Todd Tennant Rises From Beneath the Sea

Kaiju artist Todd Tennant, who has appeared in various contexts on the Backbrain, gave me some great news today. After years of rampant generosity toward giant monster fans (with his free, online graphic-novel version of US Godzilla ’94), Todd has just signed with Bluewater Comics to produce issues 5 and 6 of their Ray Harryhausen Presents It Came from Beneath the Sea … Again comic series.

The story goes:

In the 1950s, the U.S. Navy encountered and destroyed a gigantic octopus that attacked shipping and wreaked havoc on the west coast of the United States. American forces killed the creature and ended the threat once and for all. Or so they thought. They were wrong. Now, another monster is rising in the warm blue waters surrounding Taru Taru, a speck of land far out in the Pacific. And this time it’s worse than anyone ever imagined.

It’s a fantastic series for Todd to inherit and he will do a brilliant job of it. I’m sure it will lead to more and more work now that he’s made the breakthrough. Good on ya, Todd. I couldn’t be more excited for you (except perhaps if you’d sold that “other” mystery comic series we worked on …)

I also have it on good authority that Todd has more exciting news in store, but at the moment it’s secret and if I told you I’d have to send King Komodo around to kill you.

Meanwhile, speaking of King Komodo, the fifth and final installment of writer Mike Bogue and artist Todd Tennant’s serial Tales of King Komodo will appear in issue #87 of G-Fan. It’s a sort of “final war”, to use Todd’s own description.

Click on the image to see it bigger!

To quote Todd:

In this last episode of TALES OF KING KOMODO (5), “the KING”  and the giant abominable snowman (affectionally nicknamed “Snowball”) go at each other in a Kaiju battle to the death, leveling Monster Stadium and the nearby Southwestern town of Luden. Be sure to order your copy of G-FAN #87 today!

You know, I first “met” Todd when Robin Pen and I were editing the giant monster anthology Daikaiju! Giant Monster Tales for Agog! Press in 2004. He emailed me and ended up doing an illustration for Frank Wu’s “screenplay” story “The Tragical History of Guidolon, the Giant Space Chicken”. The illustration appeared in the original Australian edition, but production issues meant it could only be used in a smaller version on the backcover of the US edition.

Todd was generous and cooperative and went on to create the cover art for Daikaiju! 2: Revenge of the Giant Monsters.

Since then we’ve become good friends, even though we’ve never met face-to-face. I live in Australia and Todd lives in the US, yet we’ve worked on several projects together and I feel like I’ve known him for a lifetime. I’ve seen how hard he works, how good his work is and how generous he has been — and fully believe that he deserves to be recognised in a professional capacity.

This is just the beginning, Todd!

• Source: Todd Tennant