How did it come about? Here’s the news from Todd himself:

“Terry Rossio contacted me in regards to my American Godzilla ’94 graphic novel, and told me he was a fan (Terry is co-author with Ted Elliott of the 1994 rejected TriStar Godzilla screenplay, which you can actually read here. They also wrote the screenplays for Aladdin, Legend of Zorro, and the entire Pirates of the Caribbean series, among others). Now Terry has asked me to finish the G’94 graphic novel — and how could I refuse such an offer?

“Publication possibilities are being looked into, but job number one for me is getting it all finished.”

Todd has even sent the Backbrain some new artwork: three images of Godzilla rampant from page 80.

Great stuff!

For those who don’t know, Todd’s graphic novel adaptation has been running on his American Kaiju website for a long time, finally reaching as far as page 78. You can check it out here — and if you haven’t, you should. How can you resist reading 78 pages of a Godzilla graphic novel? Free!

More News from Todd: American Kaiju

In June 2011, Todd announced that he’d been contracted by Bluewater Productions to produce a series of American Kaiju comics — an ambition he’d been fostering for years. Some of his work toward it appeared in the subsequent articles American Kaiju: Aligon Attacks! and Gigante vs King Komodo, and The Big Eight.

This project continues apace — and you can follow developments on Todd’s blog. Meanwhile here are some images from this original — and awesome — comic series. This first one is PETT:

In this one, New York City prepares for the worst:

What is the worst? Something like this:

You can click on any of these to see them bigger.

Just so you know, Todd, I can’t wait for both these series to arrive!

• Source: Todd Tennant, to whom all images are copyrighted, by the way. No reproduction without consent!

Kaiju Search-Robot Avery added this similarly themed greeting, which I thought I’d share — though we don’t have an actual attribution for the image:

And while we’re at it, some of the people whose work we’ve been featuring sent their greetings:

You can get more information about these exciting re-inventions of classic monster flicks on Undead Backbrain and the Brainspasm site:

• Return of the Killer Shrews: on Undead Backbrain here, here and the trailer here; on Undead Brainspasm here.
• Gila!: on Undead Backbrain here; and on the Brainspasm here.

Check out Paszkiewicz’s darkly subversion website, Arsenic Lullaby.

After the merely half-decent releases that have appeared over the past decade, this will be the first that has been fully restored, and should display a much improved visual quality. There are some fantastic extras, too.

This giant monster classic, which created a fearsome and deeply felt metaphor for nuclear terror, deserves top-notch treatment. Despite having several copies of the film already, I’ll be lining up for this one!

Special Features:

• New high-definition digital restoration (with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition)
• Audio commentary by David Kalat (A Critical History and Filmography of Toho’s Godzilla Series)
• New high-definition digital restoration of Godzilla, King of the Monsters, Terry Morse’s 1956 reworking of the original, starring Raymond Burr
• Audio commentary for Godzilla, King of the Monsters by Kalat
• New interviews with actor Akira Takarada (Hideto Ogata), Godzilla performer Haruo Nakajima, and effects technicians Yoshio Irie and Eizo Kaimai
• Interview with legendary Godzilla score composer Akira Ifukube
• Featurette detailing Godzilla’s photographic effects
• New interview with Japanese-film critic Tadao Sato
• The Unluckiest Dragon, an illustrated audio essay featuring historian Greg Pflugfelder describing the tragic fate of the fishing vessel Daigo fukuryu maru, a real-life event that inspired Godzilla
• Theatrical trailers
• New and improved English subtitle translation
• PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic J. Hoberman

It can be pre-ordered now on the Criterion website.

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Clearly something’s arrived in the Big Apple!

And here’s Aligon, whose genetic background is made clear by the name.

If you’re not looking forward to this series of Todd’s, then you must have come to this site by accident.

Source: Todd Tennant. See this previous Backbrain article for more, and don’t forget to check out Todd Tennant’s graphic novelisation of the rejected Ted Elliott/Terry Rossio 1994 Godzilla screenplay.

But according to the folk at Cincinnati-based production company Moriah Media, there is one popular, even iconic film that hasn’t been so effectively parodied. Watch their very early, rough-and-ready teaser, made as part of the company’s sales pitch to potential investors, and see if you can pick what that film is. Keep in mind that there is nothing final about this and that it is only generally reflective of the finished product.

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Yes, it’s a spoof of Godzilla: King of the Monsters! Or more specifically the Americanised version of the 1954 Japanese film Gojira and the extensive tradition that developed from it. While the daikaiju eiga subgenre has been lampooned more than once, never at the scale that writer/director Mitch Teemley envisages.

Notzilla: Duke of the Monsters (US-[date TBA]; dir. Mitch Teemley)

Short Synopsis:

1964 – A strange red egg, shaken loose by atomic testing, hatches an immense, fire-breathing dinosaur with a penchant for beer. Only “brilliant, young American scientist,” Dr. Dick Harvard, can stop him with his atomic molecule blaster. But then things go awry… and meanwhile, Notzilla is partying hard.

According to Teemley, Notzilla, which so far exists as a screenplay and some test imagery, is designed to be an affectionate Zucker Bros. style send-up of Godzilla, “one of the most widely seen film series in history”. He adds that the screenplay for Notzilla has received universal praise and was the only spoof to ever make it to the final round of the Worldfest Contest, one of the largest screenplay competitions in the world.

Actually I offered the project to Toho not long after I wrote it. They weren’t interested in spoofing their own films, but wished us well. Parodies are not plagiarism; if they were, Saturday Night Live would have been shut down 35 years ago! Notzilla will not feature any footage from Toho films, nor will the monster be a visual copy of Godzilla (see conceptual art below — note: Notzilla concept art: Poster and Monster Profile – these were done by a cartoonist – the actual poster will be photographic, not cartoon, in style, and the actual monster suit will be more realistic and dinosaur-like, i.e. satirical, but subtle.)

Nor is the film a fan-type, no-budget, extended joke.

Notzilla is intended for mainstream release (we have serious interest from both the majors and large indie distributors), and Moriah Media is for-profit company, by the way. A Fox Searchlight analyst estimated a $40 million North American box office gross; international box office is expected to exceed that. We are actively seeking completion funding!

The project already boasts the involvement of some serious talent, including Patrick Warburton, who starred in the terrific superhero spoof TV series, The Tick.

Teemley told the Backbrain:

Patrick Warburton (Seinfeld, The Tick, Rules of Engagement) is attached to star. I wrote the lead role of the “brilliant young American scientist”, Dr Dick Harvard (who’s actually not very brilliant nor very young) for him. All of the other leads are Japanese.

Notzilla has not yet been filmed. We are in the midst of capitalization and are using the teaser [above] to generate investor interest. I appeared as a guest at G-Fest in Chicago last year and read segments of the screenplay to a very enthusiastic crowd. We’ve lined up some crack crew heads: Production Designer Robert Harbour designed sets for Heroes and X-Files; multi-Emmy winning Director of Photography Jeff Barklage shot the teaser; Oscar-nominated producer Melissa Godoy is also attached to oversee production.

Notzilla purports to be a restored print of a 1966 Japanese film, a long-lost classic of the genre. It begins with a special “anniversary release” prologue in which Rudy McBernstein, president of Great Big Impressive Pictures International, introduces viewers to the 1966 masterpiece, Notzilla, the Duke of Monsters, the last film ever to feature American TV star Raymond L. Suave (Patrick Warburton).

From there, it becomes both a parody of and homage to the worst aspects of early Japanese monster pictures.

Full Synopsis:

In the future (1975), “brilliant young American scientist” Dr Dick Harvard (played by not-so-brilliant and not-so-young Raymond L. Suave) leads a team of crack scientists in atomic testing (no one knows why) near Yomama Bay. The unexpected result (these scientists don’t watch enough B-pictures): a prehistoric egg is shaken loose, after being exposed to massive amounts of radiation. Of course.

Dick’s mentor, “brilliant old Japanese scientist”, Dr Nissan Toyota, succeeds in hatching a dinosaur! But then it escapes, and begins growing at an alarming rate. Of course.

Dr Toyota wants to save the creature. But Dick is certain it will attack Tokyo. “Because that’s what always happens”. The two split up. Dick goes off to build his atomic molecule blaster, which he admits will leave a radioactive cloud over Tokyo for fifty years (“but after that you’ll never even know it was there”), while Toyota seeks a gentler alternative that will keep the monster alive.

Notzilla attacks Tokyo. Sort of. Actually he’s on a lark, playing with the miniature city, reversing toy trains, eating plastic soldiers, running a touchdown with a blimp under his arm. He parties hard while thousands of people run screaming in the streets (actually a couple dozen of the same people run screaming over and over again).

The army, led by General Buzz Kurosawa (George Takei—Star Trek, Heroes), is powerless to stop the monster (though Kurosawa, an amateur filmmaker, does get some great footage). Dick completes his controversial molecule blaster. He’s about to use it when Dr. Toyota shows up with his alternative device. In a rage, Dick accidentally turns the blaster on himself, resulting in his own over-the-top death scene—which schlock actor Raymond L. Suave had hoped would result in an Oscar nomination. It didn’t.

Toyota’s device stops Notzilla, but does not kill him, leaving the creature free to defend Tokyo from other latex monsters in the future!

Teemley sees Notzilla as a sure-fire winner.

Notzilla is a classic monster movie spoof with heart—it makes a gently teasing statement about cultural arrogance.  Also … reversing the trend toward raunchy, R-rated parodies, Notzilla is a family-friendly PG film with positive values.  It’s clean enough for grandparents to take their grandkids to … and hip enough for college guys to drag their girlfriends to. Everyone will love Notzilla!

Some other aspects of the proposed film:

• The expected budget is $1.5 million. There’s a complete package (Investors Memorandum and Business Plan) available for any potential investors out there. It’s a great opportunity; they expect return on investment in the 1,000 to 2,000% range.
• They’re looking at a 2012 shoot and a 2013 release.
• No, there are no other daikaiju, aliens, or creatures. Notzilla is basically a spoof of the original one-monster flicks (Godzilla/Gojira, Mothra, Rodan, Gamera, etc.), rather than the “versus” films. It’s in colour, of course, widescreen, and utilizes a single Anglo-American actor in a lead role as did a number of the Toho films.
• All f/x will be suitmation and miniatures, since Notzilla purports to be a film made in the pre-CGI era. Other vintage f/x will include rear-screen projection, robotics, and cheezy practicals—shaking the camera, for example, to indicate an explosion.

Sources: Director Mitch Teemley via Avery Guerra. Written by Robert Hood.

Links: Notzilla Facebook page; Moriah Media website, Moriah Media Facebook page.

Edwards will, if nothing else, give value for money, especially if he follows the film-making regime he instigated for Monsters, which was made for peanuts (that is, about $800,000 according to Box Office Mojo) and looks great. With many more millions of dollars at his disposal, and a genuine fondness for the genre, he may very well give us a Godzilla movie that’s worthy of the King of the Monsters. However, one has to say that there is considerable difference between his Monsters (in which the monster action is minimal and secondary to the human drama) and what is needed for the proposed Godzilla film, even if the two films are in the same general ball-park. Can he handle the more epic scope that the Big G requires? Perhaps. Certainly there are many less promising directorial choices that could have been made.

That still leaves script, cast and studio interference to deal with, but as representatives of the latter have already expressed a desire to make a film that respects the Big G and his fans, things are looking good for the result.

Images of Godzilla

To celebrate this bit of news, I include some new images of Godzilla. It should be noted that none of these make any claim to a connection with the Legendary Pictures film.

Above is the cover of issue 1 of the new Godzilla comic Godzilla: Monster World from IDW, by Alex Ross. The series is to be written by Eric Powell (The Goon) and Tracy Marsh, with internal art by Phil Hester (Kevin Smith’s The Green Hornet). Powell and Ross will each provide a cover for each issue.  (Source: Matt Frank, iFanboy).

Other treats are the fact that for each issue Eric Powell will provide a gatefold wraparound cover featuring many of the iconic Toho monsters (see Powell’s cover for issue 1 below), and fellow artist Alex Ross a separate cover with an image of Godzilla himself.

Click to enlarge

The IDW news release describes what we can expect thus:

“In GODZILLA®: MONSTER WORLD, a full-scale apocalypse is brewing. The monsters are a force of nature whose attacks can be no more predicted or rationalized than a lightning strike. There will be no clean-cut heroes with perfectly chiseled chins and capes billowing in the wind; only ordinary human beings struggling desperately to survive in a world gone mad.” (IDW)

To introduce the series, comic stores will be able to request a special “incentive” cover showing their store being stomped by the Big G. Below is the cover by Matt Frank, with a space into which the individual store will be sketched (Source).

Meanwhile, treat yourself to a couple of Matt Frank’s images of Godzilla that don’t relate to the IDW project — in the first Godzilla vs the Transformers and in the second a robotic assault on Monster Island (click to enlarge):

Finally here’s the latest page from that other great G project I’m always trying to convince people to check out, in this case one that will only cost you a few pixels and the bandwidth it takes to go to the site. It’s artist Todd Tennant’s graphic novel rendition of the rejected Ted Elliott/Terry Rossio screenplay for Jan de Bont’s abandoned pre-Emmerich US Godzilla film, for which much pre-production was done but which never eventuated (1994). Check out the previous 77 pages of Todd’s great project here.

• Written by Robert Hood. Thanks for the heads-up, Avery.

There have been Godzilla comics in the past, of course — though surprisingly few. These include assorted manga versions of the G films available in Japan, such as Mondo Takimura’s Godzilla 2000 Millennium.

In 1988, the US company Dark Horse obtained a license to produce a translated edition of Kazuhisa Iwata’s The Return of Godzilla series (based on the film Gojira 1984, Japan-1984; dir. Kohji Hashimoto, aka Godzilla 1985, US-1985; dir. Kohji Hashimoto and R.J. Kizer), under the title Godzilla. In 1998 Dark Horse re-released the six-part series in colour as Terror of Godzilla.

Terror of Godzilla #1 in its entirety and coloured:

From July 1998, Dark Horse also published an original Godzilla series: Godzilla,  King of the Monsters, which ran for 17 issues, with a few “specials” along the way. The cover of issue 1 (below) was painted by multi-Hugo award-winning artist Bob Eggleton, who has a penchant for giant monsters:

This Dark Horse G-series was subsequently published as two TPBs under the titles Godzilla: Past, Present and Future and Godzilla: Age of Monsters.

Dealing with Toho to obtain the rights to Godzilla has always been problematic. Even more remarkable than Dark Horse’s series, then, was Marvel Comics introduction of the Big G into the Marvel universe. This Godzilla, King of the Monsters wasn’t just an isolated side-series either, but saw Godzilla fully integrated into Marvel’s world of superheroes. Tracked by Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D., the King of the Monsters found himself up against such foes as Spider Man (well, Spidey’s is more of a cameo appearance as they actually miss each other by a few hundred metres), the Fantastic Four, Hercules and the Champions, Devil Dinosaur and Moonboy, and the Avengers:

Marvel’s Godzilla, King of the Monsters ran for 24 issues, written by Doug Moench and drawn by Herb Trimpe. It has since been published in a black-and-white compendium volume, Essential Godzilla (2006).

There have also been several high-profile unofficial Godzilla comics, which exist solely because they were not-for-profit fan works. The most impressive of these is probably Todd Tennant’s online graphic novel visualisation of the rejected Ted Elliott/Terry Rossio screenplay for Jan de Bont’s “Didn’t Happen” US Godzilla film (1994). With 77 pages to date, it is a mammoth and generous project that all G-fans need to support. Check it out at the American Godzilla ’94 website. Below are some random images from the graphic novel, mostly of G’s rampage. Click on them to enlarge.

Another interesting unofficial (and in this case prospective only) Godzilla project is Brandon Graham and James Stokoe’s (“messing around with an idea for a Godzilla comic”) World War G. In what amounts to a moment of idle speculation, the pair put together a few pages, which you can see on Graham’s blog.

Another great Might-Have-Been!

As I’ve been told, Toho’s licensing restrictions have never been easy to deal with, either logistically or financially. This is one reason why the foes appearing in non-Japanese G comics have never included the Big G’s classic kaiju eiga opponents, such as Mothra, King Ghidorah, Rodan, Hedorah or Megalon. As the copyright owners of all of them, Toho required payment for each — or even, I believe, simply refused to include them in the deal, wanting to keep the full package for their own product. It is intriguing then, how IDW Publishing have managed to broker a deal to not only wrest the US copyright to Godzilla from Dark Horse, but also to obtain the rights to the other monsters as well. Their Godzilla series, which is due to start in 2011, will apparently feature many of Godzilla’s classic monstrous opponents, including Mothra, King Ghidorah and Rodan, in what is being described as “a number of unique storylines from some of the industry’s top creators”.

Said Chris Ryall, Chief Creative Officer and Editor-in Chief for IDW Publishing:

“We wanted Godzilla to return to comics, but this time we wanted him to have some company. I think fans will be pleased with the monster guest appearances, which will really offer something for every fan of these films. There are the classic characters, but there are also a few surprises, too.” (IDW website)

• Sources: IDW website, Dark Horse, American Godzilla ’94 website, Godzilla Comics Wikipedia entry, Arrow in the Head, Rodan’s Roost. Thanks to Kaiju Search-Robot Avery for the heads-up. Written by Robert Hood.

It’s quite brilliant and Prof. Theerakulstit manages remarkably well despite continual interference from reactionary elements with laser pointers. When asked “Why are you so awesome?”, he replied: “Lighting.”

Visit Prof. Theerakulstit’s YouTube Channel, where you will find many more lectures and talks on popular culture and items of scientific importance.

• Thanks to Robin Pen for pointing the Backbrain in Prof. Theerakulstit’s direction.