Category: Comics

As I sit here chugging coffee and listening to Geto Boys, naturally my mind starts to drift toward thoughts of Kung Fu Cult Cinema. Not the genre specifically, but the website of olde that covered everything related to Asian flicks, however remote. It’s where I got my start writing and, like many things born and raised online, it’s now floating in a ghoulish shipyard with other similarly abandoned ephemera.

KFCC’s front page circa 2007
I wouldn’t necessarily say the collective level of writing on KFCC was “excellent”—mine certainly wasn’t—but the site fostered a strong sense of community over the course of its existence, such that even when I was long separated from the actual work, I was bummed when it slammed down its virtual shutters for good. I did a lot of work on that site, and it also gave me my first significant taste of “getting free shit,” which can be a strong motivator when you’re a young, broke college student.

What makes KFCC more than just a footnote in my so-far relatively brief and kind of weird career as a writer is the frankly astounding amount of my life—both in terms of work and friendships—that have their origin rooted there. It’s a veritable rogues gallery I’m tellin’ ya*, and that’s just scratching the surface of people who have had a great effect on my life in some way since meeting them via KFCC.

There’s also the not insignificant fact that, well, the entirety of my work since has come as a result of writing for free about this stuff on that very site. It seems like an eternity ago now, but I once took the opportunity to interview this dude some of you may know about both PULP and this little book he wrote, Tokyoscope. Because of this bold meeting of the minds Patrick has been my editor-slash-wise-but-unfortunately-not-bearded-mentor in some capacity since ~2004.

Unfortunately one can only access KFCC now via waybackmachine, which is far from ideal. In fact, it’s downright pointless. However, in the interest of “keeping the dream alive,” I’m going to dig up and post some of my reviews on this blog; not because they’re great writing samples, but because the movies themselves are awesome. I also hold the power to slightly alter them in subtle ways so as not to make myself look like a huge idiot. Stay tuned.

*if I didn’t link you here, it’s probably because I don’t know what the hell site you have anymore, if any!

If you’re reading this right now, you probably have some fancy equipment like an iPad or an iPhone. Congratulations, because that’s the only way to view my blog now, as I’m moving past what one would even consider a “blog.” In fact, that will be the last time I refer to this as such, because going forward the JLR is a virtual magazine.

What kind of content can you expect from a “virtual magazine,” you ask? Well, certainly pictures of butterflies will not suffice. The JLR will heretofore only serve the most elegant of content, which you may literally peruse with your fingers as you would a real magazine. Now, touch your screen to read on.

Alright now, on to more of the features. Thanks to a fully integrated system of content, you can actually access all of this site’s old stories just as easily as you would the new. All you have to do is flip your thumb over to the sidebar and choose from various dates and subjects. It’s a pretty hefty backlog, but the JLR’s engineers had little trouble putting everything together.

If you have any questions about the way this all works, don’t hesitate to ask. Below you’ll find a drawing, which you can pinch and pull to zoom in and out for a better view.

Best,

Joseph Luster
EIC, The JLR