Tuesday, July 06, 2004
Modest Trendsetters Don't Want to Know Who's Reading
Run, do not walk over to the NY Times, swallow hard and do your free registration, so you can read this article by Randy Kennedy before July 11. That's when the Times rolls it into the archive and you have to pay for the privilege of reading it.
"Asian-American Trendsetting on a Shoestring" is about the goofy, lovable guys in Los Angeles who publish Giant Robot.
"Asian-American Trendsetting on a Shoestring" is about the goofy, lovable guys in Los Angeles who publish Giant Robot.
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.They admit they don't have a plan, other than resisting the pleas of publicity companies to cover more mainstream Asian products. They just keep to cool stuff in and throw the bad stuff out.
"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."
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.
