Giant Robot Store and GR2 News
Working mostly at home has its benefits. I get to see my daughter way more than a lot of parents and the house is a lot cleaner than when I spent my days at the GR compound. But I do miss companionship–even if it’s just Eric’s cats! In the last week, I actually saw a lot of people, though. If you read your copies of Giant Robot magazine carefully, you’ll know who some of them are. (Some are more obscure than others.) Quiz time:
Drunken Master's cupcakes
Kiyoshi Nakazawa
a. Maker of Drunken Master comic and zine, prints, fine art, and more
b. MMA fighter/bouncer
c. Longtime Giant Robot ad guy who kicked my ass in the “Fight Back!” feature
d. Writer of the blind massage travel piece from Thailand
e. All of the above
Photographer of the stars
Eric Nakamura
a. Co-founder and publisher or GR mag/gold glove softball player and sometimes lead-off hitter
b. Janitor, busboy at GR shops and gr/eats
c. Indie filmmaker and punk rock photographer
d. Slave of two cats and an empire
e. All of the above
I was lucky to visit Vancouver last month, for the first time… been hearing a lot of great things about it, and was excited to check it all out.
Greeted by some totem poles
I was picked up by my host, Canadian Animator and Filmmaker Jeff Chiba Stearns, whom I met in Eugene earlier in the year.
This story is…horrible. It was difficult to believe at first, so the event as it is about to be described has been verified as well as thorough research on the internet can provide. Just over two weeks ago at a still-unknown location in Northwestern China, a mother brown bear held on a farm where bear bile is harvested for medicinal purposes broke free of her cage and killed her cub before killing herself. Specifically, the mother bear somehow managed to escape then sought out her cub and smothered it to death before running head first into a wall and killing herself instantly due to massive head trauma. To put this in context, a brief explanation of why and how these bears were held captive is in order. In China, bile from the gall bladders of indigenous brown bears is still considered by some to be a powerful elixir in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). In humans, bear bile is used to treat chronic liver illnesses, high fevers and eye problems, among other things. Giant Robot’s research into the medicinal use of bear bile reveals that the substance is falling out of favor, even within the TCM establishment, because the health benefits of bile are increasingly difficult to substantiate, cheaper and more effective synthetic treatments are available, and the way in which it is harvested is cruel.