G-Fan, Summer 2009

"RRRAAAAWWWWRRRR!!!! RRRRAAWWWWRRR!!!! RRRAAWWWRRR!! RRAAWW RRAAWWW RRAAWWRRRRRrrrr...."
Got a call from my friendly neighborhood comic store that the latest issue of G-Fan was out and they were holding it for me! It'll be a sad day when the small brick & mortars are gone. This is the second issue I've bought in a row, so I'm now allowed to say that reading this magazine is a poignant experience. The letters to the editor: earnestly humorless and long-winded, as are the articles themselves. The tributes to recently departed kaiju-related filmmakers, cast, and crew who were B-movie pioneers and sex symbols in the 50's. (Funny how watching G-movies makes me feel young again but identifying with the fandom just makes me feel old.) The "analysis" that belabors the obvious, such as when an article spends time hammering home the argument that kaiju eiga is influenced by "Japanese Folklore" -- ya think? -- before finally getting into the really cool stuff: stories I've never heard before about Yokai and Obakemono, Umibozu and Yamabushi Tengu, serpentmen, giant centipedes, and Japanese mermaids. Oh and the typoes! Too depressing to get into... no, on second thought I will, because this makes me mad. How could "the magazine of giant movie monsters" include an error like "Godfzilla"? (Unless it's a joke, like OMFG?)
I wish so much that I lived in a world where an English-language Godzilla magazine could be (a) officially licensed by Toho (b) printed on glossy paper and in color like a magazine devoted to giant monster movies should, (c) free of the "original" serial comic about a towering creature bearing the execrable name of "G-Fantis," (d) include news about upcoming movies. Alas, the film series itself has been suspended pending the next reboot, so for now (and probably a couple years coming) this is all we got.
Still, it was interesting to find out that "Jungle Girl" Evelyne Kraft, star of Mighty Peking Man, had devoted her life to animal rights and fighting global poverty before she tragically passed away at a young age. It was cool to read the well-researched and thorough essays about Japanese folklore and Komodo dragons in pop culture. After reading the review of Monstrous: 20 Tales of Giant Creature Terror, I must confess I looked it up on Amazon. And the high point was reading the interview with Ishiro Honda's son and his memories of going to see three Western movies per day with his father, feeling the wind created by flapping wings of a ten-foot Mothra model, and crying when Rodan died. And with my newfound knowledge of folklore, I feel ready to see Takashi Miike's The Great Yokai War!
(Monster movie fanzines not grown-up enough for ya? Then this is kind of related though ultimately not: hypermasculinity, horror, and homophobia come out in
this essay about a short Cuban film that'll remind you of Denzel proclaiming "KING KONG AIN'T GOT NOTHIN' ON ME.")
Anywayze in an effort to start reading more and enlargify my attention span a little, I'm going to start following a few mags this year -- The New Yorker, Natural History,, Heavy Metal, and probably G-Fan too despite my gripes. I wanna always have something fun to read that's easy to pick up at home and that's printed on real paper, with "pages" I can turn and fold and scrape and smooth out with my fingers. If ya got any recommendations for other fun magazines, then feel free to reply and share!

