The zine has been finished. Thank you everyone for the support!
♥ About
The Five of a Kind Zine is a Lupin III zine that aims to answer the question: "What brings the Lupin crew together?"
Seeing as there are so many differing interpretations of who each character is and what their relationships are with each other (both in the franchise itself as well as by fans) be it healthy, toxic, platonic, romantic, Some Special Other Thing that mere words cannot describe... every fan would have a different response to this question.
What better way to explore this than to create a showcase of what artistically inclined answers to that can be!
♣ Zine Info
This zine will be available digitally in the form of a custom NeoCities website and a digital PDF file in Itch.io. We accept visual artists (digital, scanned traditional, 3D, photography, collages, gifs, etc), and writers!
The zine will also contain a free digital merch set available for download.
If you wish to learn more about the zine in further detail, please check out this document!
For more questions, please ask us on this account or check out our tag for answered questions -> #questions
Five of a Kind A Lupin III Fanzine The theme of this project is "What brings these five together?" Seeing as there are so many differing
♦ Mods
Host:
Danny (@goemonbooty)
Mods:
Cyrus / Marcy (@repliiku)
Peater (@peaterookie)
Niamh (@looptroupe)
Jesse-Rhys (@ddiscophriec)
♠ Socials
⇓ We also have a social media account on these sites! ⇓
I had the honor to draw a piece for the Five of a Kind Zine! A very fun experience, I got to recreate once more an illustration that is dear to me <3 Thank you all for being such cool fellas to hang out with and create together! @fiveofakindzine
You can see the piece and read my artist statement on the fanzine's website on Neocities!
After reflecting on his time spent on the Lupin case, Yata finally works up the courage to ask Zenigata about something that's been nagging at him for a while.
Read "je ne sais quoi", the 3k word fic i wrote for the fantastic @fiveofakindzine [here]!
My piece for the @fiveofakindzine ! I based the comic off of the song Everybody’s Talkin’ by Harry Nilsson. I feel it suits the vibe and the characters’ dynamics.
Myself and so many incredible artists are a part of this zine. If you are at all a fan of Lupin, or just wanna see some cool fanart, go check it out! You can peruse the zine in full at: https://fiveofakindlupinzine.neocities.org/
This is my piece in the newly released @fiveofakindzine that I helped moderate!! Please check out the entire zine its so cool
Below the cut will be my extended statement on my piece, please give it a read.
From the beginning I wanted to make something rather complex. The theme of the zine bought a great breeding ground of ideas in my head... How do I see the gang?
A lot of it has to do with the ending of the manga. It drastically altered the way I saw their dynamic. It was one of those moments in the story where it practically explains everything the characters did in the past or bought a whole new meaning to.
The manga never tries to get you to believe that what the Lupgang does is good. They don't think highly of themselves either, yet they continue to pursue this life. Why? It's because of Lupin.
It's a pretty common idea that Lupin is the center of the wheel. He connects everyone together, he drives the story forward with everyone following his tracks. The difference in the manga is that Lupin is in no way a good person. It's not the wholesome polycule that people conjure up, it is someone dragging all their friends into the pits of hell.
Lupin purposely continues this path and never thinks to go back because it's too late. I believe everyone else; Jigen, Goemon, Fujiko, Zenigata, share this belief some way or another. That's why they keep spinning that wheel. They know it's bad, but there's no point in stopping.
Deep down they want to keep being criminals, pursuing the forbidden path. Zenigata himself becomes corrupted and uses the likes of criminals to arrest Lupin. He despises him yet they aren't too different deep down. They both pursue what they want, no matter what means.
Lupin offers that delicious freedom that they all desire so much. In Goemon's case, Lupin literally frees him from the abuse of his master. Perhaps it is indebtedness that keeps them moving forward, the hunger for free will.
They know deep down when Lupin is gone, their life will never have that spark again. Things go back to normal, and that's what they can't stand. They'd pursue their perverted desires until it leads to their death. Hence why this drawing is rather perverted too. I feel like sex and masochism is a really apt way of showing this relationship, not just of how horny the manga gets, but for some people, they get pleasure out of getting hurt/hurting back. It's an exercise of free will!
In a non romantic content however, the gang's relationship in the manga is just textbook abusive and manipulative relationship. The victims can't help but stay in it due to the safety it offers them (mentally) or believing that it can get better.
Er, back to canonical events. All of what I said ties to the events leading to the ending, Lupin kind of... gets manic? He gets noticeably antsy and pulls very risky heists, all of which don't really jive well with Jigen and Goemon.
The lack of logic that Lupin is operating on messes with the dynamic of the gang heavily. Jigen, who normally wrangles him back to reality, gives up and just follows commands. He becomes very apathetic to everything that happens and shuts down practically.
Goemon now becomes the brain of the team. He ends up trying to reason with Lupin (failing) and pulls the team out of death. Having so much burden on him, he noticeably becomes frustrated and cold. There's also the thing about him being suicidal.. but i can't confirm it.
Fujiko and Lupin's relationship, who was mostly an equal game of cat and mouse, now becomes one sided as Lupin tugs her into any scheme he thinks of. While their relationship was rocky at the beginning, Fujiko still gets her ways sometimes, which isnt the case at the end.
Zenigata, which I've touched on a bit, becomes a corrupted cop. He despises Lupin and wants to do anything to get him not just arrested, but killed. He ignores his morals and partners up with criminals which ends up working. He finally gets to kill all of them, but at what cost?
Hopefully all of this is represented in the piece I made. I really really love the manga and the gang offers so much interesting thoughts about relationships and psychology.
Thank you Five of a Kind for the opportunity to make something like this. It's my way to give tribute to a series which changed my life. I'm not into Lupin as much I used to but it's still really important that I do this. Also thank you Kato-sensei for making the best yaoi ever
My artwork done for the @fiveofakindzine Zine. Please go and look at all the artwork! I basically wanted to channel the Koike/Manga Lupin a little more here. Someone also said that it reminded them of the I receive you receive meme, so I had to lean into that (and redraw his hands)
Very excited to share my piece for the @fiveofakindzine ! Truly honored to be a part of this, please check out the whole zine to see my in-depth process on this piece & everyone else's wonderful works!
I had a lot of fun illustrating this and have the chance to take part in a project with my favourite gang of misfits. You can find the digital zine attached to this post, which also includes my little artist statement on the piece (I've never done that before it was pretty exciting lol!)
Go check it out and show your support for the other artists and writers!
Image ID under the cut
[Image ID: An illustrated piece featuring the four main characters from the Lupin The Third series. It depicts a night-time setting in the middle of a field with a fiat in the bottom middle of the image. Lupin is sitting on the roof of the car, facing away from the viewer and resting an arm on his leg with a relaxed posture. Jigen is resting on the front of the car, smoking a cigarette with his eyes hidden by his hat with his hands in his pockets. Fujiko is resting on the side of the car, facing the viewer and also smoking a cigarette. Her eyes are hidden under her fringe and he uses her hand to rest her elbow. Zenigata is next to her, sitting on the grass with both arms resting on his legs and Goemon is against the bumper of the car, looking up with his hand on the his sword. In the sky, there are four shooting stars. End ID]
