Meet Pornsak Pichetshote of Los Angeles

Today we’d like to introduce you to Pornsak Pichetshote.

Hi Pornsak, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I was born and raised in NYC, but when I was around 12,, my parents told the family we’d be moving to Thailand for a year. So we moved and then one year became two years became three years, and my sisters and I realized, oh wow, we straight up live in Thailand now! Our parents just didn’t want to hear us complain about moving. That took things I already loved – comics and TV – and turned them into an obsession, with me motivated by this vague instinct that if I could understand how they worked, maybe I could understand the person I’d be if I never left America. That obsession would lead me into editing comics for DC Vertigo, DC’s Comics’ mature readers imprint known for some of the most acclaimed comic books ever published. That would in turn lead me to become a TV executive starting DC Comics’ television department, overseeing such things as the CW’s Arrowverse TV shows as well as shows like FOX’s GOTHAM and the CW’s iZOMBIE. That all proved a training ground when I eventually left to become a writer where I write comics (my multi-award-winning graphic novel THE GOOD ASIAN and the currently eagerly anticipated ABSOLUTE GREEN ARROW) and TV (MARVEL’S CLOAK & DAGGER, TWO SENTENCE HORROR STORIES),

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
I quit a very enviable executive job in Hollywood to write freelance where I… promptly got no work. Zero. For about two years. For an idea of how lucrative my job was when I left, people who heard about it just assumed I’d been fired, because nobody voluntarily leaves jobs like those. But I’m so grateful for those roughly two years of no work now, because they became so influential to how I approach everything. It made me really ask myself what I wanted to write and why I wanted to write it, and I wouldn’t be so selective of the projects I take on now if it hadn’t been for those first two years of unemployment, and I think being selective and passionate about the jobs I take on has been a really big part of the success I’ve had.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I write comics and TV, and what I think I’ve become known for is writing genre work that also tackles political – or at least politicized – topics, such as my first horror graphic novel INFIDEL, a haunted house story following a Pakistani-American Muslim woman and her multi-racial neighbors who discover they’re living in a building haunted by entities that feed off xenophobia. Or THE GOOD ASIAN, my multi-award winning graphic novel – a 1930s style noir in the style of Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe that focuses on one of America’s first Chinese-American detectives and exploring the first generation of Chinese-Americans to come of age under an immigration ban of their people. And my upcoming ABSOLUTE GREEN ARROW which releases on May 20, re-imagining the mythos of the classic DC icon as a slasher horror as we follow the Green Arrow – a serial killer who targets corrupt billionaires in a story exploring what is the “right” way to affect change in a world where the rich can seemingly do whatever they want without consequence.

What would you say have been one of the most important lessons you’ve learned?
There’s been a lot of lessons, but the thing that sticks out the most is a quote by Harlan Ellison from his anthology DANGEROUS VISIONS:

“Don’t be afraid. That simple; don’t let them scare you. There’s nothing they can do to you…. a writer always writes. That’s what he’s for. And if they won’t let you write one kind of thing, if they chop you off at the pockets in the marketplace, then go to another marketplace. And if they close off all the bazaars then by God, go and work with your hands till you can write, because the talent is always there. But the first time you say, “Oh, Christ, they’ll kill me!” then you’re done. Because the chief commodity a writer has to sell is his courage. And if he has none, he is more than a coward. He is a sell out and a fink and a heretic, because writing is a holy chore.”

It’s that part, “the chief commodity a writer has to sell is his courage,” that was really impactful to me and has been my guiding star. That not only is it OK to be scared, in some ways, it’s your responsibility as a writer to direct yourself to the places that make you scared and be honest with what you find when you get there.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/real_psak/
• Other: pornsak.substack.com, https://bsky.app/profile/pornsak.bsky.social