Michael's Long Box: Screen Monsters #4: Godzilla (1993, Zone Productions)

Screen Monsters was a short-lived series produced by indie publisher Zone Productions in the early 90's. It lasted for exactly four issues, plus another two specials which looked at creators rather than creatures, so it was never more than a blip on anybody's radar. Neither was Zone Productions, for that matter. In fact, the only reason I have this book in my collection is due to my love for giant green radioactive reptiles with a tenacious desire to trample on Tokyo every few years.

I blame my grandfather for introducing me to King Kong when I was just a rug rat. My grandfather was just a giant kid at heart, so of course he took every opportunity to introduce me to stuff he enjoyed as a child. He'd actually seen King Kong in the theater when it made its debut in 1933, along with many of the other Universal monster pictures, like The Mummy and Frankenstein. Between the awesome stop-motion wizardry of Willis O'Brien, and the model/puppetry work seen in movies like The Land That Time Forgot (which I will still watch every time I shows up on television, thank you very much!), I was primed and ready for anything. When Superstation TBS broadcasting out of Chicago, Illinois lit up the 80's summer afternoon airwaves with "Godzilla Week", I was blown the hell away.

I was later disappointed when I learned Godzilla: King of the Monsters wasn't a documentary, but that's what imaginations are for, right?

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Zone Productions focused on two types of content: non-fiction works which deviated towards the darker side of life, and parodies of other properties. An ad in the back of this particular issue offers up such inspiring gems as:

Psycho Killers Classics #1: Albert Fish
In 1934, a psychologist wrote this about Albert Fish: "There was no known perversion that he did not practice, and practice frequently."

And:

JFK Assassination: Frame 313
Jack and Karen Herman, writers of the acclaimed Psycho Killers series, examine all the facts and speculation surrounding the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Just the sort of stuff you'd buy to keep your kid quiet on a long car trip, right?

As for the parodies, these were comprised of titles like Red and Stumpy, a blood-soaked piss-take on Nickelodeon's popular Ren & Stimpy cartoon, starring a hemophiliac dog and a cat with no legs, and Defective Comics where writer Mark Voger chronicled the antics of the "Just-nuts League of America" and the "Spastic Four". Yes, this is exactly why people hate 90's comics. This is why I hate 90's comics. And I love 90's comics--y'all been warned about this shit, so don't come crying to me if you pick it up and your funny bone falls out.

Enough of that. Where was I?

Right. Godzilla.

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Screen Monsters #4: Godzilla is a 27-page love letter to the rampaging reptilian result of ridiculous radioactivity written by Ron Rockett. Nineties me ate this thing up front to back. Twenty-first century me is struggling to understand how I got past all of Rockett's mistakes when talking about the first film, where he misspells character names all over the place ('Emiko' becomes 'Emyko', 'Dr. Serazawa' becomes 'Dr. Serazow', and at one point he refers to 'King Kong' as 'Kona').

This book had three editors--did none of them take a proofreading class?

Regardless, Rockett's writing style has a certain sort of snappy punch to it that is enjoyable if you discount all the mistakes...and are also twelve years old. Reading it as an adult is just painful. Take this sample from the write-up on King Kong vs. Godzilla on page 14:

The story doesn't explain why, but King Kong is alive and well on an island called Faro. As always, he is worshiped by the inhabitants. This time, they satisfy him with booze instead of broads (just a cliche, no harm meant to any of you feminists out there), a kind of wine made from the local berries. He likes the buzz so he goes out of his way to protect them.

"[N]o harm meant to any of you feminists out there"? Really, dude...?

Fortunately, Rockett's juvenile prose is interspersed with some pretty decent artwork, like this piece by Bill O'Neill on page 7. Most of the artwork depicts Godzilla flat wrecking the shit out of everything around him, though Ron Rockett's own piece featured on page 13 shows King Kong swinging Godzilla around by the tail, so it's not all fun and games for Mr. Tall, Green, and Scaly.

I get what Zone was trying to do with this book, but it's just not all that stellar a tribute to Godzilla. Ron Rockett tries too hard to be amusing and cute in his essay, and while most of the the artwork is decent, there are some sub-par illustrations which cause me to question if the artist had ever seen a Godzilla movie.

I can't speak for the rest of the line since this is the only issue of Screen Monsters in my collection, but judging by what I've seen here, it's fair to say there's a reason this particular series didn't last beyond a half dozen installments. This comic is long out of print and not terribly easy to find nowadays. Fortunately it isn't all that expensive either--die-hard Godzilla fans can expect to drop about $10 to acquire a copy, maybe a bit less if they're OK with a lower-quality book. No matter what, this issue is only for the mega G-fan who's trying to amass one of everything. Casual readers would be better served with other resources (J. D. Lees and Marc Cerasini's The Official Godzilla Compendium, Brian Solomon's Godzilla FAQ, and Jim Harmon's The Godzilla Book all spring readily to mind), but even the Wikipedia articles about the films are more informative and entertaining.

Still, there's something to be said for adding such a book to your collection. I guarantee all but the most fanatical comic collectors out there will even know of this thing's existence. Now you can call yourself one of the elite. Well done, soldier! You survived another harrowing mission into the dark depths of Michael's Long Box.