 | |
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Retail |
| Founded | 2013 |
| Founders | |
| Fate | On hiatus (as of June 2019) |
| Headquarters | , United States |
Area served | |
| Products | Gay manga, clothing |
| Website | massive-goods |
Massive Goods (or simply Massive) is a fashion brand and manga publisher. The company works with LGBTQ and feminist comic artists in Japan, particularly gay manga (bara) artists, to create products featuring their artwork, and English-language translations of their works.
Massive was founded in 2013 by Anne Ishii and Graham Kolbeins concurrent with the release of The Passion of Gengoroh Tagame: Master of Gay Erotic Manga (Picturebox), the first English-language publication of works by Gengoroh Tagame, which Ishii and Kolbeins co-edited with Chip Kidd. [1] Massive first released a line of t-shirts featuring artwork by Tagame and Jiraiya, [2] which gained popularity in the LGBTQ hip-hop scene. [3]
On June 7, 2019, Massive went on hiatus. While the company continues to fulfill online orders, it is not presently planning new product launches or events. [4]
In partnership with other brands, Massive has launched several fashion and accessory lines, primarily featuring Jiraiya's artwork. In June 2014, Massive, Jiraiya, and Opening Ceremony launched a product line to commemorate Pride Month which featured apparel, accessories, and a Tenga sex toy. [3] [5] That same year, Mission Chinese Food and Massive released a t-shirt collaboration, also featuring art by Jiraiya. [6] A second collaboration with Opening Ceremony and Jiraiya, "Power-Up Massive", launched in 2015, [7] [8] along with a line of swim briefs with artwork by Jiraiya created by Pretty Snake, the fashion brand founded by Project Runway contestant Joe Segal. [9]
In December 2014, Fantagraphics published Massive: Gay Erotic Manga and the Men Who Make It , the first English-language anthology of gay manga. [10] Co-edited by Ishii, Kolbeins, and Kidd, Massive was nominated for an Eisner Award for Best Anthology. [11]
Massive has published several English-language translations of dōjinshi, including Cretian Cow by Gengoroh Tagame, [12] and Caveman Guu and Two Hoses by Jiraiya. [12] [13]
In 2016, Massive co-produced with Koyama Press an English-language translation of What is Obscenity?: The Story of a Good For Nothing Artist and her Pussy, a graphic novel memoir by Rokudenashiko. [14] The memoir was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. [15] That same year, Massive began work with Pantheon Books on the English-language translation of My Brother's Husband , Gengoroh Tagame's first all-ages manga. [16] The first volume in the series, translated by Ishii, won an Eisner Award for Best U.S. Edition of International Material—Asia. [17]
Massive Gay Manga, a publishing imprint set to launch under Bruno Gmünder Verlag in 2017, was cancelled following the dissolution of the company. [18]
G-men is a Japanese gay lifestyle brand, and formerly a monthly magazine.
Charles Kidd is an American graphic designer known for book covers.
Gengoroh Tagame is a pseudonymous Japanese manga artist. He is regarded as the most prolific and influential creator in the gay manga genre. Tagame began contributing manga and prose fiction to Japanese gay men's magazines in the 1980s, after making his debut as a manga artist in the yaoi manga magazine June while in high school. As a student he studied graphic design at Tama Art University, and worked as a commercial graphic designer and art director to support his career as a manga artist. His manga series The Toyed Man, originally serialized in the gay men's magazine Badi from 1992 to 1993, enjoyed breakout success after it was published as a book in 1994. After co-founding the gay men's magazine G-men in 1995, Tagame began working as a gay manga artist full-time.
Erotic comics are adult comics which focus substantially on nudity and sexual activity, either for their own sake or as a major story element. As such they are usually not permitted to be sold to legal minors. Like other genres of comics, they can consist of single panels, short comic strips, comic books, or graphic novels/albums. Although never a mainstream genre, they have existed as a niche alongside – but usually separate from – other genres of comics.
Sadao Hasegawa was a Japanese graphic artist known for creating homoerotic fetish art. His works are noted for their extensive detail, elaborate fantasy settings, and for their juxtaposition of elements from Japanese, Balinese, Thai, Tibetan Buddhist, African, and Indian art. While Hasegawa focused primarily on depictions of muscular male physique, he often incorporated extreme sexual themes in his works, including bondage and sadomasochism. His art is noted for strong mystical and spiritual overtones.
Bara is a colloquialism for a genre of Japanese art and media known within Japan as gay manga (ゲイ漫画) or gei komi. The genre focuses on male same-sex love, as created primarily by gay men for a gay male audience. Bara can vary in visual style and plot, but typically features masculine men with varying degrees of muscle, body fat, and body hair, akin to bear or bodybuilding culture. While bara is typically pornographic, the genre has also depicted romantic and autobiographical subject material, as it acknowledges the varied reactions to homosexuality in modern Japan.
Anne Ishii is an American writer, editor, translator, and producer based in Philadelphia. Ishii is the host of WHYY's Movers & Makers, and the Executive Director of Philadelphia's Asian Arts Initiative, an arts non-profit.
My Brother's Husband is a manga series by Gengoroh Tagame. Serialized in Monthly Action from 2014 to 2017, and adapted into a live-action television drama by NHK in 2018, the series follows the relationship between single father Yaichi, his daughter Kana, and Mike Flanagan, the Canadian husband of Yaichi's estranged and recently deceased twin brother.
Graham Kolbeins is a Canadian filmmaker, writer, and fashion designer.
Jiraiya is a pseudonymous Japanese gay manga artist and illustrator. He is noted for his homoerotic, hyperreal drawings of gachimuchi men, and for his use of digital illustration in his artwork.
Tsuyoshi Yoshida, known by the pen name Go Mishima, was a Japanese homoerotic fetish artist and founder of the magazine Sabu. He is noted for his illustrations of "macho-type" men, often with yakuza-inspired irezumi tattoos. Mishima, along with Tatsuji Okawa, Sanshi Funayama, and Go Hirano, is regarded by artist and historian Gengoroh Tagame as a central figure in the first wave of contemporary gay artists in Japan.
Sanshi Funayama was a Japanese homoerotic fetish artist. Funayama, along with Go Mishima, Tatsuji Okawa, and Go Hirano, is regarded by artist and historian Gengoroh Tagame as a central figure in the first wave of contemporary gay artists in Japan.
Tatsuji Okawa was a Japanese homoerotic fetish artist. Tatsuji, along with Go Mishima, Sanshi Funayama, and Go Hirano, is regarded by artist and historian Gengoroh Tagame as a central figure in the first wave of contemporary gay artists in Japan.
Go Hirano (平野剛) was a Japanese homoerotic fetish artist. Hirano, along with Go Mishima, Sanshi Funayama, and Tatsuji Okawa, is regarded by artist and historian Gengoroh Tagame as a central figure in the first wave of contemporary gay artists in Japan.
Queer Japan is a 2019 documentary film directed, edited, and co-written by Graham Kolbeins. The documentary profiles a range of individuals in Japan who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ). Queer Japan is produced by Hiromi Iida with Anne Ishii, written by Ishii and Kolbeins, and features an original score composed by Geotic.
Ben Kimura was a Japanese gay erotic artist. Kimura, along with George Takeuchi and Sadao Hasegawa, is noted by artist and historian Gengoroh Tagame as a central figure in the second wave of contemporary gay artists that emerged in Japan in the 1970s.
Massive: Gay Erotic Manga and the Men Who Make It is a 2014 manga anthology edited by Anne Ishii, Chip Kidd, and Graham Kolbeins, and published by Fantagraphics Books. Collecting works from Gengoroh Tagame, Jiraiya, and numerous other artists, it is the first English-language anthology of gay manga.
Takeshi Matsu is a Japanese gay manga artist.
Gai Mizuki, also known as Rycanthropy, is a Japanese gay manga artist and dōjin soft producer.
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