Exclusive Preview: It’s Konga vs. Gorgo in Monstrous: The Kaiju Issue
Bram Stoker Award-winning editor and writer James Aquilone’s Monstrous Books has celebrated the traditions of pulp fiction and classic movie monsters with Monstrous Magazine, an acclaimed black-and-white magazine-format comic book anthology which features some of the most interesting and inventive genre writers being published today. Monstrous Magazine will look east for the inspiration for its next all-star anthology: Monstrous: The Kaiju Issue will celebrate the legendary monsters from Japan, just in time for the ongoing global celebration of Godzilla’s 70th anniversary.
Monstrous: The Kaiju Issue features a fantastic line-up including:
- “The Colossus From the Crater,” a brand-new sci-fi short story set on a remote moon and featuring a giant alien mummy, penned by novelist Greg Cox, who wrote the official prose adaptation of Godzilla (2014), soon to be reprinted in a new omnibus edition.
- An all new kaiju design by Dinosaur Sanctuary mangaka Itaru Kinoshita
- An all-new Konga vs. Gorgo comic, featuring the creatures from the cult 1960s American International Pictures movies and Charlton Comics, written by James Aquilone and illustrated by Dave Swartz (Confederate Monster)
- The first appearance of the Kaiju MegaSquatch, in a comic book story by James Aquilone and EV Cantada (Joe Ledger, Grimm Fairy Tales)
- Three iconic covers — a Konga vs. Gorgo cover by Larry Tuason (Knightingail: The Legend Begins), a MegaSquatch cover by EV Cantada and colorist Zac Atkinson and a Godzilla cover.
Just like the creatures themselves, this magazine (previously digest size) will be enlarged to a full-size 8.5-x-11-inch format.
Previous issues of Monstrous Magazine, feature a mix of comics, prose stories, and articles. The debut issue includes:
- A collectible cover by Colton Worley
- An essay by Elvira Mistress of the Dark writer David Avallone about the legacy of his father, pulp legend Michael Avallone
- A reprint of pulp legend Michael Avallone’s first short story “The Man Who Walked on Air, ” originally published in Weird Tales in 1953
- The very first Dead Jack comic, “Dead Jack and Oswald Meet Frankenstein,” written by James Aquilone and illustrated by J.K. Woodward
- “Monster Rally,” a comic story by Nancy A. Collins with art by Zac Atkinson
Other rewards for the Monstrous: The Kaiju Issue campaign include the debut issue of Monstrous Presents, a 32-page comic reprinting “Rise of the Morlocks” and “Dead Jack and Oswald Meet Frankenstein,” both by James Aquilone and artist J.K. Woodward.
