Godzilla’s Monsterpiece Theatre #1 reminds me of quickly flipping between educational cartoons on PBS and something more brainless and action-packed on the major networks. (I grew up in an era of Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, Boomerang, and more so cartoons were never just for Saturday.) Cartoonist Tom Scioli weds literature and good old monster stomping in a high drama, high destruction comic book. The book opens with a straight adaptation of The Great Gatsby with Nick Carraway’s omniscient narration and Jay Gatsby throwing a huge flapper-filled party. However, Gatsby isn’t present and spends his time pining across the bay for Daisy Buchanan. Then, Godzilla shows up and wreaks havoc on multiple continents leading to a slew of fictional and non-fictional guest stars appearing to try to stop him. But Gatsby still only has eyes for Daisy.
The whole concept of Godzilla Monsterpiece Theatre is a tribute to Scioli’s versatility as a cartoonist. He gets to play with different genres aka proverbial toys in the sandbox and has a blast while pairing the over-the-top images with direct quotes from The Great Gatsby or Fitzgerald-esque prose. Some genres are familiar to readers of Tom Scioli’s work. Jay Gatsby and the G-Force is totally Transformers vs. G.I. Joe. But, Scioli goes a step beyond and mars his pink and yellow palette with black diagonal lines showing the inevitability of nature as Godzilla treads on the G-Force’s Thomas Edison-designed tanks and weaponry with the care of your four year old sibling walking all over your immaculately constructed Lego set.
Another engaging part of Godzilla Monsterpiece Theatre is its (At times, dark) sense of humor. From his first appearance in the middle of a Charleston contest at Gatsby’s mansion, Godzilla is a walking sight gag inserting his B-movie eyes, teeth, claws, and of course, nuclear breath (Because Godzilla 1998, this is not.) into the world of American high school required reading. A set of two pages that made me guffaw was when Godzilla flees the United States and comes upon an ocean liner resembling an ocean liner, and of course, there’s a reference to an iceberg followed by total annihilation and life boats spilling out on the dark Atlantic. Also, this book is full of puns and silly quips like Sherlock Holmes saying “The game is afoot” while examining a giant Godzilla footprint in his country home in Ipswich. When it comes to dialogue and character interactions, Tom Scioli has a free-flowing, wink-at-the-audience style that matches his playful visuals and use of color.
When Scioli draws large structures like boats, buildings, and houses, his work reminds me a lot of the cutaway tours of different superhero headquarters in old issues of Avengers or Fantastic Four comics. There’s an attention to detail and exquisite world-building that again gives the comic a feel of well-made toys being played with by a master player. I wouldn’t be surprised if tours of Gatsby’s mansion, Cyborg Jules Verne’s sub, and other delightful venues ended up in the backmatter of this series. This kind of storytelling architecture also makes everything easy to follow and helps you not lose sight of how jarring Godzilla is in this world as Tom Scioli serves up pages of him chomping on New York City bridges, double-decker buses, and even splashes of him swatting World War I biplanes like flies.
Godzilla’s Monsterpiece Theatre #1 is a delight for your inner snob and your inner child. It’s truly a marvelous piece of sequential storytelling, old sport!
Story/Art: Tom Scioli
Story: 8.0 Art: 9.0 Overall: 8.5 Recommendation: Buy
IDW provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review
Purchase: Zeus Comics – Kindle
