art for Marvel Comics' Spider-Woman: Origins. After cutting ties with Jonathan, Joshua begun developing his own comics and characters, particularly a series of strips called "AMERICANIZASIAN" that would become popular online as the target of parodies and edits. Luna's comics, often being subject of controversy, are about topics such as whitewashing, Asian identitarianism and Asian representation in American media.
Online History
Luna created his Twitter account[2] on March 2011, and shared images of meeting some fans at the San Diego Comic-Con of 2013[3] on his Facebook page.[4] Luna also shares concomitantly photos, art and his comics on his Tumblr profile.[5] A black-and-white illustration of Genghis Khan,[6] which's style would later become the format of his AMERICANIZASIAN comics, was posted on November 12th, 2015 (shown below, left). The very first AMERICANIZASIAN comic was posted on February 16th, 2016, called "REPENT YOUR SIN-IGANGS"[7] (shown below, right).
Luna appreciates reblogs of his work, and posted on his profiles when news outlets such as The Huffington Post featured his comics,[8][9] or when online users related to them.[10] Luna's online activism had him often criticize movies such as The Outsider[11] (shown below, left) and Deadpool 2[12] (shown below, right).
![Joshua Luna @Joshua_Luna The Hollywood formula for "Asian representation": VOrientalist fantasy of a "superior" white male protagonist dominating an exoticized Asian land VFetishized, hypersexualized, disposable Asian women Villianized, otherized, disposable Asian men IX The Outsider | Official Trailer [HD] | Netflix An American soldier imprisoned in postwar Japan enters the dark world of the yakuza, adopting their way of life in repayment for his freedom. Watch The Outsi. FICIAL AILER youtube.com 5:26 PM - 23 Feb 2018 405 Retweets 1,028 Likes 17 405 ili 16 1.0K >](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/002/097/714/3d3.jpg "Josh seething about The Outsider")
WHITE CLUB[13] is another comic in the AMERICANIZASIAN series that was created as criticism towards the fight between Bruce Lee and Cliff Booth in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (shown below).
Luna's comics have also been the subject of political criticism. On April 10th, 2018, American writer Jennifer de Guzman criticized RECONCILIASIAN, commenting that Luna went out of line, as the comic implied that Asian women's preference towards white men was participating in white supremacy[14] (shown, below).
Luna's comics gained attention on other websites, such as Reddit and 4chan. On the Asian-centric subreddit r/aznidentity, his comic AMERICA UNMASKED (shown below, left) was posted by user thienphucn1 on October 8th, 2020, receiving over 700 points in 7 months.[15] Some Twitter users were surprised by the inclusion of black people in the crowds that Luna antagonized, which were almost always white (shown below, right).
On 4chan, particularly the boards /co/, /int/ and /pol/, Luna's comics became subject of memes and discussions. Cropped panels, such as Luna's self-insert character bowing to a White American man (shown below, left), and the "Laughing Uncle Sam" (shown below, right) became exploitables and reaction images on the website.
On September 17th, 2020, an anonymous /int/ user juxtaposed the comic SOUTHERN HOSTILE-TALITY to a copy of itself explaining the meaning of each dialogue, pointing out that Luna was exploiting stereotypes of white Americans to appear as a victim. The copy was called LACK OF SELF-AWARENESS[16] (shown below).
Luna's actual physical appearance in comparison to the way he drew himself in his comics also became a topic that encouraged anonymous users to draw his self-insert so that it would look more similar to its real-life counterpart (examples shown, below).
On March 21st, 2021, an anonymous user on /pol/ shared the screencaps of a thread in which various other European and American users made fun of Luna's appearance and his self-insert character[17] (shown below).
On May 4th, 2021, an anonymous /co/ user posted a collage of panels from the AMERICANIZASIAN comics that involved white men and Asian women, with the implication of Luna trying to portray WMAF relationships negatively. The collage also had a photoshopped Brendan Fraser haircut and eyes from the Just Fuck My Shit Up meme on Luna himself, as he's holding a "BWC Pass"[18] (shown below).
Luna finally acknowledged the existence of these edits on May 5th, 2021, saying that they were made by thousands of Nazis that called him racial slurs and mocked his features.[19]
Personal Life
Luna was born on January 9th, 1981, in California,[20] but spent most of his formative life abroad in Iceland, and Italy to then return in Northern Virginia, USA, at age 15.[21] He mentioned that despite being raised Catholic, he and his family were converted into Mormonism for two years.[22][23] Luna mentioned his love for comics, writing, art and illustration multiple times. Luna majored in Sequential Art at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD),[24] in Georgia. Despite starting out as a duo in the comic industry as the Luna Brothers, on December 7th, 2017, Joshua accused Johnathan of emotionally and physically abusing him, as well as manipulating him and gaining the vast majority of the profits and credit from their past work in a series of tweets[25] (shown below).
Jonathan responded to this with a single tweet in which he said that Joshua was twisting their history together to serve himself. Despite the accusations, Johnathan said that he still loved his brother and hoped to be friends with him again[26] (shown below).
Konnichiwa, Dude!
Konnichiwa, Dude! is a quote and catchphrase commonly used on 4chan that originates from a comic panel made by Joshua Luna. The panel itself was subject of various memes, exploitables, edits, redraws and parodies over the course of the years.
Search Interest
External References
[1] Wikipedia – Luna Brothers
[2] Twitter – @Joshua_Luna
[3] Facebook – Meeting fans and drawing sketches
[4] Facebook – @joshualunacreations
[5] Tumblr – Joshua Luna
[6] Facebook – I took a break from my secret comic book project to draw this. The Khan of Khans
[7] Facebook – REPENT YOUR SIN-IGANGS
[8] Tumblr – My comic made it to the Huffington Post, thanks to an editor there, Kimberly Yam. She also just launched a page, Brazen Asians, a new section in the Huffington Post about Asian-American issues, so be sure to check it out and like the pages!
[9] Facebook – Thanks to Brazen Asians for featuring my comic!
[10] - Tumblr – While art, writing, and Asian-American advocacy and activism certainly belong to no individual, my art and my writing do belong to me. So what Ranier Maningding at LLAG: Love Life of an Asian Guy (a prominent social activism page on Facebook) has done to my work is nothing short of upsetting and incredibly hurtful.
[11] Twitter – The Hollywood formula for Asian representation
[12] Twitter – Hollywood: See?! We DO cast Asians! Also Hollywood
[13] Patreon – WHITE CLUB
[14] Twitter – I’m sorry, Joshua, but this is out of line. Are you accusing Asian women who have relationships with non-Asian men of participating in white supremacy? We don’t owe Asian men relationships in return for them not being misogynists.
[15] r/aznidentity – I don't know if anyone posted this yet, but this is pretty accurate
[16] /int/ – Thread # 130683740
[17] /pol/ – Thread # 312955649
[18] /co/ – Thread # 122812221
[19] Twitter – Thousands of Nazis regularly repost & denigrate my work, calling me anti-Asian slurs & other hateful terms: fl*p, ch*nk, g**k, Filipino/island n*gg*r, ricecel/incel MRAsian, autist, b*tch etc. They post photos of me to mock my features & edit swastikas & Hitler onto my comics. 5/
[20] Web Archive – / Interview de Jonathan and Joshua Luna
[21] The Assembly – Comic Creator Joshua Luna Refuses to Back Down
[22] Twitter – Thread: When you think of Mormons, you probably think of whiteness--and you'd be correct, since 93% are white. What you don't think of is Filipinx. And yet, for two years, I was a Mormon. 1/
[23] Twitter – Before this, I grew up in a loosely Catholic upbringing and rarely went to church. But after my dad left the U.S. Navy and our family, we moved back to the U.S. and lived with cousins who were Mormons. There, we were regularly visited by missionaries, and eventually converted. 2/
[24] Asia Art Tours – Interview w. Comic Book Author and Artist Joshua Luna, on Racism, Representation and Building Diversity in Popular Art & Culture
[25] Comics Beat – Joshua Luna accuses brother & ex-business partner Jonathan Luna of theft, emotional & physical abuse
[26] Twitter – I am not a perfect person. But sadly, my brother Joshua has made some very offensive comments about me, twisting our history to serve himself. That said, I love my brother very much. I’ve tried many times to work things out with him. I really hope one day we’ll be friends again.
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