ELECTRIC ANT ZINE BLOG

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.

     

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).

     

Thanks to GR2 clerk and cool dude Seth Nemec for the nice mention! Giant Robot has been super supportive of Electric Ant since the beginning (and Eric Nakamura even contributed a great piece for the inside back cover of Issue #1!)

   

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.

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).

Just got a piece of really exciting news from Issue 2 contributor, Claire Donner. It seems that the store she works at in Manhattan, Cosmic Comics, sold out of the 20 copies of Electric Ant #2 they ordered... in just one day! 

ONE DAY! This is both surprising and amazing. Many, many thanks to Claire for pushing the book hard and for the folks at Cosmic Comics for supporting Electric Ant Zine.

Scott Green, the manga/anime reviewer for Ain't It Cool News posted about Electric Ant #2.

He said (among other things):

From the attention seizing Hellen Jo cover to the work throughout, Electric Ant features of a searing collection of exceptional artists who, if you don't know, you should.

Read the write-up here!

Electric Ant #2 is now (or will shortly be) available at the following fine stores:

Missions: Comics & Art in San Francisco, CA
Star Clipper in St. Louis, MO
Cosmic Comics in New York, NY
Forbidden Planet in New York, NY
The Beguiling in Toronto, Canada
IMHO Shop in Paris, France

I will update the SHOPS CARRYING THE ZINE page tomorrow will full-er details!

Okay, so there's only one so far but I'll take it!

I may not show the cover to my mother, but congrats to Ryan Sands on Electric Ant #2. Just picked up a copy and it looks fascinating!

- Fred Schodt, Author / Translator / King of manga

Overall, I truly prefer B&W for the interiors of what was intended as a proper zine-- a text + collage + comics compendium of cool things. That said, having stuff only in B&W this time did keep me from being able to two run a few really amazing pieces-- pieces that deserve a proper showing in FULL COLOR. 

Here are a few color pieces for the THESE BLOODY MOMENTS feature that ended up running in a slightly different format:

• 3 SCENES FROM AKIRA by HARVEYJAMES™
• MACHINE GIRL by MIMI LEUNG

click for big versions: