by Thomas » Mon Jul 18, 2011 12:20 pm
The IDW panel actually had a lot of news and insight into what the comics will be like and possibly what the Legendary Pictures movie might be like. A decent portion of the session covered what Toho will allow them to do and not do with the poses/look of the monsters that IDW has licensed. Jeff Zornow had drawn Godzilla in a pose that had Godzilla's hands reaching up above his shoulders and Toho said no that the hands can go no higher than the shoulders, so he had to adjust that, which means the chances of Godzilla doing anything like wiping his face or rubbing his nose is right out. Matt Frank had drawn a shot of Godzilla crouched down and the angle was looking down upon him giving him a bit of serpentish look and Toho wanted the head raised up to make Godzilla look more like what Godzilla usually looks like. Now their input from Toho was just focused on the covers and Toho pays more attention to those than the interior art where they allow more freedom of expression for the artists. Also got insight into what Toho wants Godzilla portrayed like as a character. Think Heisei and Millennium series with none of the antics like in Showa, which is a mistake imo. If Godzilla is treated with one dimension then the chances of him being interesting go way down. Jeff also had to shrink Rodan and Angilas down so that way Godzilla is clearly the bigger of the three. He also had to make King Ghidorah look more like the GMK version which required Jeff to lose the mane on the King Ghidorah cover. Toho doesn't seem to care if they use any of the mecha from the series so Mazers were added and or not commented on by Toho. Mecha does not include Mogera and Mecha-Godzilla.
KoM is headed somewhere pretty good and that if you stick it out you'll be rewarded. No details other than Matt Frank said that he really liked it.
There will not be any new kaiju created for this series in the near future. If the comics continue to sell then that might change but nothing for at least ten issues of KOM. Plus since IDW has the rights use at least twelve of the Toho kaiju (possibly more) it's not really necessary. I asked if characters (non-kaiju) that were created for the Godzilla comics would remain the rights of the authors or IDW or do they belong to Toho and they were not sure. I asked because of the Dark Shobijin and characters like Sato. They did mention that the plot for Mothra 3 might have been taken from the time traveling Godzilla story in Dark Horses Godzilla comic, so the characters will probably belong to Toho.
For mentioning Godzilla Legends on the kaijucast Matt Frank got a talking to from IDW because that was something they wanted to announce at San Diego Comic Con, which confirms my belief that the "importance" of that con needs be way diminished and I'm glad some movie studios have pulled out of it.
Chris Mowry couldn't make it for the session, so it was Matt Frank and Jeff Zornow who hosted it and they were awesome! It was so easy to tell that these guys love Godzilla and kaiju and it was very heartening to think of these two getting to work on the Godzilla comics. Everyone who likes their artwork and what they've done so far on the comics needs to write in or contact IDW and tell IDW that we want more art from Jeff Zornow and Matt Frank, especially since Jeff has been put on JP, but still wants to do Godzilla work. contact information is on that link
This is probably the best session of the convention in my opinion. Good information and enthusiasm and excitement for what these two artist are getting to work on translated to the attendees of the session. Hell for the whole convention their enthusiasm was prevalent.
"The Bird did not look like Rodan, but he sensed it was the spirit of Rodan."
Mike Hanlon (It by Stephen King)