Giant Robot Anniversary
Thursday, July 8th, 2004
It’s the 10th year anniversary of Giant Robot magazine. I remember picking up the first issue of Giant Robot at Tower Records, which was back then one of the few mainstream places one can buy underground zines. The first issue, with the sleeping sumo wrestler on the cover as you see me holding above, was a true zine. Its irreverent pages, filled with esoteric Asian-American cultural references, were photocopied and stapled together by hand. By the fourth issue (the one on the right above), it had acquired a sleek 4-color cover but kept its interior pages rough-looking and in black and white (screened at 60 lpi). Nowadays, the magazine is a glossy, full-color rag but it has somehow stayed true to the spirit of its zine days.