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Thursday, Feb 23, 2012 1:00 AM UTC

Gidra takes on the American war machine

A forgotten newspaper adopted the name of a Godzilla monster as it fought imperialism and racism

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Topics: Imprint, Design,

Gidra takes on the American war machine (Credit: Alan Takemoto)
This article originally appeared on Imprint.

Remember those radical underground rags of the late 1960s? The East Village Other. The Berkeley Barb. The L.A. Free Press. Gidra. Wait … Gidra?

Wasn’t that a monster in those dumb Godzilla movies? Yes, but just because he tried to lay waste to Japan and the rest of civilization, Gidra wasn’t all bad. Which is how five UCLA students felt when they decided to name their newspaper after this three-headed winged dragon from outer space.

The ambitions of Gidra, which published monthly from 1969 to 1974, were more modest, and more noble. Its editors only wanted to destroy American imperialism in Southeast Asia and racism at home. As the “Voice of the Asian American Movement,” it promoted pride in Japanese culture, which had not fully recovered from the legacy of World War II incarceration. And was recently part of Drawing the Line, a Pacific Standard Time exhibition at L.A.’s Japanese American National Museum.

Its text spreads were unexceptional: simple, straightforward blocks of columns. But what made its pages come alive were the illustrations. It was the images that communicated to Gidra’s readers on a powerful, visceral level.

You can see a video about Gidra here, and read more about “Drawing the Line,” subtitled “Japanese American Art, Design, and Activism in Post-War Los Angeles,” here.

Unless otherwise indicated, all illustrations are by Alan Takemoto.

Illustration: Glen Iwasaki.

Illustrations: Glen Iwasaki and Mike Murase.

Illustration: Ken Minamiji.

Design: Naomi Uyeda.

Copyright F+W Media Inc. 2012.

Salon is proud to feature content from Imprint, the fastest-growing design community on the web. Brought to you by Print magazine, America’s oldest and most trusted design voice, Imprint features some of the biggest names in the industry covering visual culture from every angle. Imprint advances and expands the design conversation, providing fresh daily content to the community (and now to salon.com!), sparking conversation, competition, criticism, and passion among its members.

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Salon is proud to feature content from Imprint, the fastest-growing design community on the web. Brought to you by Print magazine, America's oldest and most trusted design voice, Imprint features some of the biggest names in the industry covering visual culture from every angle. Imprint

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