Hardcover, 464 pages, measures 8.3 x 11 inches, full color.
Each copy comes with a signed bookplate by Eric Nakamura!
Books can be purchased in person at GR2 on 10/19 and will be available again in store the following week (starting October 22nd).
For those who ordered during preorder phase: Books will ship out late October, early November 2024, with signatures from Eric Nakamura, Martin Wong, James Jean, Luke Chueh, Daniel Wu, Felicia Chiao, maybe more! The official release date is October 22nd.
In person book events are scheduled in Los Angeles, Northern California Bay Area, Philadelphia, New York and maybe more?! For more information click here!
In conjunction with the great Drawn & Quarterly, we present Giant Robot: Thirty Years of Defining Asian-American Pop Culture, a hardcover curated collection of Giant Robot's best! Jam packed with so many great articles written by + interviews conducted by the passionate and creative Giant Robot contributors throughout the years. A beautiful hardcopy encapsulation of an era that lives on today!
Description from Drawn & Quarterly:
Celebrating the pop culture phenomenon that redefined what it meant to be Asian American with tributes from Margaret Cho, Randall Park, Jia Tolentino, and more.
Los Angeles, 1994. Two Asian American punk rockers staple together the zine of their dreams featuring Sumo, Hong Kong Cinema and Osamu Tezuka. From the very margins of the DIY press and alternative culture, Giant Robot burst into the mainstream with over 60,000 copies in circulation annually at its peak. Giant Robot even popped right off the page, setting up a restaurant, gallery, and storefronts in LA, as well as galleries and stores in New York and San Francisco. As their influence grew in the 90s and 00s, Giant Robot was eventually invited to the White House by Barack Obama, to speak at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, and to curate the GR Biennale at the Japanese American National Museum.Home to a host of unapologetically authentic perspectives bridging the bicultural gap between Asian and Asian American pop culture, GR had the audacity to print such topics side-by-side, and become a touchstone for generations of artists, musicians, creators, and collectors of all kinds in a pre-social media era. Nowhere else were pieces on civil rights activists running next to articles on skateboarding and Sriracha. Toy collectors, cartoonists, and street style pioneers got as many column inches as Michelle Yeoh, Karen O, James Jean, and Haruki Murakami.
Giant Robot: Thirty Years of Defining Asian American Pop Culture features the best of the magazine’s sixty-eight issue run alongside never-before-seen photographs, supplementary writing by long-term contributing journalist Claudine Ko, and tributes from now-famous fans who’ve been around since day one. Margaret Cho, Daniel Wu, and Randall Park celebrate Giant Robot’s enduring legacy alongside pioneering pro-skateboarder Peggy Oki, contemporary art giant Takashi Murakami, culinary darling Natasha Pickowicz, and critically acclaimed essayist Jia Tolentino.
*Preorder* Felicia Chiao - "Giant Robot Cover" Art Print (Giant Robot: Thirty Years of Defining Asian American Pop Culture)
Signed art print by Felicia Chiao. Piece is unframed.
This is an open edition.
Artwork measures 12 x 18 inches.
Please note this is a preorder - prints will likely ship out sometime within November 2024, though a more specific time frame will be provided as soon as we are able to!
This piece was made by Felicia Chiao for the cover of Giant Robot: Thirty Years of Defining Asian-American Pop Culture.
Adrian Tomine - Q & A (Softcover)
Softcover, 168 pages, Measures 5" x 7.1"
Everything you wanted to know about storytelling or Adrian Tomine but were too afraid to ask
“That would’ve been too easy and spontaneous for me, and I had to find a way to make everything more complicated.”
And yet for over thirty years, bestselling author, screenwriter, and New Yorker cover artist Adrian Tomine’s work has set the standard for contemporary storytelling. With Tomine, his readership has grown from the dedicated following of his comic-book series Optic Nerve to include a wider but still engaged, opinionated, and ever-inquiring public. And now, for the first time in print, Tomine responds to his readers directly, tackling their questions and comments with generosity, humor, and vulnerability.
Q&A is one part personal history, one part masterclass in crafting quality entertainment. With questions pulled from his time at the Substack Writers’ Residency, and with additional, new material, Q&A is an indispensable addition to the collections of eagle-eyed fans and aspiring artists, writers, and cartoonists alike.
Tomine answers questions about his preferred tools, his creative process, the ups and downs of adaptation, and perhaps most importantly—how to pronounce his last name. Illustrated with drafts, outtakes, and photos from the artist’s personal collection, this rare peek into the mind of a contemporary cartooning giant lays out the method to his meticulous brand of madness. The artist looks back on his career in response to queries from his—maybe adoring but mostly curious—public with his signature dry wit and unflinching, self-deprecating honesty.
Adrian Tomine - Scenes from an Impending Marriage
Hardcover, 56 pages, measures 5.4 x 6.6 inches, black and white comic.
MAKING LIGHT OF NUPTIAL NARCISSM
At the behest of his soon-to-be wife, Adrian Tomine set out to create a wedding favor for their guests that would be funnier and more personal than the typical chocolate bars and picture frames. What started out as a simple illustrated card soon grew into a full-fledged comic book: a collection of short strips chronicling the often absurd process of getting married. A loose, cartoony departure from Tomine's previous work,Scenes from an Impending Marriage is a sweet-natured, laugh out-loud skewering of the modern marriage process, including hiring a DJ, location scouting, trips to the salon, suit fittings, dance lessons, registering for gifts, and managing familial demands. The most personal and autobiographical work of Tomine's career,Scenes from an Impending Marriageis a charming, delightful token of love.
Adrian Tomine - Shortcomings (Softcover)