Filed under: ISSUE 2

"ANOTHER SIDE OF ME" now available on the site

Hot on the heels of the Takarazuka Revue features, I've now published another complete feature article from Electric Ant Zine #2 on the site. ANOTHER SIDE OF ME is an insightful and fantastic piece by Nate Shockey, looking at the world of transvestism in Tokyo. In the article, Nate drops historical context from his research, and guides us through the back alleys of Golden Gai, the small enclave of festive bars where men like Gallantique Kazue (and her patrons) come to party and relax as ladies.

Nate also visited Alcazar, a drag revue which he describes as "a whirlwind world tour, from French cabarets to the plains of Africa, Arabesque harems to neon glitchcore stewardesses to Gladiator battles. A gay GWAR concert might be a good point of reference." Go read this article!

If you know folks that haven't picked up the zine, copies are available for purchase via the site (or at these brick & mortar shops).

ADDED COMPLETE TAKARAZUKA REVUE FEATURES TO THE SITE

Major update today to the Electric Ant Zine site. I've now put up both of the feature articles from Electric Ant #2 on the page. These are the complete articles, with color pictures! (Though the print versions have additional photos).

Please pass these links on to anyone you think would be interested, especially folks into Japanese theatre, gender-bending, shojo manga, The Rose of Versailles, Yukio Mishima & Hitler, and me-as-a-starstruck-fey-teenager! If you read the articles and enjoyed it, leave a comment here to let me know :)

Electric Ant #2 mentioned on Viceland

Contributor and mustachioed man Nick Gazin has written about the new issue on his latest Comic Book Witchhunt column. We were found to be not good as Lobo Highway to Hell but better than Eddie Campbell. His review:
Electric Ant Issue 2: Exquisite Corpses
Edited by Ryan Sands
This book is good but it’s no GFTG3. It has a pretty good crew of artists in it. Calvin Wong, Hellen Jo, Ted May, Michael Deforge, Lisa Hanawalt, Kazimir Strzepek, and Harvey James are in there. I’m in there too at some point.  Electric Ant is a perfect-bound zine with articles and photos in it but I only care about the drawings and the comics. If there were more drawings and comics it might have beat Lobo. Sidenote to Zine makers: Stop runnig low contrast photos in your black-and-white zine; they turn into a greyish sludge and look boring.

There’s a comic in here called “Planet X Rises” in which each cartoonist wrote and drew a page before handing it off to the next one. My contribution was to a series by various artists drawing their favorite scenes of violence from popculture. Harvey James drew the riot scene from early in Akira. I drew the scene from Road Warrior where Wez’s blonde boyfriend catches the metal boomerang in his forehead. Ted May drew Iron Maiden fighting the guy in the Eddie suit onstage. Then Hellen Jo, Calvin Wong and some other dudes collaborated on a drawing of Tom Hanks looking at his adult dong in Big while the skyscraper transfomer toy dances around in the background on fire.

Electric Ant #2 available at Quimby's

I believe copies we already up on the shelves, but Electric Ant #2 is now officially available at Quimby's in Chicago (and was featured on the homepage this week).

Booksrack

[photo from our APE'09 table goods]

You can check their listing here, and let any Midwesterner friends know to support the book and grab a copy in person!  The full list of stores carrying Electric Ant #2 is updated now. Look for more additions in the future!