Giant Robot Store and GR2 News
June 30th Sunday 2pm Space is limited. Here’s the link for payment which will get you signed up! FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – Art Show Opening: Yukinori Dehara: FIGURE PAINTING WORKSHOP Learn the secrets of painting a vinyl figure! Space is limited to 15 people. Enrollment fee $15 and it includes a mini Dehara figure. He’ll bring the rest! June 30th, 2013 2pm. GR2 2062 Sawtelle Blvd.Los Angeles, CA 90025 http://giantrobot.com (310) 445-927
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World-class architects designing species-specific doghouses–how cool is that? This afternoon I was able to see some of the pieces being installed at the Long Beach Museum of Art for the west coast premiere of Architecture for Dogs. The series of 13 custom structures was conceived by Kenya Hara, founder of the Hara Design Institute and Creative Director of MUJI, and ranges from practical to conceptual (above, left to right: Wanmock for Jack Russell Terrier by Torafu Architects, Beagle House by MVRDV) and playful to symbolic (below, left to right: D-Tunnel by Kenya Hara for Teacup Poodle, Mount Pug by Kengo Kuma). I think the wildly imagined and meticulously executed museum show is a slam dunk because design and dogs are enormously loved yet rarely, if ever, combined. And the concept goes much further than exhibitions in Miami, Long Beach, and (eventually) Tokyo. Already, fans are able to download blueprints for each of the designer doghouses and encouraged to share images of their creations online. Less handy dog owners may also buy ready-to-build kits. Details can be found at architecturefordogs.com. Architecture for Dogs will be open to the public from June 21 to September 3 at 2300 East Ocean Boulevard in Long Beach, CA. Visit the Long Beach Museum of Art website for hours and more information. See you there!
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A man who worked hard, released some of the greatest graphic novels and pushed it to an art form. Kim Thompson from Fantagraphics RIP This Press Release was just sent out: Fantagraphics co-publisher Kim Thompson died at 6:30 this morning, June 19. “He was my partner and close friend for 36 years,” said Gary Groth. Thompson was born in Denmark in 1956. He grew up in Europe, a lifelong comics fan, reading both European and American comics in Denmark, France, and Germany. He was an active fan in his teen years, writing to comics — his letters appeared in Marvel’s letter columns circa early 1970s — and contributing to fanzines from his various European perches. At the age of 21, he set foot, for the first time, on American soil, in late 1977. One “fanzine” he had not contributed to was The Comics Journal, which Groth and Michael Catron began publishing in July of 1976. That was soon to change. “Within a few weeks of his arrival,” said Groth, “he came over to our ‘office,’ which was the spare bedroom of my apartment, and was introduced by a mutual friend — it was a fan visit. We were operating out of College Park, Maryland and Kim’s parents had moved to Fairfax, Virginia, both Washington DC suburbs. Kim loved the energy around the Journal and the whole idea of a magazine devoted to writing about comics, and asked if he could help. We needed all the help we could get, of course, so we gladly accepted his offer. He started to come over every day and was soon camping out on the floor. The three of us were living and breathing The Comics Journal 24 hours a day.” Thompson became an owner when Catron took a job at DC Comics in 1978. As he became more familiar with the editorial process, Thompson became more and more integral to the magazine, assembling and writing news and conducting interviews with professionals. Thompson’s career in comics began here. In 1981, Fantagraphics began publishing comics (such as Jack Jackson’s Los Tejanos, Don Rosa’s Comics and Stories, and, in 1982, Love and Rockets). Thompson was always evangelical about bandes dessinées and wanted to bring the best of European comics to America; in 1981, Thompson selected and translated the first of many European graphic novels for American publication — Herman Huppen’s The Survivors: Talons of Blood (followed by a 2nd volume in 1983). Thompson’s involvement in The Comics Journal diminished in 1982 when he took over the editorship of Amazing Heroes, a bi-weekly magazine devoted to more mainstream comics (with occasional forays into alternative and even foreign comics). Thompson helmed Amazing Heroes through 204 issues until 1992. Among Thompson’s signature achievements in comics were Critters, a funny-animal anthology that ran from 50 issues between 1985 to 1990 and is perhaps best known for introducing the world to Stan Sakai’s Usagi Yojimbo; and Zero Zero, an alternative comics anthology that also ran for 50 issues over five years — between 1995 and 2000 — and featured work by, among others, Kim Deitch, Dave Cooper, Al Columbia, Spain...
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Here’s the official flyer.
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