IDW's GODZILLA General Discussion

[daveblackeye15]

Sure how many more times are they going to re-release this? For that price it'd better have another volume or something.

[LSD Jellyfish]

Re-releases are actually somewhat important, especially considering this comic originally came out in 2013. Yikes, HCW is 12 years old… There’s no doubt that there’s new Godzilla fans, and HCW is generally regarded as one of the best comics IDW has ever put out.

However, I agree that price is ridiculous lol.

[ebirahsmeg1]

The Godzilla 70th Anniversary comic has been nominated for an Eisner, just like Here There Be Dragons was last year:

https://godzilla.com/blogs/news/godzill ... nomination

'Godzilla’s 70th Anniversary' Comic Anthology Nominated for Eisner Award'

Godzilla's 70th Anniversary has been nominated for Best Anthology in this year's Eisner Awards.

The King of the Monsters is once again up for one of the biggest awards in comic books. IDW Publishing's Godzilla's 70th Anniversary and editor Jake Williams have been nominated for Best Anthology in this year's Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards.

Originally released in May of 2024 as the 100-page Godzilla: 70th Anniversary, the anthology received a second release in October of 2024 with additional content as the 200-page Godzilla's 70th Anniversary hardcover.

Edited by Godzilla series editor Jake Willaims, Godzilla's 70th Anniversary contains nine stories by creators including Joëlle Jones, Michael Conrad, Matt Frank, James Stokoe, Adam Gorham, and other iconic creators. The hardcover also contains the anthology's original variant covers by E.J. Su, Sophie Campbell, Jeffrey Zornow, Tom Whalen, and Arthur Adams.

This year's Eisner nomination follows two from 2024. Godzilla: Here There Be Dragons, by Frank Tieri and Inaki Miranda was nominated for Best Limited Series and Miranda was nominated for Best Penciller/Inker or Penciller/Inker Team for work on the title.

The Eisner Award winners will be announced during the annual awards ceremony during Comic-Con on July 25.

The Godzilla's 70th Anniversary hardcover collection is available now at the Godzilla Store.

While HTBD was definitely deserving of the nomination, I can't really say the same for the 70th Anniversary comic. It had a few nice stories, but overall was all over the place quality-wise. Still, I guess it's nice to see a G comic recognized (and Stokoe, Gorham, Ed Su, and Frank all made some nice contributions to it).

[kaijukurt]

I just noticed that in IDW's August solicitations, there aren't any entries from the Kai-Sei titles? I hope that doesn't signal any delays with launching the shared universe.

[Cryptid_Liker]

Finally got around to reading one of these things yesterday after orbiting around it for... what, a year? Around that. To be specific, it was Monster Island Summer Camp. Had been looking forward to it ever since it got announced but just kinda forgot to check in when it came out. Happy to say it was a pretty charming read, even despite me being way past the target demographic. Zelda's a functional enough main character but I do think her nature as an audience insert results in her lagging behind in the personality department compared to Rumiko and Weezy. Her and Weezy both being physically disabled in some manner was pretty neat, though, and I like that neither's character were really DEFINED by it. However, Minilla as the main kaiju instead of Godzilla was always the main draw for me and I think the comic absolutely delivered on that front. Oliver Ono's art is great all-around here (I kinda wish his art for Starship Godzilla looked more like this, honestly) but I especially love how dopey Minilla was allowed to be when any lesser creative team would've probably just molded him into a generic cutesy mascot character in Minilla's clothing. I could perfectly imagine him having the AMA dub voice and that's unironically the biggest compliment I could give to him, especially in a story like this. The choice to use C-listers like Ebirah and Kamacuras as the setpiece kaiju instead of like Rodan and Anguirus or something was really nice and helps to reinforce the late 60s-ness of the premise. Also, Heisei Mothra actually looks appealing to me here. That's really cool. Not much else I can think of saying. Good read.

[omelettetdq3z]

there was a reddit ama with one of the editors the other day https://www.reddit.com/r/GODZILLA/comme ... la_comics/

[StreamOfKaijuness]

^ Thanks for sharing that. There's a lot of insightful info there.

Basically, we have a multi-year deal with Toho that allows us to make comics featuring Godzilla and the other kaiju. As part of that deal, we are in constant communication with Toho about the comics that we're publishing.

They're the perfect amount of 'hands on'! Basically, we pitch them what we'd like to do, they give us notes on how to do that, and then we're off to the races! Along the way we share story outlines / scripts / and art.

For the most part, authors have complete free reign! Especially for a standalone mini-series like Skate or Die. Using Varan was entirely the choice of the writer/artist Louie Joyce.

Sometimes I might suggest writers use a kaiju that hasn't been in the spotlight for a bit, or Toho might suggest a kaiju that's a better fit for the needs of the story--but it's mostly up to the creator!

James Stokoe just finished a cover for the ongoing! It's not announced yet, but that will be on an issue in the first arc of the ongoing.

As it currently stands, we're aiming to have Godzilla run as a true ongoing. That means we don't have an end in sight--so there's no date for when a full run will be connected.

But! We plan out story arcs in a similar way to TV shows--so the first arc of Starship Godzilla and Escape the Deadzone can be read on their own! Those collected editions will release around this time next year.

Godzilla: This will release once a month.

Starship Godzilla: This will release in seasons. 6 issue story arcs that are collected in trades, with a break between seasons for the artist to catch up.

Deadzone: Same as Starship!

Toho is incredibly lax when it comes to new kaiju. The books of the kai-sei era are trying to be really generative for the franchise, so you're going to see tons and tons of new kaiju and monsters show up.

When it comes to pitches, it's mostly me soliciting ideas from writers/artists that I know and like. Once and a while a peer in the industry (a writer I've worked with before, a fellow editor at IDW) will pass along a name of a creator who is interested in pitching.

For the books in the Kai-Sei era, 2 were born from me reaching out to writers and asking them to pitch in a specific direction, and 1 was from a writer getting in touch with me through an editor we've both worked with.

Once I've given feedback and feel happy with the pitch, I present it to Toho.

Starship and Deadzone are working on a season model--meaning we're going to do 6 issues of each, and then take a break while the artist catches up. Currently those are fully conceptualized (and pretty much fully written). We're now starting to plan out season 2 of each (pre-orders will help make sure those season 2's happen!)

Godzilla is an ongoing that will be released every single month--we currently have a really strong outline for the first 12, and ideas of where we want to go from there!

I also have another question regarding licensing stuff. Is Mothra Gemini lumped under the Mothra license, or does she have her own seperate trademark like Mothra Leo? If it's the latter, would Toho or IDW own the rights to Mothra Gemini after a possible expiration of whatever licensing deal the two companies have?

I ask since I am aware Toho is pretty strict with Legendary about making variants of their Toho roster (like stopping Legendary from referring to Godzilla as being part of a species and referring to Dagon as a "Godzilla-like" creature now), so I was wondering if those same stipulations exist for IDW or is Toho much more lax on that account?

Mothra Gemini is lumped under the Mothra license, and Toho owns the rights to her (both now, and after our licensing agreement expires). Everything we put into our Godzilla comics, even totally new creations, is owned by Toho. Which means there's always a possibility that the new kaiju of the kai-sei era might show up in other mediums!

All the rules that you're mentioning for Legendary, we have to follow as well. In general, any corporate owned IP is going to come with a set of established rules. The general purpose of those rules is just to ensure the core of the character remains intact--and one of the things that Toho views as being core to Godzilla is that its the only member of its species. There's only so far you can bend a fictional character before it stops being that character entirely.

Also, another question I've been wondering about, will there be any crossover between the three Kai-Sei series (Ex. G-Force going to the Deadzone at some point and encountering the Wanderer, Mechagodzilla and its crew arriving to Earth and fighting Godzilla at some point, some big Avengers-level crossover event where the casts of all three series meet together during some big event), or will they largely be seperate from one another in terms of any character or plot intersections.

Additionally, are there any plans to make more comic series set in the Kai-Sei era at some point or will Godzilla, Deadzone, and Starship be the only ones?

- We're absolutely planning a crossover in the future! But with that said, we're going to try and have our cake and eat it too: in the sense that while there will be a crossover, that won't mean fans of Starship Godzilla or Deadzone HAVE to read it to get the full story of those characters. Likely, the crossover will spawn out of the events of the main title and will function as a continuation of that story.

- At this point we're focusing on the three core titles--but we will have one additional limited series joining the fray next year.

The first issues of Godzilla, Deadzone, and Starship Godzilla all end with massive hooks. Basically entire pieces to the puzzle that we didn't want to spoil yet.

Godzilla #1 unveils a new kaiju that's incredibly unique in some really interesting ways. I can't wait for people to meet it and then learn more about it as the series progresses.

Godzilla #6 ends in a really surprising way, and sets up the second arc to do some incredibly incredibly cool things. I think readers are going to dig the first arc a lot, but I think once it ends there will be a big "ooohhhh that's what they're up to" moment.

Deadzone ends with the reveal of two characters with horrific powers that are going to be co-leads of the book.

Starship Godzilla ends with a huge reveal about a character--but to be honest, with that book, I'm mostly excited for people to get to Oliver Ono's beautifully illustrated mech fights in the later issues.

Will there continue to be wild little one off works for Godzilla or is Kai-Sei going to be all of Godzilla for a while?

The short answer: yes! We'll still do wacky one-offs that are outside of continuity.

The Kai-Sei Era is a universe that's meant to be incredibly generative. We purposefully built the continuity in a way that would inspire writers and artists to create new things--and never restrict the stories. So, I'm confident that most pitches could fit right at home in this era.

BUT! There's always room for Monsterpiece Theatre style pitches outside of continuity...and you'll be hearing announcements about things like that later in the year!

What regulations does Toho have regarding what writers can and cannot do inside their stories?

Any stipulations regarding designing new versions of existing characters (like Mothra Gemini in Queen of Monsters)?

Will any other monsters get a standalone comic or series similar to Mothra's?

- Toho has a few rules that are pretty easy to follow. For instance, we can't use any of the human characters from the films. They also have various stipulations for what their kaiju can and can't do; Godzilla doesn't eat or drink / Godzilla doesn't display human emotions / so on and so forth--But they basically have no stipulations for what original characters can or can't do.

- We specifically license the kaiju from the Toho produced Godzilla films (Legendary is a different license). Every Kaiju has different physical attributes that Toho feels are core to the character (Godzilla always has to have 3 rows of dorsal fins, for example)--but as long as we keep those, we can get pretty creative! I was pretty surprised by what we were able to get away with in regard to our Kai-Sei Godzilla.

- Starship Godzilla is a Mechagodzilla standalone series! But I understand if you don't wanna count that because it's still a zilla. At this point, we aren't currently planning any other standalone series--but you'll absolutely see dozens of kaiju show up in the 3 titles.

As of right now, we're actually not allowed to use the designs from Shin or Minus One.

I'm not totally sure the exact reason, I just know they aren't approved for our use. But...that could be changing sooner than later.

In our story, Jet Jaguar is a malfunctioning android from the 70s. As part of that, Jet isn't able to speak--but it can play it's old theme song. We like to think that Jet's theme song was originally installed to make civilians more comfortable when it shows up to save the day (sort of to offset it's uncanny-valley appearance). I will say--the FCBD prologue you can find online was just the first 10 pages, Jet gets more to do in the remaining 22 pages of issue 1.

I really want us to do a new take on Biollante...I love the origin so much, and think there's a lot to do with that character.

I think Gigan would be fun in Starship Godzilla, and I think Destoroyah would be cool in the ongoing.

[B34sT]

It’s interesting that they weren’t allowed to use Shin or Minus Godzilla yet but Marvel was allowed to put Shin Godzilla on their covers. I wonder if Marvel was given special permission.

[kaijukurt]

Very insightful interview!

[LSD Jellyfish]

Really cool and useful interview. It’s got me much more excited for the Kai-sei era and is very informative. I’m happy to hear about the relative freedom the creators have, and i like the format of the comics. AFTER ALMOST TEN YEARS, it’s thrilling to have a new ongoing Godzilla comic.

[kaijukurt]

I also noticed that despite Kiryu having been in IDW’s stable for more than a decade, I feel like only the Rivals Rodan vs Ebirah issue has been able to capture the feeling of Kiryu being a wildcard possessed by the original Godzilla instead of just another giant mech.

[B34sT]

I was thinking about this earlier, despite knowing Shin and Minus Goji are off the table, would anyone else be interested in seeing Ultima or Earth show up? I’m sure they don’t have the rights to use them (yet) but I think some fun stories could be made with Filius/Earth and even Ultima and his prior forms. They don’t even need to be based on the anime they came from.

[LSD Jellyfish]

I was thinking about this earlier, despite knowing Shin and Minus Goji are off the table, would anyone else be interested in seeing Ultima or Earth show up? I’m sure they don’t have the rights to use them (yet) but I think some fun stories could be made with Filius/Earth and even Ultima and his prior forms. They don’t even need to be based on the anime they came from.

I’d love it, and I think it would add a lot of variety and give the comics an “expansion” pack. I’d just even love to see the designs, like SPJJ/Angurius too. Hell throw Surunga in there.

What I suspect is that when they got the rights to Godzilla, they had everything made “up to that point”. Ie: they can use designs from the movies when they made their second deal. Maybe a renegotiation will happen in the future, but simultaneously I’m happy to see the more original route.

Pretty much all the Godzilla monsters have been used a lot already and to good effect, with the exception of something like Orga or Gabara.

[Moth]

I was thinking about this earlier, despite knowing Shin and Minus Goji are off the table, would anyone else be interested in seeing Ultima or Earth show up? I’m sure they don’t have the rights to use them (yet) but I think some fun stories could be made with Filius/Earth and even Ultima and his prior forms. They don’t even need to be based on the anime they came from.

I want Ultima to "invade" another comic. Like, have some sort of storyline involving him in the background of another comic, and then in the finale he materializes and fights the Godzilla we've been following for that mini or something. Play into the fact he's some sort of multi-dimensional hellspawn.

[daveblackeye15]

Oooh that would be a pretty fun use. I've heard Ultimate called a cheap version of Shin but I feel like Ultima being a more dimensional threat makes him unique from Shin.

[ebirahsmeg1]

Wow, I think this could be a new record for the number of Godzilla comics released in a single month:

7/2 - GvsThor (Marvel)
7/2 - Heist #5 (IDW)
7/2 - JLvsGvsK #2 (DC)
7/9 - HTBA #2 (IDW)
7/16 - MQOTM #4 (IDW)
7/16 - GDTMU #1 (Marvel)
7/23 - Kai-Sei #1 (IDW)
7/30 - GvsBoston (IDW)

Hope there's some good quality to go along with the quantity...

[LSD Jellyfish]

Wow, I think this could be a new record for the number of Godzilla comics released in a single month:

7/2 - GvsThor (Marvel)
7/2 - Heist #5 (IDW)
7/2 - JLvsGvsK #2 (DC)
7/9 - HTBA #2 (IDW)
7/16 - MQOTM #4 (IDW)
7/16 - GDTMU #1 (Marvel)
7/23 - Kai-Sei #1 (IDW)
7/30 - GvsBoston (IDW)

Hope there's some good quality to go along with the quantity...

It’s more if you include:
Godzilla Galactic Odyssey Chapter 4+5
And
Return to Skull Island #1 (July 9th)

[Mac Daddy MM]

Wow, I think this could be a new record for the number of Godzilla comics released in a single month:

7/2 - GvsThor (Marvel)
7/2 - Heist #5 (IDW)
7/2 - JLvsGvsK #2 (DC)
7/9 - HTBA #2 (IDW)
7/16 - MQOTM #4 (IDW)
7/16 - GDTMU #1 (Marvel)
7/23 - Kai-Sei #1 (IDW)
7/30 - GvsBoston (IDW)

Hope there's some good quality to go along with the quantity...

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this the first time a third party (Godzilla) has faced off against BOTH DC and Marvel in crossovers... Running at the same time?

[kaijukurt]

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this the first time a third party (Godzilla) has faced off against BOTH DC and Marvel in crossovers... Running at the same time?

This a good fun fact..I wouldn’t be surprised if its the first of its kind!

[ebirahsmeg1]

IDW to continues this trend (and a rather annoying one imho) of Hardcover tradeback collections, limited edition, priced $100 and up:








https://idwpublishing.com/products/godz ... 572523372

Godzilla: The Monster Comic Art Collection - IDW Folio Exclusive

Synopsis
The King of the Monsters deserves a monster sized art book! Delve into the art of IDW’s Godzilla comic series!

This oversize (8” x 12”) hardcover collects art from over 20 of IDW’s comic series, specials, and one shots! Not just Godzilla either, as the full range of Kaiju are featured, including Mothra, King Ghidorah, Gigan, Battra, SpaceGodzilla, and more!

Full art is showcased, along with select penciled and inked pages from a wide array of talent. Contains work from artists such as Arthur Adams, Eric Powell, James Stokoe, Matt Frank, Inaki Miranda, Dave Wachter, Alberto Ponticelli, Simon Gane, Dan Schoening, Jeff Zornow, and more!

This limited edition is packaged in a slipcase with a separate folio that includes three art prints by Matt Frank, Bob Eggleton, and Jeff Zornow, each signed by the respective artist.