Terror of Godzilla (1988): Comic Miniseries

Terror of Godzilla (1988)

Author and Illustrator: Kazuhisa Iwata  |  Translators: Mike Richardson / Randy Stradley
Page Count: Approx 30 per issue (176 total)

A six-issue miniseries set thirty years after the first Godzilla film (1954). Japan has been free of kaijū trouble since then, but a natural volcanic eruption in the Pacific Ocean changes that. So put down your coffee cups, JSDF, because it's time to suit up!

The first thing you ought to know is that the English language edition published by Darkhorse is the original manga translated, but it's been coloured.

I'd have preferred it was left as it was originally intended, but in all fairness it's not a bad job and the upside is we get it on better paper stock than Japan did. I'm going to take the optimistic stance and say that things could've been much worse, truly.

Artwork is Tezuka-inspired. Issue one is occasionally gruesome, but subsequent issues are less interesting.

Jodorowsky's Dune (2013)

Jodorowsky's Dune (2013)

Dir. Frank Pavich

A documentary in which Chilean filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky talks about his ambitious film version of Frank Herbert's epic Dune novel (1965).

You've not seen the finished film because, unfortunately, it never went into production. If it had, it could've been glorious or, at the very least, spectacularly disastrous, perhaps more so even than David Lynch's version that did get made.

Jodorowsky had gathered together a sparkling reservoir of immensely creative people to help him realise his vision, including fantasy artists Chris Foss, HR Giger, and Jean 'Moebius' Giraud. (Giger got the Harkonnen - how perfect is that?!)

It's always fun to see what might have been, and even if you're not a fan of Jodorowsky's style, it's still essential viewing for Dune nuts.

Planet of the Apes: The Original Films (1968-73)

01. Planet of the Apes (1968)

Dir. Franklin J. Schaffner

The original Apes movie that started the hairy ball rolling is the best of the lot.

Charlton Heston is our guide. He's Taylor, the everyman; albeit an everyman who can pilot a spaceship, has a cynical disposition, a will of iron and some well-groomed chest hair.

He and three other crew members are testing a scientific theory about time dilation aboard a US space shuttle. But something goes wrong, and they crash-land on the titular planet.

The story, based on Pierre Boulle's novel La Planète des Singes (1963), isn't just sharp social commentary (including powerful observations on such topics as the crippling consequences of having a government that places science and religion in the same bed, and the murky moral waters that too much pride can place a people in), it's also cold, hard science fiction that holds a mirror up to modern life, showing self-evident truths that, despite having been made in the late 60s, are still a part of how we live today.

Farewell Summer (2006)

Farewell Summer (2006)
Author: Ray Bradbury  |  Page Count: 166

'Just then the great clock across town, an immense moon, a full moon of stunned sound and round illumination, cleared its ratchety throat and let free a midnight sound.'

Almost half a century after Dandelion Wine (1957) was published, Ray returned to his beloved creation to deliver the next phase of young Douglas Spaulding's story.

It's marketed as a sequel novel, but that wording gives a reader false expectations; it's much too short and light to hold the weight of such an honour. Personally, I choose to think of it more as a belated coda or companion piece.

It's a feeling supported by the fact that in his afterword Bradbury tells us that the "novel" is "actually an extension" of its predecessor, the original form having been held back from full publication because of his publisher insisting that the manuscript was too lengthy.

GamesMaster (1992-98)

GamesMaster (1992-98)

126 episodes, approx 25 minutes each.

For the people who saw GamesMaster back in the day, who watched Dominick Diamond in his presenter pants talk straight-faced about waggling his joystick in public, the warm fuzzies of nostalgia that accompany this post are for you.

Rebirth of Mothra: Film Trilogy (1996-98)

Mothra (1996)

Dir. Okihiro Yoneda

The first in a trilogy of Heisei era 'Rebirth' films for the eye-catching winged kaijū known as Mothra.

The cutting down of a forest to provide Japan with paper uncovers an ancient, hidden tomb, which holds an evil just waiting to be released, and not unlike the process that uncovered it it'll suck the life from the planet if it’s not stopped.

It's a children's adventure story with upfront and important messages about the value of a stable family unit and the need for conservation of the environment. If you somehow fail to pick up on the lessons, they're sledge-hammered home at the end.

The bickering mother and father aren't oblivious to the fact that their parenting methods are producing a bickering brother and sister, but they're too wrapped up in their own worries to correct it.

Touching From a Distance (1995)

Touching From a Distance (1995)

Author: Deborah Curtis | Page Count: 212

"...[H]e was reading Dostoyevsky, Nietzsche, Jean Paul Sarte, Hermann Hesse and J. G. Ballard. ...It struck me that all Ian's spare time was spent reading and thinking about human suffering."

Ian Curtis found a way to say the things that the post-punk generation were so badly in need of hearing. It doesn't mean he was a hero. He was gifted, but many of his actions show him to be as much an asshole as the rest of us; I mean that in the kindest way.

The book tells the significant parts of his tale from his wife’s point of view. It also tells her tale, and it’s one that for me was worth reading. Deborah strives to find a balance between the emotional stance of a wife and mother deifying her husband out of love and duty, and the equally emotional dejectedness of a devoted partner left out in the cold during her husband’s greatest triumph. Mostly, it meets both of those goals.