Atragon: an Intersection in my Venn Diagram of Interests

I’m a HUGE fan of Tokusatsu, especially the Toho franchise.  Godzilla vs. Megalon?  Godzilla vs. Destroyah?  Godzilla vs Bioante?  Are you kidding me?  This stuff is PURE GOLD.  When I heard that Tristar was going to be releasing an AMERICAN Godzilla movie, my adolescent Jon Chad heart leapt for joy.  Well, we all know how THAT turned out… 

As if PLEADING for my forgiveness, Tristar released the Toho Godzilla 2000 movie stateside.  While not the best Godzilla movie ever made, it was the first in the Millennium series of Godzilla movies, and the only one I ever saw in theatres.  It remains on of my favorite movie-going experiences.

Meanwhile, on a different arm of movie interests are submarine movies.  This love is something that my father and me share.  My dad sums it up best:

“It’s got all the attraction of the war genre, with the added pressure of the encompassing ocean.  You’ve got an underwater fortress, manly men that have nowhere to go but straight into danger, and you’re guaranteed that some poor plucky young sailor named after a New York borough is going to have to swim into the flooded engine compartment at some point to close a valve.  What’s not to like!?”

Ahhhh, truer words have never been spoken. 

All of this is merely to set up these two differing cinema interests.  Where they intersect is the 1963 Japanese Tokusatsu film, Atragon.  To sum it up, a race of people living underneath the earth, the Mu Empire, plan to invade the surface.  To accomplish this, the Muians steal the I-403 submarine from WWII veteran, Captain Jinguji.  Even though Captain Jinguji has plans for an even more powerful Undersea Fortress, the Atragon, he is still upset about Japan’s defeat in WWII, and refuses to help.  He eventually comes around and agrees to help the surface humans; launching the Atragon against the Mu Empire.  The final battle pits the Atragon against a kaiju (Japanese giant monster) controlled by the Mu; Manda the sea serpent.

I know that I say this a lot, but this movie HAS IT ALL!  There are freeze rays, submarines that can also fly and have drills on the front, explosions, monsters, you name it!  Is it cheesy?  Most assuredly, but that only adds to the charm.  There’s something really authentic about the conceit of making a submarine fly.  It’s a great combination of two distinct genres that make for a really unique movie.  

In 1995, Phoenix Entertainment released a two-episode anime special based on Atragon named Super Atragon.  The design of the titular craft (which, admittedly, is called the Ra in the anime) is awesome.  While it plays a little fast and loose with the aliens and the story (and there's no Manda) it's pretty fun.  My favorite part of the anime is the cylindrical, almost monolithic alien warships.  They're not particularly inspired, but each comes with an bevy of "gravity lenses;" rings that fly around and redirect lasers.  Super cool.  So cool, in fact, that I drew some fan art.

Crush them, Giant Robo!! pt1

I'm going to take a quick departure from talking/stressing about working on LG2 to talk about something near and dear to my heart: giant robots.  I'm a huge fan of the giant robot genre, but more so a fan of the super robot subsection.  There are two subsections to the giant robot genre: real robot and super robot.  Real robots are defined by having mechanics and operations based on real world physics, as well as limited ammunition.  Perfect examples of real robots would be Mobile Suit Gundam, the Evangelions, Patlabor, Mechwarrior, etc.  The super robot genre I find to be characterized by two things: mechanics or operations based on fictional elements/undiscovered power sources, and a method of control that isn't appropriate for the complexity of the robot.  Let's look at a roster of super robots: Jehuty and Anubis from my favorite robot game of all time, Zone of the Enders, the Megazord, the robots from Robot Alchemic Drive, Red Baron, RahXephon, the Argento Soma Robots, etc.  I could go on and on. 

(Tetsujin 28-go and his archrival Black Ox)

The single robot that started the ENTIRE super robot genre was Tetsujin 28-go, known in america as Gigantor.  Tetsujin 28-go was created by manga artist Mitsuteru Yokoyama in 1956.  Wildly successful when it came out, it has spawned several animes and manga sequels.  The titular robot in the series was controlled by 10-yr old Shotaro Kaneda by means of a hand-held remote control.  Let's take a second and zoom out here.  A gigantic, super-powerful, humanoid robot is controlled by what amounts to an Atari controller.   ?!?!?!  As if.  This is the crux of the super robot genre, though.

In 1967, Yokoyama was asked to write a premise for a Tokusatsu TV show (tokusatsu is a genre of Japanese television that translates out to "special effects" it covers everything from Atragon, to Gojira, to Zuranger [power rangers] I LOVE IT).  Yokoyama wrote a premise for a show that he called Giant Robo; "A robot that can only be controlled by a hero"  In Giant Robo, the titular robot is controlled by Daisaku Kusama.  Daisaku controls Robo by speaking into a watch.  ONLY Daisaku can control Robo (as opposed to Tetsujin, which anyone could use as long as they got the Atari stick).  Giant Robo was constructed by Daisaku's father for the international terrorist group, Big Fire.  Naturally, he has a change of heart at the conclusion of Giant Robo's construction, and hands over control of Giant Robo to his son.  This is a start of a really charming precedent in the giant robo genre of the main robot having been built originally for EVIL!  Giant Robo had a run as a manga and as a live-action TV show (known in the US as Johnny Sokko and his Flying Robot.)

That's it for the Giant Robot history/rant...FOR NOW!  Next time: fanart and Giant Robo: The Day the Earth Stood Still!!!

Adventure Time Finds

Ahhhhhh, we're starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel here at Jon Chad HQ, and no, we aren't referring to the pale flicker of light that reflects off the tear in our eye.  Now that I'm getting my life back in order from crazy-go-nuts-finish-a-book-in-a-month month 2012, I can get to things that I've been criminally neglecting.  They include, but are not limited to:

-Posting on the DTZ Blog
-Posting on the Stern Blog
-Posting HERE!
-Getting back to drawing Bikeman!
-Cleaning out/organizing my computer

I know that I'm in a buttload of trouble from the Fizzmont Correspondence Negligence Coalition, but they'll just have to simmer down while I wrap up a few last things on Leo Geo 2.  I'm not ready to call it yet, but we're getting suuuuuper close.  In the mean time, I've dug up some odds and ends from when I was working on the Adventure Time Minicomic, including some fanart of one of my favorite characters from Adventure Time.  If I get to do another one of the minicomics I will, without hesitation, do it about Xerigok.  LINE UP FER YER SPANKINS, GOBLINSS!

 

When I was signing the Adventure Time minis I did at Comic Con, I would rotate between doing sketches of Finn, BMO, Choose Goose, and Xerigok.  If someone could recognize Xerigok, they were in my special super-duper cool club.

 

Oh, and here are some sketches for covers before I settled on the final one.

Robots!

I know that I'm putting off recapping on SDCC (that happened LAST MONTH, ugh), but I have a couple of robots that I sketched while I was at the SCAD table.  I LOVE ROBOTS!!  Let me draw something with pipes, gears, or circuitry and I'll be a happy Chad!!

 

LG2 coloring is underway!  

Leo Geo 2 Update

Hello, faithful arbiters of science!  I'm coming up for air VERY BRIEFLY to let you know how Leo Geo 2 is coming along!  In a word: great!  In 5 words: I am SUPER-DUPER busy!!  These past two weeks have been an inking whirlwind, but I finished this past weekend!  Now I just have miles and miles of coloring ahead of me!

Oh boy, oh boy!  Look at all those pages!  All the engine trails and ancillary effects are on separate pages, but those are done too!  Other than the adventures of Leo and Matt, I've been wrapping up summer workshops at CCS with Alec Longstreth.  It's been a long haul, but the students have been producing such a high caliber of work that it's been spurring me on and lighting that fire in my belly! 

I haven't even recapped you guys on how SD Comic Con was!  ugh!  Not enough hours in the day, am I right!  I'll make it up to you guys!  This is busy season, but it's going to be such a rad book when it's out!

WHAT TIME IS IT!?!

 

Oh my GLOB, you guys, I can finally let this puma out of the sack!  I can let this lion out of the purse!  I can let this catamount out of its backpack!  I was asked, back in April, by the good people at BOOM! studios to design and print a minicomic for Adventure Time!  I am an intense fan of the show, and I was only too pleased to tackle the project!  

I have made a lot of minicomics in my day, but I have never been contracted to make one for someone else.  I can't say how many of these I printed, but rest assured, IT WAS A LOT.  Easily heads and shoulders beyond any print run I have ever dreamed of.  Here's a video that I was asked to make to help explain the minicomic, and the particulars of how it is constructed:

HERE!  PHOTOS!  VIDEOS!!

So, as the video indicated, I will be in attendance at Comic Con THIS WEEK to help spread the minicomic gospel.  What I'm most excited about, hands down, is being able to interact with people who aren't used to seeing this kind of work.  I'm not an idiot; I realize that the majority of people have never seen a minicomic, let alone one with unconventional construction.  I am equal parts excited and terrified of Comic Con, so stop on by to let me know everything will be OK.

Here's my signing schedule!

Thursday
1:30-2:30 Signing at BOOM! table 2743

Friday
11:00-12:00 Signing at BOOM! table 2743
3:00-4:00 Signing at MacKids table 1220 (for Leo Geo!)

Saturday
1:30-2:30 Signing at BOOM! table 2743

Hard at Work

Summer workshops have started up at the Center for Cartoon Studies, and they're going really well!  Alec Longstreth and I are teaching the lion's share of them, with a couple of A-MAZE-ING guest lecturers coming in!  Last week was the Children's Book Workshop!  It was a blast!  Local author DB Johnson gave a great talk about his career and his Photoshop wizardry.  Drawing superpower and all-around great guy Scott C gave a great talk about his work and how he watercolors.  It actually inspired me to pick up a brush (for the first time in YEARS) and try my hand at watercoloring. 

Well, we're getting into the thick of summer here at CCS and the Fizzmont Institute.  The second printing of Leo Geo is due stateside any day now, and I'm hard at work on Leo Geo 2. 

My secret minicomic project is finally DONE and in the mail, so HOPEFULLY, I'll be able to talk about it this week!!  I can't wait to share it with you guys.  In the meantime, I have a nice steady stream of good news to sate your palette.  I was recently lucky enough to go to the Stern Pinball factory in Melrose Park, Il.  You can read the full post on the Stern Blog HERE, but needless to say, it BLEW MY MIND.