any subscribers here?
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July 5, 2004
Asian-American Trendsetting on a Shoestring
By RANDY KENNEDY

At first glance it might seem that Scooby-Doo, George Foreman grills, stuffed-animal toys, scooters with automatic transmissions, gory video games, fuzzy melons, cockfighting, the pop artist Takashi Murakami and the band Sleater-Kinney have very little in common.

But over the years all have been found ?celebrated or mocked but always relentlessly scrutinized ?in the pages of a small quarterly Los Angeles magazine with sometimes strange editorial tastes and an even stranger name: Giant Robot.

The magazine's first issue, with a picture of a sleeping sumo wrestler on the cover and a drawing of a rib roast on the back, was photocopied and stapled together atop the family dining room table of one of its founders, Eric Nakamura. Even now, glossy and full color, less a zine than a real magazine, its circulation is a modest 40,000.

But as the magazine celebrates its 10th anniversary this month it exerts a powerful influence that belies its tiny budget. It is one of the chief arbiters of what is cool (and by extension what is not) in Asian-American pop culture, a tricky job that other, better-financed magazines like Yolk tried and did not survive.

Mr. Nakamura, 34, and Giant Robot's other founder, Martin Wong, 35, have spoken at Harvard and Stanford and are sought after by journalists and advertisers for their views on matters as varied as racism, comic books and Asian pornography. Their magazine has become required reading in several college classes and recently helped start the fad for Uglydolls, a set of homely stuffed toys sold at Barneys and the Design Museum of London. Los Angeles Magazine, in some ways a competitor, has called Giant Robot "probably the best publication to come out of L.A. in the last decade."

Probably more exciting for its founders, however, is that they are now successful enough to make the leap that it seems everyone in pop culture dreams about: they are opening their own restaurant, in West Los Angeles.

"I know, it's a big clich?" Mr. Nakamura said sheepishly in a recent telephone interview, adding: "We don't know what kind of place it will be yet. But it sure won't be burgers and grilled cheese."

Mr. Nakamura's self-image in publishing, and even as a Japanese-American, has always been that of an outsider. His Japanese is not good. Mr. Wong, whose grandparents were born in China, speaks no Mandarin or Cantonese. They met while writing about punk bands for various zines, and when they started their own ?named after a 1960's Japanese television series about a boy who controls a giant robot with his wristwatch ?they were seeking to please nobody but themselves.

They wrote about Hong Kong movies and celebrities like Chow Yun-Fat, John Woo and Jet Li years before they became popular in the United States, but they once declined an offer to interview Jackie Chan because he had become too mainstream. And they often angered Asian-American promoters who saw them as allies.

"Usually it was these really terrible P.R. companies saying, `If you really cared about Asians, you'd write about this Asian actress,' " Mr. Wong explained. "But we're just not interested in mediocre Asian actors in mainstream movies."

Mr. Nakamura described the magazine as "the punk-rock kids in the corner who didn't get invited to the parties," but more often it has seemed that the magazine is the one not inviting people to its party.

With their reflexive self-deprecation and finely tuned cultural antennas, both men are aware of the danger that the underground culture they write about is becoming more mainstream, in part because of their efforts. And they are wary of their own success: of being seen, God forbid, as somehow grown-up and too serious. They own an art gallery and two stores, one in Los Angeles and another in San Francisco, that sell the kinds of Asian comic books, toys, books and clothing they often write about. (The actress Lucy Liu has been spotted in the Los Angeles store.) The men are also scouting sites for a third store in New York.

"I think we'll be fine," Mr. Nakamura said of the magazine's continued existence on the cutting edge. "But I'm not sure. We'll see."

Of course, judged by the standards of most magazines, Mr. Wong and Mr. Nakamura are so far from the establishment as to be laughable. They have only three full-time editorial employees: themselves and a designer. Their office is a garage next to Mr. Nakamura's house, and it is furnished with cheap furniture bought at Internet company bankruptcy auctions.

They speak proudly of having health insurance now and of Mr. Wong's having been able to quit his job recently as a textbook editor. (Before starting the magazine, Mr. Nakamura worked briefly at a video game magazine owned by Larry Flynt. "Hustler and all the exciting stuff, it wasn't even in the same building," he complained.)

Their magazine has matured somewhat in its tastes over the years. It no longer runs articles quite as silly as one in an early issue about urinating while standing on a hill or a particularly memorable one in which the underground filmmaker Jon Moritsugu explained how he once disposed of 800 pounds of rotting meat (hence the drawing of the rib roast).

"We were more like `Jackass' than anything else back then," Mr. Nakamura said, referring to MTV's stupid-stunt show.

But that's not to say the magazine will be interviewing the Rock or reviewing Nobu anytime soon. ("Actually if Nobu gave us a bunch of food for free maybe we'd do it," Mr. Nakamura said.) Recent issues have featured articles on the surprisingly tasty results of frying mochi, Japanese rice pastry, in a George Foreman grill; on motorized scooter mania in Taiwan and Japan; on the Asian fuzzy melons called chit gua that grow to the size of small dolphins; on cockfighting in Bali; and on the critically acclaimed Chinese director Wong Kar-Wai. ("So much style you'll puke," read the typically frank subtitle on the table-of-contents page.)

Jeff Yang, who founded another successful Asian-American culture magazine called aMagazine in Brooklyn in 1989, did not always agree with Giant Robot's irreverent stance, but he said he always respected the magazine's pluck. (He watched his own magazine, a kind of Asian-American Vanity Fair, grow to a circulation of 200,000 before it folded in 2001 after what he called a "Faustian bargain" with the Internet world.)

"Frankly, if you're publishing on guts and a shoestring and talent like those guys you can hang on as long as they have," Mr. Yang said.

Giant Robot now draws serious advertisers like Adidas, Sony and Universal Studios, but Mr. Wong said the magazine had not conducted a reader survey to identify its subscribers, although he said he believed about half are not Asian-Americans.

"Maybe it would ruin it for us if we actually knew who was reading it," he said, laughing.

With a decade under their belts, he and Mr. Nakamura say they have not come across any formula for putting out a good magazine. Mr. Nakamura once explained their editorial process to an interviewer this way: They agree on what's bad (he used a more colorful description) and leave that out, and they agree on what's good and leave that in.

"That's still pretty much it," Mr. Wong said, adding that besides health insurance and a salary, he feels fortunate to have a job that serves as the perfect cover for his obsessions.

"It turns me from being a fan boy into being a journalist," he said. "If it weren't for this, I'd be a stalker. Or a creep. Or something."



Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
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A host on NPR talked about Giant Robot. Personally, I think Giant Robot is great, but they do commodify Asian American culture. It's got a Japanese-oriented slant and many non-Asian American people see it as a definitive magazine on Asian American culture. Maybe I want a balanced presentation of Asian America, but hey, this isn't that bad. : )
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;_; i can't purchase anything for living outside the united states.
i'll make sure to purchase it when i'm in california for a vacation.
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It is actually kind of hard to find them, unless you're around the Los Angeles and Orange County region while you're in California. I think they've got a website: http://www.giantrobot.com/. My friend works down the street from them, I've actually walked past the store, I don't go in though.
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i think eric nakamura and martin wong (http://www.asiaarts.ucla.edu/041803/041803_images/giant-robot4.jpg) (founders of giant robot) also appeared in 'the animatrix' - (the history and culture of anime) i didn't notice it before, until i realized one of them was wearing a giant robot sweatshirt.

an interview with them by angie kang can be found here (http://www.asiaarts.ucla.edu/041803/dip_transcript_giantrobot.html)
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It is actually kind of hard to find them, unless you're around the Los Angeles and Orange County region while you're in California. I think they've got a website: http://www.giantrobot.com/. My friend works down the street from them, I've actually walked past the store, I don't go in though.
They also have a store in SF, on Haight street. There's a store in Manhattan too, in Greenwich or SoHo or near there, i forget. I've walked into both but i just have no clue about any of the characters or anything.
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;_; i can't purchase anything for living outside the united states.
i'll make sure to purchase it when i'm in california for a vacation.

i think you can order a subscription online (http://secure.giantrobot.com/store.php?catid=G001). but i'm not sure where they'd ship to internationally. i actually found the magazine for sale at an obscure-but-now-out-of-business book/magazine store in HK.

It is actually kind of hard to find them, unless you're around the Los Angeles and Orange County region while you're in California.

actually they distribute nation-wide to Borders and Barnes & Noble, and i haven't had any difficulty buying them as long as i can locate one of those stores.
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i've been to GR + GR2 couple times [the stores located on sawtelle in LA]
the ugly dolls, oOooOOoo mee likieeee :D i even bought one (say hello to ox)
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I like looking through this magazine occasionally, but I have to say that I don't feel very connected to what is covered by it. It seems very youth- and California-Asian-oriented.

It's only carried at one of the Barnes and Noble stores around here.
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They also have a store in SF, on Haight street. There's a store in Manhattan too, in Greenwich or SoHo or near there, i forget. I've walked into both but i just have no clue about any of the characters or anything.
The store in SF is on Shrader St..... I stopped in when I came out for the SFAAFF. Couldn't resist buying an Ugly doll :smile: The store is small but very impressive. I work in NYC.... I had no idea they have a GR store here??? Anyway .... you can get the magazine at Barnes & Noble / Astor Place in NYC.
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The store in SF is on Shrader St..... I stopped in when I came out for the SFAAFF. Couldn't resist buying an Ugly doll :smile: The store is small but very impressive. I work in NYC.... I had no idea they have a GR store here??? Anyway .... you can get the magazine at Barnes & Noble / Astor Place in NYC.
No, it's on Haight! :) Unless there's another one, but it's not listed?
http://www.kidrobot.com/kidpages/store.html

Anyway, yeah that store and the magazine are kinda over my head. I walk into the store trying to look cool but i end up just looking overwhelmed and lost, so i walk back out again. :tongue:
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No, it's on Haight! :) Unless there's another one, but it's not listed?
http://www.kidrobot.com/kidpages/store.html

Anyway, yeah that store and the magazine are kinda over my head. I walk into the store trying to look cool but i end up just looking overwhelmed and lost, so i walk back out again. :tongue:


i don't think that's Giant Robot. (http://secure.giantrobot.com/)
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i don't think that's Giant Robot. (http://secure.giantrobot.com/)
whoooooooops, i stand corrected! :redface:

okay, then i haven't stepped foot into a GR store. see, that's how much i know about the toys and mag.
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Ah hey, that's cool. But unfortunately this reinforces my theory that anything cool is usually has origins in or located up in NorCal and never down here. :frown:

And just to plug some of the products, I've been looking everywhere for a blue Gloomy Bear plushie and Derek Kirk Kim's comics are teh shiznit, high recommended. :tongue:
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Ah hey, that's cool. But unfortunately this reinforces my theory that anything cool is usually has origins in or located up in NorCal and never down here. :frown:

And just to plug some of the products, I've been looking everywhere for a blue Gloomy Bear plushie and Derek Kirk Kim's comics are teh shiznit, high recommended. :tongue:

i think GR was started in the L.A. area, and 2 GR stores are located there.
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i think GR was started in the L.A. area, and 2 GR stores are located there.

I know, but I'm down here in San Diego. Itsa looong way to go for a store though.
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whoooooooops, i stand corrected! :redface:

okay, then i haven't stepped foot into a GR store. see, that's how much i know about the toys and mag.


Here you go... :wink:

Giant Robot Store >>
Eep!

It's our Aluminum (read: 10 year) Anniversary! The new issue, which commemorates this joyous occasion, is here, and consensus in the back room seems to be that it's the best ever. Definitely worth buying, even if you won't be able to make it to the big birthday artshow next month to have it signed...

contact info: Giant Robot Store
2015 Sawtelle Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90025
(310)478-1819
GR2
2062 Sawtelle Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90025
(310)445-9276

GRSF
622 Shrader St.
San Francisco, CA 94114
(415)876-4773 All stores open
mon-sat 1130-8
sun 12-6

Email us: store@giantrobot.com
We sell wholesale to retailers
Check out the store webcam
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