Artwork's OK - still haven't seen anyone draw the Big G as well as Arthur Adams, but it's not bad.
Writing is so-so - they re-visit alot of the tropes from various G-Films. There's some political humor at the end that seems forced, and falls flat for me. They appear to going with a "This is the first time Godzilla has appeared" storyline. Kind of an "interesting" coincidence, coming out with a book about a radioactive menace attacking Japan, right as they're dealing with a radioactive menace in "real life".
(As an aside, I have to admit - when I first saw the post-tsunami footage from Japan, I did think how much it looked like some of the "post-attack" scenes from some of the Godzilla movies I've seen.)
From looking at the cover, they do appear to have licensed some of the other Toho monsters, which I believe is a first for Godzilla comics released in this country.
Replies
I ordered it since I love Toho's "minor" monsters as much as the Big G!
Cities destroyed, nuclear chaos, Japan. Tragic and heart-breaking as it is, you can't help but think that's what the aftermath of a Godzilla rampage should be! Toho was sugar-coating it. They and Hollywood can't devise anything as horrible as what a true disaster can be!
Alan Moore interpreted the gradual rehabilitation of Godzilla in the movies into someone friendly to humans as a sign that the Japanese people were coming around to the benefits of nuclear power over the years.
This is bad PR for Godzilla, on top of all the other horrific effects.
earthquake/tsunami/nuclear disaster
When you put it like that, especially, it looks very like a Godzilla attack, doesn't it, rising up from the sea and all?
Regarding the real-life parallels, you might want to listen to “Japan: The Imagination of Disaster” (which I posted a link to last week in the “News from Japan” thread) if you haven’t heard it already:
http://www.studio360.org/2011/mar/18/japan-imagination-disaster/
Artwork's OK
Agreed. Just “OK.”
Some of Powell’s “montage shots” don’t work (p. 13) and his panel-to-panel continuity is sometimes difficult to decipher. If you look at Godzilla’s tail (I guess) rising from the sea on page three, it looks to me as if it’s about six feet tall and poking out of the sand directly in front of the children on the beach; it’s unclear (at first) that it’s really in scale with the central panel. On page four when Godzilla’s lower jaw scoops the children out of the sand, where is its upper jaw? Did he “back in” to the beach tail first, then switch around and somehow come up from under them, unseen until the last minute? Given Godzilla’s size, how does that whole sequence work? Answer: it doesn’t.
...still haven't seen anyone draw the Big G as well as Arthur Adams
Most definitely agreed.
There's some political humor at the end that seems forced, and falls flat for me.
Yeah, that forced dialogue definitely fell flat, but I think it was less political humor than it was an opportunity to repeat the issue’s one joke (“You have got to be @%$#ing kidding me!”) a third time.
All in all, a somewhat disappointing debut.
...Perhaps the best GBig G comic I remember was , IIRC , a late-80s Dark Horse-published one , a one-shot?? , that I suppose was a " this is the first time " story sort of a rough adaptation of the first film .
Does anyone remember what it was , please ?
I bought the Eric Powell cover. Speaking of which, Geof Darrow just may give Arthur Adams a run for his money on Godzilla: Gangsters & Goliaths #1. Of course, he’s only doing the cover.
-
1
-
2
-
3
of 3 Next