Enter Godzilla's New Shared-Universe: The Kai-Sai Era with IDW Comic Editor Jake Williams - The Short Box Podcast Ep. 460

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in this episode of The Short Box.

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So it's always like absorbing radiation. That's how it continues to move. That's almost its version of eating. That becomes another thing where writers, when I have it,  eat a person or eat food in some way, whether it's like a joke and it's like, no, he doesn't.  Can't eat, no eating.

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intro music plays

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Yo, Short Box Nation! Hello again, welcome back, and thanks for pressing play today. And if you're new, welcome to the show. My name is Badr and this is the Short Box Podcast, the comic book talk show that brings you the best conversations about your favorite comics with the creators that put their blood, sweat, and tears into making them. This is episode 460. And today we're joined by Jake Williams, the comic book editor at IDW Publishing. He's also the architect of a brand new Godzilla shared comic book universe called the Kai -Sai Era.

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It's an ambitious project that sets to create a new universe for Godzilla comics. And it's going to be spanning across three new ongoing comic series, with things kicking off the release of Godzilla number one in July, followed by Godzilla Escape the Dead Zone and Starship Godzilla later this summer. It's going to be the summer of Godzilla when it comes to comics. right, mark my words. The final order cut off dates for all of these titles will be here sooner than you know it. So Jake is on the show today to talk about all things Kaiju and Godzilla.

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what we can expect from this Kai-Sai era and what it means to be an editor on a colossal project of this size. Now, before we get started on that, I want to give a big shout out to my sponsor, Gotham City Limit Comic Shop. It's Jacksonville's premier shop for comics, toys, collectibles, and more. If you want to check out the store for yourself, visit them here in Jacksonville on South Side Boulevard or visit their online store at GothamCityLimit.com. And I want to give one more shout out to my Patreon subscribers who help me keep the lights on, help me keep the show going every week.

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Get treated to awesome rewards and perks at patreon.com slash the short box. Thanks in advance. Now that the bills are paid, without further ado, short box nation, let's welcome Jake Williams to the show. What up, Jake? How you doing? What's up, man? I'm doing good. How are you doing? Yo, man. No complaints. Jake, let me tell you something, man. To the listeners, this is no surprise. We're meeting for the first time. I like to go kind of deep with my research. I like to do my research, do my homework. And sometimes that leads me down some interesting rabbit holes.

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And can I tell you, I went down some very interesting rabbit holes about Godzilla and I want to share some random trivia I've come to learn about Godzilla and then I want to hear what's the most interesting random Godzilla trivia you got, all right? Sure, sure, please. All right. First and foremost,  I went down a rabbit hole learning about the different, the evolution of Godzilla's roars across like, you know, since 1954. was a four minute video.

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of just Godzilla roars, which I'm sure I'll probably be death here in the next year. But did you know that the original roar, which is this one right here from 1954...

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was produced by rubbing, it says here, by rubbing a pine tar coated leather glove over a double bass string. That is insane to me. This is the artists went all out. No, I had no idea. mean, Foley work is insane. I don't know if you've ever seen those behind the scenes Foley work videos, but those people are mad men. I absolutely do not understand that craft at all. Yeah. What's interesting is that in the comment section, love me a good YouTube comment section. Sometimes it can be very toxic or very entertaining.

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Folks got, they feel a way about Godzilla Roars. Some folks got their favorite Godzilla Roars. so it was interesting going down that rabbit hole. I ended up learning that Godzilla, that Patrick Stewart presented Godzilla with an MTV Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996. And I found a blurb from his speech. He says, we've all heard about his temper, about the people he stepped on his way to the top. Stewart said during the ceremony.

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In this world of stars and superstars, it would be no exaggeration to say that he is the biggest. I'm gonna get a lifetime achievement award from MTV and to be presented by Patrick Stewart. Godzilla's doing something right, damn it. Yeah, wow, Godzilla's really crushing. I mean, just a few years ago, he took home an Oscar, so I mean,  he's a very, yeah, he's an illustrious lizard, this Godzilla. We gotta start putting  some more respect on Godzilla's name. It's award-winning kaiju monster Godzilla, damn it. Exactly, yeah, absolutely, Academy Award-winning.

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The last trivia piece I'll share, it's not really a trivia piece, is that I was reminded about the epic Charles Barkley and Godzilla commercial from the  90s, which led me down a further rabbit hole about  the Charles Barkley Godzilla comic book, which was extremely fun to revisit. I gotta say, if you've never read it or seen it and listeners, goes to you, worth checking out. If you find this at a convention, just pick it up for the absurdity that is Charles Barkley playing basketball.

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Teaching Godzilla how to do layups. It is hilarious. Yeah I will just a very very very soft tease that like, you know, we have read it We've read it and it's something we think about so maybe in the next couple years, you know, don't know That's all I'll say. That's all I'll say as we've read it Look, I swear if I pick up one of these Kai's say era titles and Godzilla is wearing some Nikes or some Jordans I'm here for it. You won't hear no complaints

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Well, when you talk about Godzilla facts or trivia, one of the things is are the Godzilla rules that we have to abide by. And occasionally people will think that Godzilla can do more than he can because there's been exceptions to these rules. And that Charles Barkley commercial is the bane of my existence in a lot of ways because writers want to think, writers all seem to think now that Godzilla should be allowed to put on basketball shorts and dunk. And he cannot.

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That was actually where the rules came from. Toho was like, all right, this is what happens when we let Americans have free reign damage. Bring it in, bring it in.  Yeah, they saw that in the Matthew Broderick movie and they were like, we're giving these Americans some rules.  You know, I want to come back to those Toho rules because I do got a question on that. But I realized I started out really hot with some random ass facts. So thank you  for entertaining that, Jake. wanted to start.

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I imagine  everyone's starting off these interviews very straightforward, what is the Kaisa area? And we're going to get into that. This interview gave me an opportunity to kind of appreciate Godzilla just from a pop culture standpoint. He is this,  no pun intended, this massive figure that's been in pop culture in my world of comics and  nerddom for a long time now. I guess what's your relationship with Godzilla? What's your earliest conscious memory of the Big G? Yeah. Well, first of all, just to respond a little bit there, what's interesting about Godzilla is for how

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big Godzilla is it gets overlooked so often. think it was like not until recently with like the legendary Monsterverse stuff that like it really broke  through in a different way in the States. I think prior to that, like we all knew about Godzilla movies were here and like, you know, we saw them after Robert film, but I think more recently it's taken on a new life. And what we see a lot now is that like kids really love Godzilla. I think it's because they went out and they saw the Monsterverse films.  It's funny when you when you talk about like my earliest memory of Godzilla.

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It's almost impossible to say because Godzilla is ubiquitous. know, Godzilla,  it's one of those things that I don't remember ever learning about. I just remember always knowing Godzilla existed. It's just like Godzilla just exists in all of our minds. It's almost real in that way.  The first movie I think I saw,  I saw the Matthew Broderick film at a friend's house sometime back when  we had video rental stores up in town.

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2015 where I grew up in central Illinois. So I think we just literally rented the Matthew Broderick film probably in like the mid aughts. And then the first like real Godzilla experience I would have had was that first  Godzilla film coming out in theaters, the first legendary monster verse one. Nice.  I just realized Jake, I didn't get to hear. What is the most, I guess, random or interesting trivia about Godzilla that you know?  Oh, man, I think  I think the most random and interesting trivia that I know

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working with Toho are the rules.  think it's the Godzilla rules that I have knowledge of.  I the general public doesn't always know. And one of those things is that Godzilla doesn't eat. Godzilla does not eat at all. People like,  yeah, he's never shown eating. Well, also, it is never shown eating. don't use gender pronouns with Godzilla. It's a big monster. They prefer for us to refer to it as it.

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And I think that's also like a Japanese language thing where they don't gender their word for monster. like Godzilla is not gendered in the way that we think of Godzilla as a him.  And along those lines, so he doesn't eat  and,  oh, what was the thing I was gonna say about it?  Oh yeah, so it's always like absorbing radiation. That's how it continues to move. That's almost its version of eating. That becomes another thing where writers wanna have it.

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eat a person or eat food in some way, whether it's like a joke and it's like, no, doesn't,  can't eat, no eating.  So I think that's probably my biggest Godzilla fact.  They gotta like censor out like it's Godzilla like having a giant ass burger and they gotta censor that out. know, it's like the Godzilla eats in private, right? Yeah, exactly. Well, I mean, when we were doing these Godzilla versus America stories, so like  these were one shot comic issues where Godzilla would go to different cities and then the people.

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We work with comic creators from those cities to make the issue and everyone in Chicago wanted to have Godzilla eating a hot dog. A Chicago dog! Exactly, they wanted to give the king of the monsters a Chicago dog and we can't. You can't have it. I think actually I'm going to HeroesCon,  I guess this month when this episode drops. I've been trying to think about some pretty  out of the box commissions that I want to try to get on blank covers and just sketches. And I Godzilla eating a Chicago dog would be... If Tim Seely is there, absolutely.

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Yeah, please do. Just don't show it to Toho. Don't let Toho know what you did. So much of those are like suits, no name tags. I'm just like, just disappeared. The water is gone. Well, that's the thing. is a and a director spoke on this recently and it kind of made like nerd news. There is like a Godzilla boardroom in Toho that like all Godzilla things kind of go back to and these men meet up like once a week in Japan.

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and they kind of, look over our comics, they look over like the other things in the world of Godzilla for like the final approval. So those men might show up, they might get you. might. G-men for real. Yeah. What are like your main roles and responsibilities when it comes to being an editor at IDW? Cause I think I told you before we hit record that I, you know, came across when your videos on the IDW page, the Instagram page, it was like, hey, a day in the life of an IDW editor. And for the most part,  I knew a lot of the different tasks.

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But what threw me off or surprised me was that you also were working on text bubble placement on the actual pages to help the letter give them an idea of where to put the bubbles. And I was like, oh, didn't know editors also do that. So if you don't mind explaining, guess for the layman, what does a comic book editor do? Yeah. So I think just an overall note I'll give at the start here is that like,

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Being an editor is a role that really changes from, I would assume, company to company, from person to person, and from project to project, right? So part of it is you are filling in the necessary gaps on any given project. But as an overall thing, I think the closest point of comparison that people might have from movies or podcasts or TV shows would be like a producer, right? So it's  very similar to that role.  The specific role that I'm doing as kind of the

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the editor of All Things Godzilla is I am planning out the line for the year. So I'm deciding how many Godzilla books I think we should make and how they should kind of, should or shouldn't kind of relate to each other. And then I'm going out to writers and I'm soliciting pitches based on kind of a general guideline of like, hey, we've kind of been seeing this type of Godzilla story. Do you have a pitch for this type?

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Godzilla story. And once in a while, someone will hit me up out of the blue with a totally wild and cool pitch that I wasn't thinking of the direction at all, but it works really well. So that's like a starship Godzilla, right? Where with the other books, I'm going to people and kind of being like, Hey, I have like a vague, very incredibly vague doesn't even constitute as an idea yet just a direction of you pitch me in this direction. And, know, Tim pitched me in a direction and then  Griffin and Ethan pitch me in a direction that I worked with them from  this kind of really

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like one page pitch of an idea, I gave notes on that. And then from that point, I then take the book, pitch it eternally, I pitch it Toho, we get it approved. And at that point, I'm just a shepherd for the project, right? So I'm giving them deadlines to get scripts in, I'm going on finding the artists to hire, I'm giving the artists deadlines, and then every step of the way they're turning in work, whether it's a series outline or a script, I'm giving notes on it, giving it back to them, I'm approving it, I'm giving it to Toho.

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I'm discussing their notes on it. I'm giving it back to the writers. Then we get layouts in. We get notes on layouts. We get pencils, notes on that. Inks, notes on that. I hire a colorist. I bring them in, notes on that. It almost sounds like it's a cross, I mean, between a lot of jobs, but the two that come to mind for me is like you're a project manager, but also like a show runner. The show runner isn't necessarily behind the camera, but they're hiring the team. They're making sure that they're on track and on budget schedules.

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It sounds like a little bit of like  a little bit of both of those roles and obviously like the creative side too. Yeah, it's a lot of like  I think the reason I'll back away from showrunner is just be a showrunner typically is  really in charge of the they're like creatively pitching in a way that I'm going to say.  I certainly give ideas  and help guide. So I think it's more of an executive producer than a showrunner. Right. Because I think it's like Tim Story, it's his vision and he's right. It's not where a showrunner be way more of like.

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you gotta do it this way, you know, where it's more like, no, no, no, they're writing their stories. I'm just there to like give notes and help guide. I mean, it sounds like a very involved job, obviously, just from like, you know, the coordination, make sure everyone's on track. And then also you're dealing with like creatives. What is the Erica Badu quote? I cannot think of where we're artists, we're sensitive about our shit, right? So like, I imagine it's also a lot of like people management. What is like the on the job training? Like how, what type of training do you get?

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as your first day as an editor, or I guess what background do you have that helped you get into this role and  obviously be successful at it? So I mean, a whole bunch of stuff, right? So initially speaking,  we all have English or creative writing degrees or degrees of that kind, right? So we're all like  have bachelor's degrees in some form storytelling, which helps as much as it helps. And this is an audio medium, but I.

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I kind of wave my hand dismissively, waving my hand dismissively to creative arts degrees across the country. And then when I moved out to LA, I kind of started to accidentally build a solid resume for being a comic book editor, right? So I, first of all, my survival job was at a comic shop. So I did that for a bit. I interned at a production company where I was a script reader. So I was reading scripts for the company and giving them notes on them telling them my opinion.

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as writing for various online companies about pop culture. I was editing videos for YouTubers, like doing all of these things and kind of like building like the baby skills and all of these directions I'd eventually need as an editor. And then when I was hired, you you don't get hired as an editor, you get hired as an editorial assistant, right? So it's kind of like the TV writer path where you start as an assistant and you work your way up. I was hired as an editorial assistant in the IDW Originals group about four years ago now. And I was working for

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specifically Mark Doyle, who was the Batman group editor for years. So a great first person to kind of teach me the ropes and how comic book storytelling works and the stuff that I might have thought I knew at that point already, but really hammering out the foundations of it and how to be an editor. So it was Mark Doyle who had done that. It was Maggie Howell who had worked a lot in the Black Label group and then a lot of great IDW editors as well. But I basically just had these two really great long time.

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DC Comics editors to show me the ropes. So  as that progresses over the years, you start with like just assistant coordinating work and then it's like, okay, mostly assistant work, but give your opinion on this and this. Then it becomes like, okay, give your opinion on all this stuff and then do the assistant work and tell you just slowly build your way up until it's like, okay, you have a handle on this. Let's let you kind of take over and, you know, guide a bit. So yeah. How much would you say

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taste, like having good taste and like an  eye for things plays into it. It sounds like one of those soft skills and I put air quotes over soft skills because I feel like having good taste and an eye for things is definitely not just a soft skill, but one that you've got to like find. How important is that being in the editorial role? So, Rick Rubin had this interview where he was like, oh, I don't know how to write music. I don't know how to produce music. I'm being paid for my taste. He's like, that's what I do.

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I kind of went viral as people being like, that's not real job. And I was kind of quietly like, that is my whole job. That is what I  do.  Rick, you're talking, you're saying the quiet part too loud. Rick, chill. I know, know. Quiet down. But no, so that's exactly what it is. It's like you're being paid for A, your time management, your people management abilities, but you're being paid for your taste. You know, you're being  paid because you

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should have an understanding of what a good comic book feels like and reads like and looks like. And it's your job to make sure the final product  reaches your level of taste, you know, like make sure that you like the book being made. And that's, that's a huge part of it is feeling if you don't like it yet, don't send it out the door.  So  yeah, taste is kind of the whole job really. All right, I feel like

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I'm not going on a limb here, but maybe I  don't want to assume too much, but how much did working at the comic shop play into developing your taste? Because as someone who spent a couple of years working at a shop, I think, you know, I don't remember all the ins and outs and everything I did, but I do remember having,  it was interesting to get to meet other comic fans.

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and people and see what books they picked up and what type of people picked up what books. I thought that was the most interesting part of the job. wasn't the fact that I got a killer discount on the comic books or a ton of store credit. It was the interaction and getting to hear responses to certain books or events going on or decisions and all of that. mean, how much of that plays, how much of that experience plays into your role now?

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Yeah, dude, absolutely. mean, you're not on a limb at all. You're still right on the tree. That is absolutely correct.  Totally nailed it. I mean, that was  everything. And that's a big part of why they wanted to hire me was specifically the retail experience that I have that not a lot of people in comics editorial do have.  Interesting. Working at  a shop was  so informative and all those reasons you said, like, let's start with just the initial baseline of I read way more than I'd ever read. So I was just reading so many comics.

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I was reading everything that came in. Anytime there was a slow minute or hour or day, I would just read books off the shelf. Like I'd crush entire series in a day as I just sit behind the counter reading comics, you know?  And then as you were hitting on, the other big part is what do people respond to? What gets people into the shop? Why did that get people into the shop? Like watching  the Krakoa era get a bunch of people to come back, get a bunch of latched X-Men fans back into it. Watching

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how many people truly come into the shop  and they just want to read comics by Gerard Way. I'm like, really, Gerard Way is that big of a name that you guys are all like,  because not every celebrity has that kind of pull, but Gerard Way has that kind of pull and trying to understand why and  maybe because the type of fans who like Gerard Way are primed to like nerdy or geekier stuff, like  figuring out that cross section of what might work when it comes to like a crossover with people outside of the medium.  You know,  you look into like,

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what type of high concept sells. And Department of Truth was a huge learning experience for me. It was a book that was not only fantastic, but it was in a lot of ways built to sell. mean, that pitch is just so incredibly easy. I would hand sell 15 copies of Department of Truth a week because I was able to say, oh, it's X-Files, but in a world where public belief shapes reality. And anyone you say that to, they go, oh, damn, yeah, I want to pick that up. That sounds awesome. Give me a copy of that.  And seeing that there's things you can do as a creator,

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that make it so much easier for the retailer to sell the book, you know, giving the book like a clear, concise hook, you know, giving the book a visual identity,  making the cover stand out. Like there's just so many things that we can do that help the retail side and make the book more engaging and interesting to customers. So I think that two and a half year stint I did at the retail shop is like  everything in my understanding of  how to actually make a comic that people want to read, you know.

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Oh, because the other thing I would see there is our shop was mostly a card shop.  mostly is a top. It's like it was half a card shop. So there were lot of like magic fans and Pokemon fans and other geeks of other kinds in the shop.  So what I really pay attention to is when  a comic came out that caught their eyes, you know, like that's kind of like our wider sleeping giant audiences, like general geekdom. And how do we get those people to cross the aisle in the comic shop and pick something up and

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One book that did that really well was Last Ronin, right? Because it gave this different take on something that people already loved, which  is what the Kaisai era is, you know? It's trying to take Godzilla  and be like, hey, it's Godzilla. You know him. You like him. But these are stories you can't get anywhere else, you know? Because I think what separates a comic for just the real fans  of that character versus a comic for everyone is Godzilla fans love Godzilla so much. All they want is more Godzilla.

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where the general fan who will go to see a Godzilla movie, they're only going to pick up a Godzilla comic if they have some extra reason to do so. And one of those things that we can do is, well, it's a crazy story. It's different than you ever expected. It's Godzilla fighting the great Gatsby, you know?  That's different than you've ever heard. I mean, think about what got you into comics initially. One thing that really got me  as a high schooler was Avengers versus X-Men, where I was like, I get Avengers stories from TV and movies. I get X-Men stories from TV and movies, but...

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I've never seen them fight. I got to go to the comics for that, you know? And it's kind of bringing that philosophy into comics. The psychology  and the  Venn diagram of consumerism and, you know, creativity is what I love about comic books, right? Because like it's you got the retail side and it's like a different beast with like the weekly comics. And then you've got like the psychology of what attracts readers, you know, what keeps them going. I could stay on this topic all day. But you brought up,  the Kai Se era. And I want to make sure that we hammer home.

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It's a colossal. is a very ambitious, ambitious is the word I'm thinking, ambitious project. And I had the opportunity to read Godzilla number one by Tim Sealy. And I hopefully do this man's name justice. I can say I can say it for you. Nicholas is measure. Oh, yeah. Sorry. I'm so sorry. I was going to say that's exactly what I was going to say. This is measure. Just to read Godzilla number one. To your point, it was something that I don't think I could get anywhere else. Art is great.

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The concept is cool. I really like this new character that you guys introduced that has the power of the Kai Sei. I think that is just a cool idea. I guess let me ask the very basic question. I don't want to just assume. What exactly is Kai Sei? Does it mean anything? Yeah. So basically, when it comes to Godzilla stuff and  the franchise as a whole, like everyone knows that the  original incarnation  of Godzilla was kind of this metaphor for

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the war and the bombs and the nuclear bombs that were dropped. And because of that, just this terrifying presence. But as the franchise has grown and evolved and Godzilla has taken on wackier incarnations, like  including like just kind of the immediately following films of the Showa era, there's been a bit of like a sidestep away from using the term radiation and atomic, like an official like Toho properties. So in our comics, they really prefer for us to kind of lean away from those like overt pairings.

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So it gave us this idea to kind of create this new energy source, right? To have this thing kind of post-World War II.  In our universe, these scientists were experimenting with this energy source that has been dubbed Kaisei. And while experimenting with it kind of in the  50s, they inadvertently awoke Godzilla, created a bunch of new Kaiju, and started this kind of like 70-year onslaught  of Kaiju kind of attacking humanity. So...

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In our universe, in the present day, these people, these humans have been battling against Godzilla and other kaiju for 70 years. And because of that, parts of the world have been mutated in strange ways and people have strange new powers and Godzilla itself functions differently. But the word itself is a combination of like kai as in like beast and our strange beast specifically and se as in energy. And it's kind of like a portmanteau of those two Japanese words. So it's kaisen.

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Strange beast energy is the word itself. I like it and I'm going to understand that this will be the first  ongoing Godzilla comic in 10 years now I guess I guess why do you feel like now was the right time to launch not just like a brand new ongoing series But you know a comic book universe centered around Godzilla why now? Yeah, I mean a kind of a bunch of reasons. I think that post Godzilla minus one there's been this just renewed energy around Godzilla I think

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fandom's growing. think, as I said, like kids love Godzilla. I think that over the past few years,  our relationship, like IDW's relationship with Godzilla has only grown as we've kind of figured out different ways to utilize Godzilla as a concept inside of comic books. Like, you know, the original kind of like Kingdom of Monsters and the original Godzilla books that we launched were very much kind of like in really cool, fun ways, kind of replicating the type of

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Godzilla storyline you might see in the movies and then  kind of early on with like Jonathan Layman's gangsters and Goliaths, which is kind of Godzilla mob movie and then Frank Thierry's, he'd be dragons, which was Godzilla fighting pirates. And then all the way up to like Tom Scholey's Godzilla's monster piece theater, which is Godzilla interrupting the great Gatsby and then fighting Dracula. Like  we've kind of  built this understanding or gained this realization of like how to tell comic book specific Godzilla stories, know, Godzilla stories that can

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only exist on the page of the comics.  with us kind of having that renewed energy and making these comics with their kind of being a renewed resurgence of just Godzilla fandom in general.  And also, I think this kind of general understanding of like people want to see continuity in their comics to some degree. We just felt like we had kind of taken a break from this. We'd done these miniseries for a while, and it just felt like the perfect time to go all in in the super weird new Godzilla universe. And also,  not for nothing,

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It's partially because it's the first time that I've had the reins of Godzilla. And this is the type of comic books that I like to read. You know, I like it when there's a bit of a shared continuity. You know, I like when stories are ongoing and they grow and evolve because like there's a lot of things you can do in an issue 23 that you can't do in a six issue mini series. know, so I just want to try to build the universe. think part of that is allowing the universe to grow and expand. So, yeah, there's more opportunities we get from doing it this way.

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What was the inception of the idea? Like how involved are you from clearly from the inception, but also to the execution? Yeah, yeah. Just to initially step back, because I don't want to take any undue credit here. Like these books are, they're fully written by the writers. They're fully drawn by the artists. Like I'm just there to kind of help like guide and kind of give the catalyst for some of the stuff. But so the way it started off and we can kind of talk about all three books in the era was I just had these this idea for a comic book version of

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Godzilla story that utilizes like the tropes of American comic books, know that instead of just having these kind of the core problem of a lot of Godzilla films is that people don't want to watch the humans on screen, you know, they just want to see the kaiju and I think a big part of that is because it's always just been kind of standard humans who aren't able to in any way interact or affect the kaiju story that's happening quite often, you know, like it's just Godzilla attacking and they can

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try to hit it with a tank, but that's not gonna do anything. And more often than not, we're not even following the soldiers. You're following like scientists who are just kind of like, oh no, this shouldn't be happening.  And I thought that comics were a great place to create these characters that might seem a little silly on the screen, but would fit really into a comic book universe and allow us to have human characters that can grow and change and evolve and kill each other.

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but connect, like, of bridge the gap between them and the kaiju by giving them these powers and these abilities that you see in comic books. So  I initially approached Tim Seely with that idea of just like,  I would love you to build this kind of  superhero G-Force. And Tim and I discussed what we wanted that to look like, and we discussed the idea for a boy with the power of Godzilla and what that would look like who can control kaisai energy in the same way that...

30:49
Zillocan but from that starting point, mean Tim took it and ran from it and then the other part of that was Linking up with you may know them as the supple boys Crippen  Sheridan Ethanis Parker  from  Rosenberg's podcast and  I met up with them at comic-con of last year and I just had this idea of Outside the wall and inside the wall stories where the outside of the wall would be kind of like the normal world That's been progressing normally but the inside of the wall

31:18
would be this kind of walled off wasteland where this big Godzilla attack happened and the American government walled it off. And they're basically just like, look, we don't want  anyone to go in there. Everything died in there. It's too radioactive. There's too much Kai-Sai energy.  But if you go over that wall, you can see that some people survived and these civilizations have been surviving and being mutated. And again, that is all. I just kind of brought that concept to the boys and they had actually pitched me a bunch of different Godzilla stories. And I was like,

31:48
actually just take all of those  and put them inside of this wall. So  that came up with this idea that they had for this Wanderer character who would go kind of from story to story inside of that wall, right? So then Starship Godzilla was an idea that Chris Gooch, who is a writer, artist, and some top shelf graphic novels, he pitched it to me,  a very different version of it. And then I worked with him and my rep of Toho to create a version that would actually be at home.

32:15
in the world of Kai'sai and a version that would kind of connect these alien races we've seen in a lot of the movies. So, you know, I think it's probably not too different than the type of editorial work that Marvel and DC have to work, have to do and like running their universe. But it's just unique to the position I was in with Godzilla because there's no Godzilla canon that we're like established to. So like, I kind of found myself as like the de facto like lore keeper of this fake world.

32:43
So I think part of it is when we're trying to talk about the Kaiser as a whole, that's not something that any of these individual writers can speak to because it's like they got one piece of the puzzle. Yeah, exactly. I very purposefully kind of siloed them off and sequestered them so they can go and tell those stories.  And actually now as we're approaching year two, we're going to get more into a like, hey, guys, let's start to bring things together. So let's start to have these meetings of like where we're going and how we can tie it together and more and how we can eventually build these.

33:11
crossovers or universe wide events. yeah, I think that's the big reason it happened this way is just because like Tim can really speak to his story and Griffin and Ethan can really speak to their story and Chris and Oliver can speak to their story. But  to really talk about it as a line in that world, I think I'm the only person who knows enough about the three of them. So I also just like pitching it. So

33:34
You're the connective tissue. I see it now. You're also the Godzilla Johnny Appleseed. It sounds like you went to every single team for like this one seed of an idea and everyone kind of ran with it if they didn't already pitch it. So that's really cool. So what I want to do is I want to mention each title  and I want you to just kind of a word association. I'm going mention  the three Kai'sei era titles and just tell me what comes to mind in terms of if you got an anecdote, a story or some words to say about the creative team or who that book is for.

34:03
How about we kick it off with Godzilla number one, Godzilla, the main ongoing title, which will be written by Tim Sealy with art by Nicolae Cismesia. What words come to mind for that? Who is this story for? Yeah, yeah. The initial things that come to mind for that is like action blockbuster. That is kind of our like that. is like the film of the Kaiser, if that makes sense. That is like the epic story being told. That is kind of the the beating heart of the world. That is the one that's going to continue.

34:32
as a full monthly ongoing where the other ones are kind of like these season based models. That is like the core story. That is just, I think of insane action. think of like manga meets X-Men. think of, honestly, what's funny now is I start to think about arc two, you know, and I can't pitch arc two yet, but like I start to think about these insane directions that we get to go. I think of like evolution of the franchise. think of, it's like we're starting with this point  of  superheroes fighting Godzilla.

35:02
And the first issue acclimates you to that new world. But I cannot stress enough, that is just the starting point. Once you've read 12 issues, you are not going to look at this and think, oh, that's just the superheroes fighting Godzilla book. You're to have  all these other things that come to mind.  like, regardless of like, I think the weird thing in issue one, well, A, we get a really fun  tease at the end, but kind of the weird thing in issue one is, there are these people that have these powers that are able to actually fight Kaiju.

35:32
That's different and that's weird. But again, that is just the starting point. So like it is going to grow and change from that in such bizarre, fun ways. And basically what I can say right now is if you like that setup, pick up issue one. If you don't like that setup, you are going to hear how issue six, the first art ends. And I promise you're going to pick up this trade.  Like we're going to, we're tricking you a little bit. Like I will admit.

35:59
We are it is superheroes fighting kaiju, but it's so much more than that and that will be revealed as we go throughout this book So I can't wait for people to read it but action blockbuster manga infused fighting X-men ultimates like I think of all those words when I think about the book That's a very good description of that. I'll cosign all of that I think honestly you had me just by having Tim Sealy on as the writer Tim is the best Yeah, yeah, and Nikolai says measure who's completely new to me. I wasn't familiar with this artist, but

36:28
I am he's on my radar. Absolutely. think to your point, he brings a manga aesthetic to it that doesn't feel forced. It's like it's very clean.  And  I think  it gives the book a really good identity. It's a great looking book. And thank you so much for saying that. And I think that what's fun is like when I was pitching this book around a comics pro, like people were really excited. I love the art. But once in a while, your comments about like before they saw the art, there was like, oh, it's like manga inspired. That's interesting.

36:56
do that much manga in my shop. And I was like, no, no, no, it's manga inspired. And what I like about that marriage is inherently what we're doing is an American take on Godzilla. So I like that the art style fits that thematically. It is a marriage between a Japanese and American sensibility. And that's what this book is. And that's kind of what the book's about in a big way is, you you have this member of the team who is this Japanese woman, this transfer from the G-Force Japan.

37:22
who is trying to work with the Americans, understand the American mindset  and figure out why they can't just deal with Godzilla in a more natural way. Why it's worth it to them to blow up part of Miami to keep Godzilla from getting, you know, from passing by the shore, you know, like,  because they just cannot rest until they destroy this monster.  Now, I think that is well said. It does feel like both.

37:49
you know, the Japanese influence and origin is like in the  American side is like meeting halfway. It's not like two leaning one way or one side overpowering. It's like a good combination of both. With that said, what comes to mind when I say  the second title, Godzilla Escaped the Dead Zone? Yes, I think of a lot of things. think of Clint Eastwood. I think of the man with no name. I think of Over the Garden Wall is one that I keep bringing up with this because

38:19
What was always the driving force for this book is creating a story that has a story engine that allows anything to happen. So inside of this dead zone, the Kai'sai energy has been interacting with animals and humans, and it's been  shaping the course of this kind of inner world. And we're using that as a jumping off point to tell any type of story. Anything could have happened past these walls.

38:47
any version of a monster might exist,  any kind of Mad Max society they might run into.  There's cults in there. There's like freakish happenings. There's new monsters. There's new types of mutations. mean, our main character is this human kaiju hybrid, right, which is the first human kaiju hybrid in Godzilla history. It's an entirely new concept that they've ever allowed us to do. And you're going to see what that really means.

39:15
The book, again, this book will start to evolve and these books are very purposefully built to have an initial concept and then to have  a kind of an end of issue one hook that kind of lets you know like,  oh, this is what's  really happening past this initial concept. And then trying to do that to you every six issues where we,  kind of  recontextualize the world every six issues.

39:39
them in a new direction. We  give a new piece of information that kind of shifts everything and adjusts the status quo to keep these all feeling really fresh and interesting.  at the end of Escape the Dead Zone,  you you've read it, he comes across these, I haven't seen it so big, he comes across these beings that have a power that no one would expect anyone in a Godzilla film to have. So  we get this really interesting thing and that kind of is what the first arc of the book starts to follow. So

40:09
Yeah, I also think of body horror when I think of that book and we're kind of you'll be getting into that a bit because there's a little bit at end of issue one, but it is body horror. It's also  lone wolf and cub, Usagi or Jimbo, traveling samurai. So all that good stuff in that book. Also,  one way that I've kind of found to pitch that book is while Godzilla is featured eventually in a big way,  Godzilla kind of bookends that book in a fun way. And part of that is

40:37
Whenever there's a big disaster, there are the people that are left behind. And I think that we're using like Godzilla as a metaphor for disaster. And we're using this world  as  sort of a metaphor for the people who are left behind post disaster when you know, the government kind of clears out and they go, great, we fixed it. And they're kind of like, I don't feel fixed. think we got our shit rocked in a huge way.

41:05
We're not sure that there's coming back from this.  And that's what the Dead Zone is. It's a book about what Godzilla has left behind in a big way.  And I think it's going to be so different for fans of Godzilla to open that book and to see all these new kaiju and these new freaks and these new mutants kind of instead of Godzilla itself, which again, Godzilla itself will come, but it's so much about what happens when Godzilla leaves and then what happens when Godzilla returns. And that's kind of the core pitch of Dead Zone.

41:35
That is well said. I think that is a great way to pitch it. Godzilla escaped the dead zone is like this is what happens after the credits roll after Godzilla has left and you know, like what is this little town or this city? How do they recover from the destruction? So we've got superheroes in the mainline Godzilla. We got a post  apocalyptic kind of story lone wolf and cub kind of story in Godzilla escaped the dead zone. What do we get in Starship Godzilla, which will be written by Chris Gooch with art by Oliver Ono.

42:04
What is it got a Starship Godzilla? Man, Starship Godzilla,  for one thing, Oliver Ono is killing it on art. So when I think of Starship Godzilla, I think of Oliver is just incredible illustrations and such a beautiful book.  for that book, I think of Cowboy Bebop. I think of Star Trek. think of Star Wars. think of all these great space epics. And again, the starting point of it and then it really evolves into its own thing. The starting point of it, the starting point of a lot of these things is like

42:32
genre marriages, right? It's like when you these first issues, you're like, okay, it's a wandering samurai in the world of Godzilla, or it's kind of like this X-Men or My Hero Academia or Ultimates of Jujutsu Kaisen in the world of Godzilla. And then it's if you're going to read Starship, it's going to be, oh, it's Cowboy Bebop or Guardians of the Galaxy in the world of Godzilla. But like, those are just the starting points. And then after we get you acclimated to that kind of genre mashup, it grows into fully its own thing, right? So

43:01
That book, think of kind of the style of a Cowboy Bebop, where I think of kind of this like, it feels like a lost  80s space anime that like you've never heard of when you find the VHS tape in like an old forgotten shop in Little Tokyo or something, you know?  And you're like, how can no one know about this? This is incredible.  And that story is all about  these people who Mechagodzilla in our world has been turned into a starship. So Mechagodzilla is Starship Godzilla.

43:29
They fly around in Mechagodzilla and they take these kind of like Kaiju missions, right? They're kind of mercenaries and they take these missions.  If you have a Kaiju bothering you on your planet, they can swoop in and kind of fight off the Kaiju, right? So that's a book about these people  and their place in the galaxy and their responsibility in the galaxy as the pilots and owners of this  giant super weapon.  And as the galaxy is kind of thrown into a state of turmoil,

43:59
They kind of have to decide as a crew what part of that they're gonna stand on. the first issue is To spoil it a little bit. The first issue is basically alien inside of starship inside of Mecha Godzilla So there's like a little baby Kaiju that gets released inside of Mecha Godzilla So it's this really fun way to meet the crew and meet the ship and then we get straight into like, okay We got these episodes where the starship lands on a planet. There's a Kaiju. It's dealing with you're gonna see it in mech form

44:29
You're gonna see it kind of battle Kaiju. And then at the end of this first season, this first like six issue arc, you're gonna see them kind of get wrapped into this galactic conspiracy. It's gonna kind of build to something bigger.  And again, this is one where  by issue six, you're gonna have more Kaiju action. know what to do with that.  Mechagodzilla fights all of these different space Kaiju. It's very, very cool. Sign me up. Mechagodzilla is like one of my favorite all time.

44:58
in addition to King Ghidorah. Those two... Me too, man. That's the one I on my desk. For the video listeners, my man busted out a very good-looking Mechagodzilla figure. Jake, your enthusiasm for each one of these titles is very compelling. I'm excited to pick these up from the shop. I mean, it's one thing to get an advanced preview and get a chance to read it, but I think these are comics that I want to hold in my hand. And it's cool that you have different flavors for everyone.

45:26
So you got Godzilla number one coming out on July  23rd, Godzilla escaped the dead zone on August 6th, and then Starship Godzilla later on on October  1st.  Your most immediate concern right now, ladies and gents, is making sure that you get Godzilla, the main ongoing series, on your pull list by Monday, June 9th, or at least issue one ordered by then, since that is the FOC, the final order cutoff. Once again, I'll have that all linked in the show notes so you can check it out. I wanna go back to what you were talking about in terms of the Toho.

45:54
rules and guidelines. I got a couple of questions from  a listener and good friend of this show. His name is Corey Torgeson. He is the biggest Godzilla fan I know. He might as well have a master's degree in Kaiju studies. I told him about the theme of this episode, which you guys got going on with the Kai-Sei era  and I asked him to send in a couple of questions. As my, you know, Godzilla,  lead Godzilla correspondent, I was curious to know what he wanted to know about the Kai-Sei era and what you're doing with Godzilla. Sure, sure.

46:24
Let's start off with this question here. He wants to know, which is your favorite kaiju? And it doesn't have to be in the Godzilla universe or even in Japan. I mean, we talked, we both shared a moment here about our guy Mechagodzilla, but what are some of your other favorite kaijus?  It's a good question.  I  really, really like Biollante, which that's a character that kind of the real heads will know.  Biollante was a catalyst for a lot of what we're doing.

46:52
It's this kind of synthetic kaiju that a scientist created in the lab by combining Godzilla cells, plants,  and also inside of the plant is the spirit of his daughter.  So it's just this like  crazy, crazy mashup mutant. And a lot of what we're doing I see as a natural evolution of the Heisei era and of Biollante specifically. also, I love Mechagodzilla. think,  I think

47:21
One of my favorite tropes is  robot version of Feng, know, so it's like whether that's like the  metal head and  team and tea, you know, like a metal turtle  or this. just think that's so funny and cool to just be like,  we got like a robot version of Godzilla. It's awesome. know,  he's like, why would that be your first thought to fight Godzilla is why don't we make a big robot Godzilla? It doesn't have to look like Godzilla. It could have just been a big robot.

47:51
I'm a sucker anytime they add the word like cyber in front of you know the next adjective like cyber Akuma from the Marvelous Capcom games and like he's part robot? Sign me up. Yeah  Absolutely.  I really like  I really like Gigan. I think I'm saying his name right. I think he's awesome. I love his look He just has this like  70s sci-fi Insane look to him. Yeah, so I think those are kind of I'll leave those kind of top four, but I mean space Godzilla so

48:17
And let's just say again, you know, you're book going up to space Maybe a space Godzilla will show up, but you know check it out But space Godzilla is one where it's it's very similar to the metal Godzilla is just such a fun very aton Godzilla with like I don't know he's got big crystals and he's even bigger than Godzilla I think it's awesome. You know the things that we will eat up as fans. There's the next question from Cory You spoke a little bit about the the Toho Guidelines and rules and this question kind of builds off of that

48:47
But he wants to know, each story  read and approved by Toho in advance, or did they give you free reign? What guidelines did you have to follow? Yeah, that is a good question.  a lot of this,  it starts with me having conversations with Toho about the guidelines, right? So before I bring in a writer or  I reach out to someone like  I have conversations with Toho where I'm like, do you think we could maybe do like a superhero fighting?

49:15
Or mutants fighting Godzilla story and they get their powers from like Kai say the same energy Godzilla does and like  I have this awesome guy his name is Aaron John Gregory. He works for Toho International, which Toho International is the American Toho, right? He's the Japanese company. So the international divisions here  and  he is my main contact and he will  there's certain things that he can straight up. Okay and approve on his own.  And then when stuff really starts to

49:44
push up against brand guidelines, that's when he asked to send it to Japan. So we sent him every concept and he either approves the concepts or sends it to Japan and he'll give us notes on it. So the initial version of Starship Godzilla, the initial pitch was that it was gonna be in the far future and it was Godzilla itself that had been turned into a Starship. And Toho was like,

50:08
No, you can't turn Godzilla into a starship. They're like, you can use Mecha Godzilla if you'd like. And we're like, OK, cool. Yeah, that works. works. So he's Mecha Godzilla. So like, that's the type of stuff like they're really, really helpful and collaborative. Like, they don't just want to say no, they want to figure out a way to make the core of the idea. So then I send them every script just because you never want to have you don't want to have to have artists redo work. Right. Drawing a comic book page is labor intensive.

50:37
You want to make sure that you're a responsible editor and when you are having an artist draw a page to the best of your knowledge, they won't have to redo anything on that page, you know?  And if they do, then you need to pay them more, figure out something, because it's a full day's day of labor and you can't just be like, oh, sorry,  it turns out we actually can't have Godzilla eat that hot dog. I'm sorry, put that on the page.  So  you want to figure that out in advance.

51:02
You're like, Tim, please stop writing hot dogs in every panel. It's not going to slide. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So some of the rules that we came up against here was, you know, no radiation. So figure out a different energy source. You come up against like Godzilla is a force of nature. Godzilla is not a character. Godzilla does not grow. Godzilla does not change. Godzilla does not have human emotions. So that is something that we have to always kind of work against is

51:30
figuring out how to keep Godzilla at the forefront of your story when Godzilla inherently cannot be your protagonist, you know? So that's always been something that we have to deal with for it. But in general, what's been really fun is they have rules that relate to their existing kaiju. But when it comes to the new stuff that we place around Godzilla, there's no rules. So like, if we make up a new kaiju, we can do whatever we want with that kaiju. As you saw,

51:59
At the end of issue one, I won't spoil this, but the end of issue one, there is a new character that may or may not be,  there's a new Kaiju character that does something that you've never seen a Kaiju do in a Godzilla film before. So  that type of thing, we're like fully allowed to do and we have free reign to play with as long as Godzilla's not doing it, you know? So that was kind of a lot of the impetus for this universe and why we built it that way, because we wanted to build a new world around Godzilla that we would have free reign.

52:29
to make changes and new kind of evolutions of storytelling with these characters. So. That sounds really promising. I got one more question from Corey and I just really like this question here, but he wants to know, what's it like carrying any, what's it like carrying on the story of  Godzilla while Japan is once again hibernating? I know we have Shin in minus one plus the upcoming sequel, but these outliers are few and far between.

52:54
So he wants to know what's it like carrying on the story of Godzilla while Japan is kind of taking a break from putting out new Godzilla content. Yeah. So, you know, on that note, I don't know how much I would describe them as hibernating, but we do. There is is discussion this year of like what is and isn't a film year for Toho, right. And when they're in a non film year, they do look to other mediums to kind of like, you know, carry on the Godzilla name and keep.

53:22
Yeah.  So to filibuster the good word of Godzilla, well, you know, they while they make their next big movie, because as we know,  we take a lot of time and energy to put out.  there hasn't a lot of discussion with Toho about like, you know, how do we make the Kaiser as big and as cool as possible? Because like this is one of the big pieces of Godzilla media getting released this year. You know, there's not a film. So they look to us to to generate this content and to tell these stories. Wow.

53:50
they're making the next big film, the next big tent pole, Godzilla release. I think it's just a fun thing to be part of. think what's fun about comics  is  if comics don't hit, they don't get eyeballs on them, meaning you don't get like a ton of hate for it. You know,  it's just kind of like,  I guess it was a mess. whatever. We'll try again later. Like, there's not like.

54:14
Movies are so big and they're marketed so widely that  a lot of people are gonna see a movie and dislike the movie. Where it comes to comics, the failure is because people just weren't reading it already.  you know. Yeah, it's like, to your point, if you're looking at comics compared to movies, if the comics are a buzz, it won't tarnish the legacy, but at the same time, it's like, if they do hit,  it's like  the risk is rather kind of low.

54:42
It's like, if we do hit, mean, think about like what we do, what we add, like the different I mean, you see it in the stories like the different stories you could tell, the different voices. And I think you said that in a previous interview that, you know, what gets you excited about the Kai Se era is that you're really strengthening and leveraging the strengths of comic books. I mean, you've talked about a little bit about like the ability to tell a long form story or, you know, place Godzilla and the franchise in these different.

55:10
You know, and these different worlds and things like that introducing new characters. And I think that's that's really promising is that, you know, you guys are going full force of like, hey, you know, let's let's maximize the ability of comic books and like, you know, this meet the art form in the medium. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think that is that is the entire goal. The Kaiser is to use the medium to its fullest potential to tell types of stories people can't find anywhere else in ways they're not going to get anywhere else. And just like

55:39
use the power of the comic book, which I do think  is an incredibly powerful medium of storytelling. I you can do things on the page of a comic book that you can't do anywhere else, you know? And also, we can do things in a comic book that they wouldn't try anywhere else because  we can take really big swings because it's low risk, high as you were saying. If we take a huge creative swing, yeah, they're low, but the reward can be so high. If we take a huge creative swing and people don't dig it,

56:08
Okay, fine. was just a comic book. make another one. But if we take a huge creative swing and people do dig it, then that can be turned into a film or a movie or a TV show. can be moved elsewhere. mean, you know, I always forget what's up with public and not but like, there's a lot of public announcements of the ways that last rono is going to be used and other media across the landscape, you know, like when we hit

56:30
it generates content for the entire franchise. It changes the way people think of the character when we hit,  only in success. But our misses doesn't change anything for anyone. So it's a fun thing to be a part of what we just get to create. Yeah, that is well said. Once again, those questions come from my guy, Corey Torturzen, the host of the Twinbee podcast, aka the World is My Burrito podcast. If you're into Godzilla, kaiju, old movies and Japanese history and culture,

56:59
Check out the World Is My Burrito podcast. Big shout outs to Corey for the questions. Jake, I want to wrap up this conversation by going back to talking about your role as editor. I was on the, I think it was like the IDW Facebook page, but you had posted a video where you were kind of like just answering questions that you commonly get. When I think editor, I assume that some of the most common questions you get is like, know, artist portfolios, maybe from artists. Hey, I want to get into comic scene. Take a look at my portfolio.

57:28
In your, I guess in your experience and in your point of view, what does an editor look for in a portfolio? Like what are some common pitfalls that you see among like new artists or young artists trying to break into the industry? I you have any tips for anyone listening right now that's an aspiring, you know, artist that wants to break in? Like what should they know from my editor point of view? Yeah. Uh, let me give one just kind of huge caveat here that  I  am not  an artist.

57:57
I'm not an art instructor. You know, I am someone who can help a good artist tell their story a little better by like  panel adjustments and shifting focus and let's make sure we see that in the panel and stuff like that. But I am not an artist myself. I cannot tell people like,  oh, I think if you adjust the way that you're doing your gray scale or your shadows in a panel that  I might like that more to my eye. But I will say a few things like,

58:28
If you want to get hired to draw comics, you have to have a portfolio that includes sequential art. your one page illustrations are not comics, right? Like it's the one page illustration or like a cover work is not going to allow me to know if you have the storytelling chops to draw a comic book, right? It's also not going let me know if you can draw fast enough to actually do a monthly comic book, which is such a job. know, a monthly comic book is an incredible amount of labor.

58:58
to want to scale.  What I'm looking for  is  professional level rendering  with a style, right? You have to hit a certain ability, then you have to have a unique style that makes me want to hire you over the other guy. And I think that's a way the industry is shifting right now. think that  people use this word in a million different ways, but I think for a long time, you kind of saw  the industry would lean towards like a house style, where to be on one of the bigger books you had to

59:28
that's very traditional way of drawing characters, right? Where now you see people like Hayden Sherman, who I love and I work with on Dark Spaces, you see Hayden Sherman working on Absolute Wonder Woman, which I don't, Hayden Sherman has such a beautiful style, but I don't think it's one that would have been on a mainstream book 10 years ago, right? Like I think we're seeing this evolution where people like Riley Rosmo  and Jorge Corona that have these stocks.

59:52
these really unique styles are getting more mainstream work and getting put on these bigger titles. I think that's what audiences are hungry for. think people want to see really stylized work because that's part of what the actual cartooning of it is part of what we are able to offer as a medium. know, like for a while it was like a low budget way to be like drawn as realistic as possible because a man flying. I've never seen that before. But now that we have these Avengers movies, what we can offer is a unique style. You know, we

01:00:21
show the world in a lens you can't see the world through, you know? So, leading into a style, finding your niche, having sequential art on your page, and then like, the long and short of it is like,  your fundamentals have to be there, you know? Like,  people who are professional comic book artists can draw anything. They can draw anything really well. So like, putting the hours in is like, I can really see when the hours haven't been put in, you know? And a lot of people who...

01:00:48
tweet at me can draw better than I can draw, but just aren't on the level that we would need to hire you in a  professional way. So it's just constantly working to make sure you have those  artist fundamentals down because that's the only way you're going to be hired to draw at this level. Yeah.  What's the last,  when you think about  probably the hundreds of portfolios that you've probably looked at, what are some that come to mind that like really blew you away? That you were like,

01:01:15
Wow, this design is amazing. The craftsmanship is there. Any names that come to mind? They wouldn't be names that come to mind because a lot of the... I don't think I have yet, and I'll give this as a mission for myself to change eventually. I have not hired someone to draw interiors from just portfolio work. Typically, I will find someone's work through... They did a one-shot here or there.

01:01:42
A lot of places I like to go is these people who get hired by the big two, but maybe the big two doesn't know what to do with them because they're too stylized. I'm like, well, come over here and do this. Come take a look at what  I have going  on.  Oliver Ono is someone who I know that Oliver Ono is drawing Starship Godzilla. He's really new. I didn't discover him. He's really new.  Rosie Knight, who is a writer.

01:02:07
She drew a Guns of the Rivals issue. She found Oliver's portfolio online where he just had these incredible mech illustrations. This really unique style. It really kind of transported you into the world with him. And she proposed him on her issue of Guns of the Rivals before I was editing the book. And the two of them got this  YA graphic novel called Monster Piece. No, Godzilla's Monster Island Summer Camp. And his work on that, I saw that and I was like...

01:02:34
oh, that's a really fun, you're doing kind of a YA thing here, but I bet we can take you  and kind of elevate you into this kind of like more adult direct market style. And Oliver switched to traditional  inking and it looks incredible and his work's been so good. And that's kind of my version of it. More recently, I got a portfolio from  an Italian artist who does a lot of work  over in Italy in that different market. And there are just a few pieces of

01:03:03
He had a couple like Cloverfield illustrations that just really got the size of Kaiju down in a way that I'm like, oh, perfect. That's what I want. Like if you are trying to draw Kaiju, I want to feel like these Kaiju are massive. So that's something I look for with people who are drawing things adjacent to this. Oh, you know what? Who I did hire recently  for one of the covers  on Godzilla for the Kaisera for number one, it's the B cover. It's by this guy named Cade Byron.  And Cade is a concept artist.

01:03:32
who does some work for animation studios. And I saw on Cade's Twitter, he just tagged Godzilla and he had this illustration he'd put up of Godzilla kind of way in the background down the street kind of coming at you. And it looked so huge, it got the size so well, the perspective was incredible. So even though Cade's not a comic book artist, I wouldn't have hired Cade to do interiors. I reached out was like, that could be a cover, just give me something like that. And Cade was like, oh, I'm a huge Godzilla fan. Yeah, I'll do a cover for this.

01:04:00
I am on Twitter looking. When I do see, and I see a lot of artists all the time and sometimes it is of a caliber that I'm like, oh yeah, I'll hire you right now. I guess I'm really fascinated by the editor role. Cause it sounds like in addition to like, you know, coordination, people skills, know, having good taste. It's also vision, not just vision in terms of the story, but also like seeing the potential in the creatives. You know, like you were saying like, Hey, this is

01:04:27
This looks like  you're doing YA stuff, but I see a vision where you could also be doing this. And I wonder, do you ever, I guess,  meet any friction with artists that might not feel going out of their comfort zone? Like, how do you approach  helping creatives see a vision for themselves that maybe they don't see? That's really interesting. I think that in general,

01:04:51
I think in general, what I ran into more is artists who feel like they can do more and would like to be out of their pigeonhole. And they'd like to do other things and they don't know how to get those jobs. So I was actually talking to an artist out at like a restaurant recently and they were saying that they don't know, like people hire them for their very distinct style, but they have other styles they feel like they could be working in. And my advice was like,

01:05:19
include that on your portfolio. Like this is a person who works a lot. And I was like, put that on your portfolio. And also like, if I got an email from an artist that I know of or worked with and respected that was just kind of like, Hey, I've been playing in the style in case you need it for something. I would love that email, know, like I may not always have something, but I'd love to know like, when you're an editor, like the entire industry in a way is your toolbox. And you have to kind of have an idea of what these people, these creatives can or can't.

01:05:48
do. And a lot of that has to obviously come from what they've done before. It is actually, I was in a room full of editors the other day discussing this artist we really like, and we were discussing them for a project and we were all kind of nervous to pull the trigger because we're like, love their work. They're so talented, but it is a little different than what we want. like, you know, we're trying to broach that subject of like how we reach out to them and ask them to do something a little bit different and like,

01:06:17
you know, if it comes to like, ah, they kind of can't do that, like what that conversation would look like. So I think that's like, you're right in what you're asking. And I think my answer is like, that is an ongoing part of the job, you know, sometimes the simplest tryouts, the simplest being like, Hey, I'm curious if you can do that, would you mind doing a page in a different style? Or do you have any pieces that I haven't seen that are in that style? Because

01:06:43
You can't hire someone for a full series without knowing if they can achieve that look you're looking for. So  it's a conversation. It's a conversation you have with the artists, a conversation you have with your fellow editors. And it's different for every person, for sure. Well said. All right, I got one last question. What are some editors that you look up to? When I think,  especially EICs, Editor in Chiefs, I think  in terms of comics, some of the all-time greats, some of the names that come into mind are like your Karen Burgers from

01:07:12
Vertigo, know your Marie Javins who's currently, you know, EIC  at DC, CB Sobovsky over at Marvel. Then like the OGs, right? Like your Jim Shooters, your Tom DeFalco's and like those prime Marvel bullpen ears. Who are some like editors that like you respect, that you really look up to, that you're like, yo, these guys, this is like what I'm striving for. So it's a funny thing because  when it comes to editorial work, you never know how much an editor did or did not do on an end of

01:07:42
Okay. So you can have a hit that truly was by no, like the editor really deserves no credit for it. And you can have a book that the editor did like maybe too much work on and you never know the difference. You know, like if the book is good, then sometimes my job's just to say, good job, keep moving. Like my job is not to step in and give my two cents all the time. know, like one example of that is like, I

01:08:11
Also, I edit Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees. I don't know if you checked that book out, but a super, super fun horror book that Patrick Horvath does. And I was the associate editor on the first run and Maggie Howell was the editor. And Maggie did a lot of really fantastic work on it. But Patrick just comes in with such a clear vision that even though Maggie did a lot and I get to have some points in there. And for the second series, I've had some notes that I think made positive change. So much of it is just Patrick. It's just Patrick.

01:08:40
as the singular creative voice. And then there's other situations where I'm giving really huge notes and I'm changing things in really clear ways. So  it's almost like to view the career of an editor, you'd have to like go out of your way to do so. You'd have to like view the baseball stats of an editor and be like, what's their like hit to miss ratio?  To answer your question, one person that  I do think is incredible because of his hit record is like...

01:09:07
know, Tom Breivort was running the Avengers office for the best period of Marvel history. Just without a doubt, the  best period in Marvel's entire history. Basically, like, sorry to say it, the climax of Marvel, the peak of Marvel,  you know, was Tom Breivort over there just running such an incredible ship. And when you read the Avengers office books from that era as the

01:09:33
You know, you get into New Avengers and that goes into Civil War and Secret Invasion and Siege. It is just a master class. And, you you know, you can sign Tom Brewer at a level of  credit for that because he's running so many books that are going that are feeding into each other in such big ways. But, yeah, so it's really hard to pull out an editor's career like that. It is. It's the type of thing where like it's a bit like a football line.

01:10:00
You like you shouldn't, you're not the one who's going to be like, you know, always getting the credit for what happens.  It almost reminds me of what I've heard about,  lettering, you know, it's like  the only time you should notice  the letter is when it's bad, right? Like if he's really good, he's doing his job and maybe like, you know, if you're really into the inside  baseball, you'll notice like lettering style and things like that. For the most part, it's one of those like, I won't say underappreciated, but it's not as recognized as much as the forward facing creative, like the art and the words and things like that.

01:10:29
So  no, that was really great insight. And I feel like I heard no lie when you said Tom Breever. Dude, hearing you say  Siege and House of M and Civil War, mean, that was like my prime,  actually I think I was working at the shop when all that was going on. And at the time, it's like I'm just crediting Brian Michael Bendis. Like, oh, his books are amazing. But to your point, it's like, yeah, he deserves a  significant amount of credit.

01:10:56
for just the coordination and keeping things cohesive. And I think with that being said, this was a great conversation. Jake, I feel like we could go for another hour, because you brought up Beneath the Trees.  I heard you say, I don't know if you know anything about this, but dude, I fucking love Beneath the Trees.  And I was fortunate enough to read the first issue of the sequel.  And I do not  wait for this sequel. And I think I got to have you back on to talk more Beneath the Dude, did we get you with that twist? Did you like that last bit?

01:11:25
I know. Oh my god. It's like, okay, all right, I was going to end the interview but it's like,  I won't lie. At first, I was like beneath the trees  where nobody sees. First of all, I think last year I went on a whole, you if you asked me anytime, I was like, yo, this is the best book out. This is the best book out. This is the best book out. So, when I heard that there was a sequel, I was like, I mean, yeah, it ended in a way it needed, you know,  a sequel made sense but I was like, does it really need one? It ended so perfectly, I don't want them to mess this up. Read the first issue of the sequel and it's like, oh.

01:11:55
Yes, fresh idea. Awesome perspective. Like you're introducing a new compelling character and you write that twist, it's like, oh, bring it on. So that's what, just to end it really quick there, I think I was telling my roommate, who's also a comic book editor, yesterday, I was walking him through the full story of the sequel. And I think he had similar thoughts, but he was like, ah, sequel, I don't know. And when I finished telling him the story, he was like, that's better.

01:12:21
that's better than the first one. And I was like, yeah, because it's part of the same story. this will like beneath the trees. The only time you will ever think of beneath the trees as a six issue story in the sequel is right now. Like at the end of all of this, you will think of this as this one perfect story by this mastermind Patrick Horvath. You know, like the way this will exist for years to come is as this complete project. And it's funny to be in the middle of that right now. But the sequel is I would say it's not even a sequel. It's a fulfillment. It's just the next chapter.

01:12:50
It's just the next thing that's part of it, you know? So yeah, it's incredible and I'll leave it there. A fulfillment is such a great description. I'm gonna be using that. It's a fulfillment. I like that. And I think of that being said, ladies and gents, this is the Short Box Podcast and we just finished talking to Jake Williams about everything that is going on with this Kai Se era, this new Godzilla shared comic book universe. Like I said, you're getting three.

01:13:18
Brand new  series starting with the Godzilla ongoing series. got  Godzilla escape the dead zone  and Starship Godzilla I'm have links to  all of that in these show notes  Like I said the Foc for the mainline Godzilla new ongoing series is March 9th. I'm sorry not March 9th It is June 9th,  which is the  the following Monday that this episode drops Please go to your comic shop and tell them that you want to get that on your pull list order issue one You know how important it is?

01:13:46
to  order in advance when it comes to comic books, alright? So do that  and check out Jake  on social media. I have links to  his handles  in these show notes. If you're an aspiring artist, he just said that he's lurking Twitter, so you might wanna go ahead and post some cool stuff and tag him. But with that being said,  Jake, do you have any closing remarks, any shameless plug before we wrap up? This has been a great conversation, by the way, and I definitely think a part two needs to happen when we get that sequel to Beneath the Trees, I can't wait.

01:14:13
Yeah, absolutely. I'm happy to hop on whenever you want, man. I love talking to you. I mean, it's so fun. I talked to Greg about this. Greg's the press guy who set this up. for listeners, I need that. But for listeners, that's... And when you meet people in this industry that are just like real fans of this, it's like all you want to talk about. Like the real readers. know, the people who are reading and engaging with comics, like not just as a part of the fandom, but as part of just like the way you read and engage with literature or movies or TV shows.

01:14:41
talking about it in this way. It's just so fun. So I could walk through there, but it's easy.  And as far as plugs, mean, my whole life is this Kaiser era. So please  find a local comic shop. you don't have one or know where it's at, use Comic Shop Locator.  Just give them a call and just say, hey, can you reserve a copy of this book for me?  Just calling and asking about it, even if you don't pre-order, help. Because it would just let the retailer know, people are interested in this. So  it's Godzilla, it's Godzilla Escape the Dead Zone, and it's Starship Godzilla.

01:15:10
One thing that's gonna be really fun is for retailers that order, I it's like 15 copies of comic,  they will get to get this like pouch of pins that they can give out on day one. So they'll be like, the first official merch of the Kaisei Godzilla is this cool pin you can get on day one. So  head to your shops, get this book. And again, like  what will allow us to tell  bigger and better and cooler stories is if you get issue one. So  pick it up, check it out, and we're gonna keep delivering on it.

01:15:40
It's gonna be really cool.  Here we go, looking forward to it.  There you have it, ShortBikes Nation. That's the end of the show. Thank you for hanging out. Thanks for being here.  And a special shout out if you made it this far. If you enjoyed this episode and you have some thoughts or comments that you want to share with us, write us at theshortbikesjaxx at gmail.com. And if you really liked this episode,  help us spread the word. Share this episode with a friend or someone you know that loves comics as much as we do.

01:16:09
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01:16:38
Once again, sign up at patreon.com slash the short box.  Speaking of our Patreon community, I want to give a big shout out to our current members, including Adam Chittani, RC Gamet, BJ Kicks, Blake Simone,  Blythe Milligan,  Bo Evers, Brian Brumleaf, Chad Lannenberger, Chris Hacker,  David Morales, Greg Ligthite,  Hershel,  Mack Jacobson,  issue number three, Brad, Jay Sinner,  Jeff Fremid, Jerome Cabanatan, Jose Sepulveda,  Justin McCoy.

01:17:07
Corey Torgeson,  Matt Godwin, Amanda Marron, Melissa Burton,  Nick Wagner,  Ryan Isaacson, Steven Gimm, T-Mix,  The Wait For It Podcast, Tony Aupi,  Trey Namo,  Walter Gant,  and last but not least,  Warren Evans. Big shout outs to the patrons.  And with that being said, that's it. That's what I got for you this time. Thanks for listening. Tune in next week for another episode.  And most importantly, take care of yourselves. Read a good comic.

01:17:35
and continue to make mine and yours short box. I'll catch you soon. Peace.