G-Fest 2022: The Promised Land
Josh B.
FINALLY, after four long years of saving, and cursing COVID-19, I was finally able to attend the convention I’ve most looked forward to, G-Fest, a celebration of Godzilla, Gamera and all things giant monster, or Kaiju. It’s been a long, long road to get here, and after four of the best days of my life, I can safely say that it was worth the wait.
The trip began with an early flight (on Thursday) from Newark to Chicago, and I made it just in time for the quadruple feature of classic Godzilla films that were playing at the historic Pickwick Theater. Watching Godzilla VS. Hedorah, Godzilla VS. Megalon, Godzilla (1954) and Godzilla VS. The Sea Monster on such a massive screen hit so different than it ever did watching the movies on DVD at home. Not to mention, all of them were in their original Japanese dialogue, so I was able to hear the unedited, unfiltered acting of all the Japanese talent involved, many, for the first time in years!
The next day, G-Fest began with what I can only describe as a feeding frenzy. Hundreds of G-Fans flooded the Dealer’s Hall with the express intent of snatching up any and all merchandise, and it made things tough for a first-timer like myself to get a look at anything that was being sold, much less buy anything. However, as the day went on, the buying frenzy died down and I was able to peruse the massive amount of merchandise on sale. I also came upon several of my heroes from the Kaiju world – artists Bob Eggleton and Matt Frank, who were two titans of the industry (more on them later). I also patronized several independent artists and their own Kaiju-based products too!
That night, there was another Godzilla movie screened at the Pickwick, this time the modern hit, Godzilla VS. Kong. If you’ve been following my writing, you already know how I feel about the movie, but seeing it in a huge theater with fans of the genre brought the experience to a whole new level. The cheers, the laughter, it was like being at a live football game. The joy we all shared that night was amazing. It was like I was experiencing the film for the first time (the way I should have been able to so many months ago, had COVID not wrought the devastation it did). Seeing Godzilla VS. Kong in theaters with G-Fans was incredible.
While Friday was all about shopping, Saturday was all about socializing. Saturday was the day I also took to meet and speak to the two guests attending this year’s G-Fest, Hiroyuki Kawase and Tomoko Ai. Mr. Kawase spoke English, so I was able to talk to him a little bit upon our meeting. He said he was grateful to have been in the Godzilla films, and that Godzilla VS. Hedorah was his favorite – he loved the environmental message it told the audience, though he mused it may have been a bit too “adult” of a topic for kids. Ms. Ai was extremely cheerful and projected as much joy as I had meeting her. While I couldn’t verbalize what I wanted to say to her, I used Google Translate to convey a message to both her and Mr. Kawase: “Thank you for making my childhood wonderful."
Saturday, I also attended a panel for the recently released Kaiju co-op beat-em-up video game, Dawn of the Monsters. Hosting the panel were two of the developers from 13AM Games, Director Alex Rushdy and Steve Roberts, Head Sound Engineer on Dawn of the Monsters. The two of them made a few announcements regarding the future of the game. Firstly, that Dawn of the Monsters would soon be launching in Japan with a full Japanese dub, and that said dub would be available for everyone stateside in a future free update, and most exciting of all was the announcement that additional content is coming to Dawn of the Monsters via paid DLC, expected to arrive in 2023!
Amped up by the exciting news of more Dawn of the Monsters content on the way, I decided to head down to the Mechagodzilla Arcade, a fixture of G-Fest run by fans who provide a massive game room full of screens to play Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee, Godzilla: Save the Earth and a host of other games both classic and relatively obscure, such as Ultraman Nexus on PlayStation 2, as well as the indie titles Daikaiju Daikessen: Versus and Excidio: The Kaiju Game.
The most exciting game I played was the four player Kaiju brawler, GigaBash. The gameplay is fast and frenetic, with crazy abilities and power ups, like S-Class mode, where your already giant monster grows even bigger and stronger for a short amount of time to wreck the competition, or your Giga Move, a character specific special attack activated by breaking a Smash Ball-like orb in the middle of a game. All the characters in the game are unique from one another, with many being homages to classic Kaiju, while others are just plain fun, original ideas, like a living building out for revenge! I felt lucky to play considering that when I did, the game was still a full month out from release!
The true highlight of the game room came by way of the Japanese arcade cabinets provided to G-Fest by the Galloping Ghost Arcade of Brookfield, IL. My favorite arcade cabinet at G-Fest was Godzilla Wars JR. This game has you firing ping pong balls (“bombs”) into a little Godzilla’s mouth to defeat him before he destroys the city. Get six bombs in his mouth before time runs out and you win! Honestly, if I could own one arcade cabinet in my life, I’d want it to be this one.
Saturday ended once again at the Pickwick Theater, with a screening of Terror of Mechagodzilla. Tomoko Ai spoke before the movie played, saying how much it meant to her that her performance was so moving to so many, how even, decades later, there are still so many people who want to see her perform – she was very moved. This was the first time in a very long time that I watched the full, uncut version of Terror of Mechagodzilla, as I had grown up watching the dubbed, edited version of the film that cut the original, more tragic ending. Seeing it there on the big screen was like watching it for the first time.
Sunday was G-Fest’s grand finale, and I took the opportunity to speak to a handful of artists in attendance, those who were well-known and those in the indie circuit. The first person I spoke to was Carter Allen, creator of Ectyron, an independent comic about a giant, radioactive rooster of the same name.
Joshua Brafman (JB): Hello, and thank you for speaking with me! So, where did the idea for Ectyron come from?
Carter Allen (CA): You’re quite welcome, the pleasure’s mine! Ectyron was created in 2014, as part of a poster I drew for Newbo-Con, a comic convention and art show happening in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. I started attending G-Fest in 2014, and I wanted to sell my art, but G-Fest has a rule where you can’t sell art of Godzilla or any of the giant monsters like Gamera or Ultraman unless you have legal rights to them. I thought to myself “hey, I have a giant monster I made up, and I’ve got experience writing comics!” And boom! Ectyron was born.
JB: Awesome! So, where can people find your stuff?
CA: You can pick up the new collection at Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Powell’s… wherever good books are sold! (laughs) You can also find me on Twitter, and at my website, warningcomics.com.
Carter Allen is clearly a lover of the more ridiculous side of Kaiju films, something he and I have in common. The passion he has for building a brand from the ground up is truly inspiring. After speaking with Mr. Allen, I had a brief conversation with Matt Frank, one of the modern icons of Godzilla artwork, renown for his excellent work in comics and on official home video artwork. I first came to know him from his fanart series on DeviantArt, known as Godzilla Neo.
JB: So, how did you get from DeviantArt to working professionally in the industry for Godzilla and Gamera and all that?
MF: Well, a lot of it was me being stubborn. I was frustrated with the lack of Godzilla media at the time, so I refused to draw anything except Godzilla fan art, like Godzilla Neo. Essentially, I built a career off of my fan art!
JB: So, I know you’ve done a lot of art work for Kaiju comics, and more recently you’ve stepped into writing them. How did that happen?
MF: Well, over the course of my time working with IDW on all the different Godzilla titles, I ended up doing a few story treatments for them on those comics. Redman was my professional writing debut.
Following my discussion with Matt Frank, I spoke with another titan of the Kaiju industry, Bob Eggleton. Bob Eggleton has been working with Godzilla for decades, from his work on the Dark Horse comic series to his beautiful, vivid illustrations on the cover of Godzilla novels by Marc Cerasini and Scott Ciencen. His art was part of what drew me to illustration at such an early age in my life, so it was pretty surreal to meet the man in person, let alone be interviewing him.
JB: So, how did you get your start as an artist, Mr. Eggleton?
BE: Well, I started drawing when I was four years old, and started drawing Kaiju when I was ten. In the 1980s, I decided to go out on my own to make it as an artist, and I got a lot of support from my parents, which was a great help.
JB: What was it like working on comics for Dark Horse as opposed to painting for covers of novels?
BE: Working on comics… there’s a big learning curve there. But it was certainly rewarding. I ended up designing several original Kaiju for Dark Horse, which Toho now owns the rights to. One of the Kaiju I created, The Stranger, was actually sort of used in Rebirth of Mothra III. In that movie, King Ghidorah feeds on dinosaurs and travels through time, just like The Stranger does in Dark Horse Comics’ Godzilla, Issue 16.
Mr. Eggleton was extremely down-to-earth. It was easily one of the highlights of my time at G-Fest to meet him, and I hope to see him again next year.
Next, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Raffael Coronelli, an independent author of several Kaiju-based novels, chief among them being the Daikaiju Yuki series, a book trilogy about a young girl who gains the power to transform into a Kaiju, and uses that power to defend Earth from a war that threatens the planet’s very existence!
JB: What can you tell me about the process of creating Daikaiju Yuki?
RC: From the beginning, I wanted Daikaiju Yuki to be a long form series. I had an idea for the beginning and ending, and I just sort of worked out where I wanted the rest to go along the way. I had friends of mine read drafts and come back with notes, I studied how people reacted to things in order to see what I should put in the sequels.
JB: What inspired the Daikaiju Yuki series?
RC: I’ve always been interested in the fantasy aspect of Kaiju films. I wanted to write a story similar to the Mothra or Daimajin films. The other book I wrote in the Daikaiju Yuki universe – Pharoah of Eels – is more inspired by Space Amoeba and the Jun Fukuda Godzilla films like Godzilla VS. The Sea Monster. I wanted to write something lighter than what was in the main series.
JB: Wow! That’s incredible! So, where can people find your stuff?
RC: Well, you can find all my books on Amazon. I’m also on Twitter and Tumblr.
The sheer breadth of Mr. Coronelli’s work; having created a Kaiju trilogy, a spin-off, and the first in a new trilogy all within the span of seven years is seriously impressive, and on a personal note, an inspiration to me and my own writing. Salute.
I was able to sit down down with Andres Perez, writer of the comic series Primal Warrior Draco Azul along with artist Tyler Sowles. The series follows a man who discovers a giant robot created in ancient Mayan times, and uses it to fight giant monsters all across Mexico.
JB: So, what was development like for Primal Warrior Draco Azul?
AP: Well, I came to G-Fest in 2014, and was inspired both by all the independent creators and by the release of Pacific Rim. I always loved mecha anime from the 1970s, and I wanted to put my own spin on that. Draco Azul was initially just the mascot for my YouTube channel, Kaiju Noir. Tyler had his own comic, Durantes the Lost Serpent, and I approached him to work with me on Draco Azul. Over time we gathered a full comic team (editor, letterer, etc.) and finally finished our first issue in 2019. It’s so gratifying knowing that people love something that is one hundred percent your own.
JB: I can imagine! So, what inspired the Mayan and Mexican influences in your comic?
AP: I wanted to share my cultural heritage with others through the Kaiju medium. Taking things in a Mayan and Mexican direction just felt natural to me. There are very few positive representations of Mexican culture in media, and I wanted to change that. Not only that, but writing Primal Warrior Draco Azul has put me more in touch with my roots – all the research I’ve had to do for the comic has taught me things even I didn’t know about my heritage!
JB: That’s fantastic! So, where can people find your stuff?
AP: All of Primal Warrior Draco Azul can be found on Amazon, and so can all of Tyler’s books. You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.
For Mr. Perez, It’s clear he and his team want to craft Primal Warrior Draco Azul as a title to stand shoulder to shoulder with the big guys. I wish them all nothing but the best.
Finally, I interviewed Dane G. Kroll, author of the Realm of Goryo series. Realm of Goryo takes place in a dystopian future where man and Kaiju coexist. Amphibious people appear from the ocean with their own Kaiju, while two warring alien factions descend upon Earth to decide the fate of their peoples. Mr. Kroll describes the series as Game of Thrones-esque, with a lot of backstabbing and convoluted plots.
JB: So, where did the idea for Realm of Goryo come from?
Dane G. Kroll (DK): Well, I’ve always loved Showa-era Godzilla films – Godzilla VS. Megalon was a big inspiration – but I wished when I was watching them that they had more continuity, kind of like American comics. So, that’s what I was going for with Realm of Goryo. I put out the first book, Realm of Goryo: The Four Pillars, in 2014.
JB: Wow! Very cool! So, where can people find your stuff?
DK: All my books are on Amazon, and you can find me on Facebook or on my personal website.
With my interviews done, I headed to the screening room to take in one of the things that piqued my interest the most – indie Kaiju short films, all screened for the first time here at G-Fest!
The first film I saw was Kazuhiro Nakagawa’s The Great Actress Reiko Inui, which was about the titular (and fictional) Reiko Inui, a classical actress cast in a CGI-heavy Kaiju film, and the difficulties that arise in trying to get her to use her legendary acting skills for the project. Inui has been in dozens, if not hundreds of films, but believes acting with nothing but a green screen and some props to be beneath her, until a dedicated crew shows her just what she’s there for. It’s a short, funny film talking about a side of Kaiju films that I never really think about – the production side. The whole short film is up on YouTube, but unlike the screening, there are no English subtitles outside of auto-generated translations, which are delayed and not always accurate. All of this unfortunately makes enjoying The Great Actress Reiko Inui a bit more difficult outside of G-Fest.
The Great Actress Reik INUI - 大女優 乾麗子（2019）
The second film I saw was easily the highlight for me – Takafumi Sakabe’s Kaiju Girl. Kaiju Girl follows the story of two girls, Mizuki and Himika, living in a rural town some time after a Kaiju appears and attacks Tokyo. Mizuki shuts herself away from the world, opting to sculpt Kaiju all day instead of going to class. Himika has been having nightmares of the Kaiju coming to her town and wreaking havoc. Together, the two become friends, and try to figure out just how to live in a world where Kaiju are real. Kaiju Girl is a slower, more thoughtful film that really examines its characters on a smaller scale. I spoke with Mr. Sakabe online, and he is looking to put Kaiju Girl on DVD soon, and is exploring options for a US release with English subtitles. You can see the trailer for Kaiju Girl on Vimeo.
The third and final film I saw at G-Fest was Takashi Iwamura’s Great Beast Barrigular. This film follows a young boy named Natsuo, who comes upon a mysterious stone said to belong to an ancient beast known as Barrigular. The stone takes hold of Natsuo, and uses his body as a vessel to revive the Kaiju so it can lay waste to Japan. Now a local scientist and Natsuo’s best friend have to find him and break the stone to free the boy from the monster’s control. This film was particularly impressive by way of its effects. Barrigular’s monster suit looks excellent, and all of the special effects really stand out. From the film’s YouTube channel, you can see that this has been in production since COVID began, and all their hard work certainly shined in the finished product. I hope to see it again soon, so I can re-experience all the great effects, as well as take in the story.
Great Beast Barrigular
All three short films were excellent in their own right, and I’m thrilled to have experienced them. I look forward to seeing what talented folks show off their stuff next year!
As the convention wound down, I spent my last few hours of G-Fest in the Mechagodzilla Arcade, not only to enjoy the games there, but also to participate in the charity raffle the heads of the room were organizing. Genie Kane, the game room’s Supervisor, could not attend G-Fest this year due to logistics, and when his family arrived at the convention, they found out he suffered a stroke. So, in order to pay for his medical bills, Carol McCants and her son Michael organized a charity raffle with a bunch of cool prizes. Having co-organized a GoFundMe for my father’s medical bills, I knew just how debilitating they can be to a family. So, with what little cash I had left in my wallet, I put in for five raffle tickets. I didn’t expect to win anything, so you can imagine my shock when I won the grand prize, a 30 cm tall X-Plus statue of Godzilla from Godzilla: The Ride of Universal Studios Japan! I was at a total loss for words, and all I could think to say was that it was my first G-Fest prize win.
I’ll end my article here, with what I would have said to that crowd if I’d had my head together, and if I’d have thought of it:
I’ve been a fan of Godzilla, Gamera, and all Kaiju for practically my whole life. Nearly thirty years. And yet, in all that time, I’ve never found anyone who really loves this stuff like I do, until this weekend. These past seventy-two hours have been some of the best of my life. Being surrounded by the things I love and the people who love them is one thing, but the people themselves are another. I’ve never met a group as kind, as caring, and as accepting as G-Fans. G-Fest is a gift, not just to me, but to everyone. I am honored to be a part of it, and I can’t wait to come back next year. G-Fest forever!
