WHO WERE THE RESIN PUNKS?
In the earliest days of the hobby, passionate fans used crude techniques and material like metal and resin to make model kits based on their favorite subjects. These subjects were not the same things commonly seen in plastic models (an industry then in the midst of the gunpla boom) but instead things like figures, original designs, and sci-fi monsters.
Throughout the 1980s, mom-and-pop hobby shops turned into garage kit manufacturers, big name companies got involved, and the hobby picked up the slack after the gunpla boom burst in 1985. Garage kits became increasingly sophisticated and complex, subject matter changed, and the modeling industry would be changed forever.
Publication History
Resin Punks began as a side project years ago in the early days of Zimmerit and eventually turned into a sprawling text that attempted to document the garage kit industry of the 1980s. Drawing from period sources and translated interviews and articles, I had originally hoped to publish it as some sort of book although it never quite reached the point of feeling “complete.” This was many years before Gainazine. Since then I occasionally pulled articles or supplementary text from this for the site and our other books, some of which you’ve probably read.
Availability
Our ‘zines are available first to our supporters on Patreon. Folks who back at us the highest tier receive a copy and a special Patreon-exclusive supplement. After that the book will be available direct from us at garagekit.club or from select specialty retailers in the US, UK, and Canada.
Additional Details & Credits
Resin Punks is 40 pages, 5.5″x8.5″, and includes both color and black & white pages. Writing and layout by Sean O’Mara. Translation by Matt Schley and Maud Duke. Photos of General Products circa 1989 by William Smith. Back cover by Alex Connolly. Renzo Adler came up with the name and provided design and distribution support.
Relevant Articles
- Anime Archaeology: Shibuya’s B-Club Shop
- Character Goods of 1984: Neko Mimi and Combat Jyou
- 10 Years of General Products
- The Valentine’s Day Mania-Store: Opening Day at General Products
- SMH: The Magazine for Sex, Violence, and Resin
- The 1/220 Scale Garage Kits of Kazuhisa Kondo and Makoto Kobayashi
- Garage Kit Heroines: Gall Force Star Front
- Gunpla Doujin: Universal Century 0087
- The Resin Punks Never Left
- Hobby Japan’s Experimental Otaku Magazine Mark 1
- Two Factory: A Translated Interview with Kow Yokoyama and Makoto Kobayashi
- Fewture’s Full Size Zeiram Prop Kits
- Bandai’s Brain Bank Media: B-Club
- Resin Royalty: Kotobukiya’s Original Kit Catalog of 1991
- Bandai, The Post-Gundam Wave, and the Year 1985
- Doujin, Cosplay, Garage Kits, and Dinosaurs: A Look at Do-Pe Magazine
- Kenichi Sonoda, Lumroid, and Hobby Shop Musasiya
- Stream•Base: Riding The Gunpla Boom in the Early Days of Gundam Model Mania
- Gunpla Boom Ephemera: Kunio Okawara’s Gouf Lady
- From Garage Kits to Action Figures: The First 15 Years of Wonder Festival
- Lights, Camera, Garage Kits! The Cinematic Influences of Yasushi Nirasawa
- A 1985 Otaku Salad: Fruity Five
- Not So Big in Japan: Heavy Metal Miniatures
- Akira Toriyama’s 4 Million Yen Model Kit
- Animal Style: Rediscovering The Remnants of the Garage Kit Boom
