ELECTRIC ANT ZINE BLOG


dispatches from members of the extended zine crew

Filed under: ZINE SIGHTING


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PURIFY YOURSELF IN THE WATERS OF PYRAMID LAKE

I was recently sent an advanced copy of Ray Sohn's upcoming PYRAMID LAKE, and the zine indelibly changed my impression of what a personal art zine/project can aspire to encompass. (I realize that sounds a little hyperbolic but it's true, especially after seeing so many flimsy "zines of xerox'd sketches" with work that didn't really persist past the time your eyeballs were scanning the page). I haven't met Ray personally yet, but am a longtime admirer of the gross-out/true-life comic strip True Chubbo, which he creates with his wife Tomomi.

Ray's latest project is Pyramid Lake, an upcoming exhibition of new works by the Brooklyn-based cartoonist that will be happening next month at Wonder Fair gallery in Lawrence, Kansas. Pyramid Lake is also the name of a book accompanying the exhibition, and will be available to purchase via his site next month as well.

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Opening up my copy of Pyramid Lake gave me the rare pleasure of actually gasping out loud at the book's art, full up with a dazzling breadth of strange visual geometries!? I was pretty stunned by the compositions and variety of styles in this book. Pyramid Lake features a mixture of ink and collage, paneled pages showing the passage of time alongside cacophonic pages full to the brim with dense lines -- like brain coral reefs of imagery. The look of the book overall is by definition extremely bold, in that Ray made,
"...a conscious, almost spartan resolve to restrict myself by only using a dip pen, and black india ink on 12" x 12" pieces of paper. All of the free hand, and technical ink lines were laid down directly on paper with absolutely no planning, forethought, or preparatory under drawings."

I'm probably not good at describing the specific pieces in the book (which include Ray's monolithic portrait of Lady Gaga from Prison for Bitches) but I can say that it was one of the most visually exciting books I've encountered in a while, the kind of short read where you pore over the details in each page rather than skim quickly. If you don't believe my tastes, Mr. Gary Panter wrote the introduction and discusses the accomplishments of Ray's project in the book's opening page :)

You can see some of what I'm talking about here:
(Click each image for a larger version)
DETAILS ON THE EXHIBITION:

Pyramid Lake: 
An Exhibition and Book by Ray Sohn
April 29th - June 19th, 2011

Opening Reception
(Final Friday) April 29th, 6-10pm

803 1/2 Massachusetts Street
Lawrence, KS 66044

In addition to Pyramid Lake, you can see a new color True Chubbo strip in the first issue of me and Michael DeForge's THICKNESS #1, an anthology of erotic comics debuting at TCAF 2011!

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The romance wasn't THAT bad was it...?

The totally awesome Prison For Bitches (produced by EAZB's very own home team) finally made me give da Ladyz stuff a look/listen and I gotta confess I liked what I saw/heard. So much so I cranked out this picture. My apologies to Ms.Gaga, Xianxingzhe and the good people of Paramus.

Gaga


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Spotting our zines and comics at The Beguiling

I'm going to add a new post to Same Hat specifically about The Beguiling (to add to the series of TCAF posts) this weekend. But before that, I wanted to share these photos and sightings from the shop. (I know Comic Relief lovers will be shocked by this, but I contend that The Beguiling is the best comics/manga shop in North America).

1) The shop from the outside - I think it's a converted Victorian
2) The zine and minis rack right by the counter in the front (what is that in the lower-right?)
3) Copies of Electric Ant #1!
4) They also featured Hellen's comics right in the front
5) And finally, 3 copies of Tokyo Zombie were in stock upstairs.


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Saying So Long to Issue 1...

We had a rare and lovely day of NO RAIN in San Francisco today, so I did a bit of aimless wandering in my hood. Stopped by the small-but-impressive zine shop, Needles & Pens, for my fix of local goods. While making mental lists of things come back and buy, I was pleasantly surprised to see restock copies of Electric Ant #1 gracing the front display and featured shelf inside the store!

As much as I still like talking about Issue 1 (due to it's still pulling a few sales a week, and it took so frakking long to put out), it's time to stop fixating on it and commit to undertaking work in earnest on Issue 2. I've done all the preparations and ruminating, and have all the contents and desired contributors written out. Yes ma'am, it's time to finally DO THIS THING.

Yeah, so I'm not normally one for online navel-gazing, but I thought a post to you guys here would best help me TAKE THE PLUNGE and knock myself from the "planning stages." I'm gonna send invites for feature contributions out by Monday or Tuesday - check your inboxes!

PS: Planned release date for issue 2? SPX at the end of September.

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SHOPS CARRYING THE ZINE

Picture1251

(EA#1 on the shelves at Quimby's, photo from evan)

[Updated December , 2009]

IRL (america)
+ Needles & Pens, 3253 16th st, san francisco, ca 94103 (site)
+ Mission: Comics & Art, 3520 20th st suite B, san francisco, ca 94110 (site)
+ Giant Robot SF, 618 shrader st, san francisco, ca 94117 (site)
+ Giant Robot 1, 2015 sawtelle blvd, los angeles, ca 90025 (site)
+ Giant Robot NY, 437 e 9th st, new york, ny 10009 (site)
+ Pony Club Gallery, 625 nw everett st, #105 portland, or 97209 (site)
+ Quimby's, 1854 w. north ave, chicago, il 60622 (site)
+ Ada Books, 717 westminster st., providence, ri 02903 (site)
+ Forbidden Planet, 840 broadway st., new york, ny 11201 (site)
+ Cosmic Comics, 10 e 23rd st., new york, ny 10010 (site)
+ Desert Island, 540 metropolitan ave, brooklyn, ny 11211 (site)
+ Rocketship, 208 smith st., brooklyn, ny 11201 (site)
+ Floating World Comics,20 new 5th ave portland, OR (site)

IRL (abroad)
+ Village Vanguard, 3 rue de Nemours, 75011 paris, france (site)
+ The Beguiling, 601 markham st. toronto, on, canada (site)

ONLINE
+ Attract Mode, video game culture shop (site)
+ ICFYC Distibution, punk/noise/zines (site)
+ Poopsheet Shop, zine/comics distribution (site)


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