COMIKAZE 2013: Interview with GODZILLA: Rulers of Earth Writer Chris Mowry

The writer of the current Godzilla comic series from IDW Publishing, Chris Mowry, made an appearance at this year’s Comikaze. Unfortunately I didn’t get to go, but my colleague Harrison Rawdin did and managed to get some questions in for me! So let’s take a look, there’s plenty of stuff to look forward to in this epic series.

UTF: The first thing I want to ask is a little big off topic, but still Godzilla. Did you see the teaser for the new movie, and if so, did you like it?

(Editor’s note, this is referring to the leaked Comic Con 2012 footage from a few months back.)

Chris Mowry: Yeah, I’ve seen it multiple times. I also slept overnight outside of the convention center to see the Hall H Presentation this past year, and the stuff they showed there was just incredible. From everything I may or may not have seen or heard through other sources, possibly, it’s going to be a great movie.

UTF: So in other words, we’re not getting the 1998 Roland Emerich pile of garbage this time?

Chris Mowry: Exactly.

UTF: Alright, sounds good. Now let’s move onto the comic book. Godzilla: Ruler of Earth, as I said Daniel is a huge fan, so we’re going to hop right in with a couple of questions from him. He wanted to ask, what can we expect from Orga’s upcoming appearance and if Rodan has any major part coming up?

Chris Mowry: What you are going to see is really being used to tie in another character, which we have solicits out for it already, but it kinds of brings in Jet Jaguar as well, so there’s going to be a little tease between that monster and then Jet Jaguar, maybe hinting that these two might have known each other. These are monsters, they’re not people of course, but they might have had some kind of past experience.

(Editor’s note: You saw some of this in Rulers of Earth #6, so the rest of that will be in the next issue.)

It really brings in the alien antagonists that we have which I think we’re actually calling them the Yog, but it’s a different spelling. We kind of went back and forth on that, that might not actually be the final name, it’s all got to get cleared through Toho, but we’re going to see where that plays in and eventually where they play in with the Devonians. So we’ve got outer space aliens, we’ve got underwater aliens, and all kinds of mayhem consuming from those two meeting up.

(Another Editor’s note: Yog is a reference to the United States title for TOHO’s Space Amoeba!)

UTF: There be aliens on parade in this comic.

Chris Mowry: Basically, yeah, aliens on parade with monsters stomping the ground right along with them.

UTF: Sounds like a perfect match to me.

I am not as big a Godzilla fan, I do freely admit that, but I did watch those movies religiously when I was a kid. I remember specifically on a trip to San Antonio I found Godzilla VS. MecaGodzilla on VHS and I bought it and I had to fight twenty relatives in order to get the VCR so I could see it, so I definitely do have some love for the property.

Moving onto a couple more of his questions, let’s see, he was wondering about the Devonians, as you brought them up. Will they still be the primary antagonists through the twelfth and potentially final issue?

Chris Mowry: Actually, I forgot the second part about Rodan…

UTF: Oh, it’s Rodan, yeah.

Chris Mowry: Rodan will be making an appearance again for sure. Absolutely one of my favorite monsters.

Me: He’s also one of my favorite monsters, so that’s awesome. But anyways, back to the interview…

UTF: Absolutely, very cool.

Chris Mowry: So he will show up. Then in regards to the Devonians, they will be playing a much larger part come issues nine through twelve. We are going to see what happens with them, exactly what their role has been in this whole thing. There’s a lot of surprises coming up so it’s kind of tough to talk about it without spoiling things, but they’ll be back for sure, we’ll see exactly what they’ve been up to, possibly how they’ve had plans of their own, and maybe this wasn’t so much a team up, these  people who might have been seen. Just have to wait and see how it plays out, but they’ll be back. They will be front and center for sure.

UTF: Alright, I’m going to go ahead and shoot you one final question from Daniel and he was wondering if thanks to the popularity, potentially, from the new Godzilla movie, if Rulers of Earth might continue past issue twelve, is there any chance of that?

Chris Mowry: I sure hope so, for one. I think having the movie come out right around the time the twelfth issue is going to be out, it can only help us. We’ve already seen, just recently in looking around pop-culture wise, Godzilla’s getting bigger and bigger. I think they said when that trailer was “leaked” or whatever, I use parenthesis saying leaked because there is rumor now that they…

UTF: It was intentional…

Chris Mowry: Yeah, a little bit. I think I remember seeing yahoo searches and all these searches spiked in Godzilla, so knowing that it’s not going to be this wreck that the ’98 movie was, I think people are really going to get behind it, and hopefully they get behind the series because we are really trying to do a very fam-friendly series and just try to make it a lot of fun and what people remember the Godzilla films being. Pacific Rim certainly helped, I think, the genre of bringing giant monsters back.

UTF: Absolutely, yeah.

Chris Mowry: I think we try to tell people all the time and the pre-orders are so important, and that’s basically because the comic industry. A lot of shops do shy away from ordering books. It’s understandable, they don’t want to get burned on product or something. Or if two people are ordering it, they are like, “maybe I will just get these two copies,” but if enough people pre-order it, it really sends a message back to my boss. And then, okay, cool, we should let it continue.

We were going to end at eight and then he was looking at numbers, he goes, “no, they’re pretty good, let’s go to twelve at least.” Hopefully we will keep going beyond that and we are going to introduce a new sort of thing, kind of a new theme for the book in issues nine through twelve, so that third act, if it does continue it’s something I think could be very useful in keeping it going for a long time. It is going to be a new different take on some of the things.

Me: So I hope you guys will start pre-ordering from now on!

UTF: Well that sounds great. Before we close up, I’d just like to ask, is there anything you would like to say to the readers of the comic out there?  Or any potential new readers that may be apprehensive, if especially if they only like Godzilla as featured in film and they’re not sure about comic books?  Is there anything you want to say to them.

Chris Mowry: First and foremost, thank you, thank you, thank you very much. It is really a dream come true for me, I’ve been into the franchise since, this cliche doesn’t sound, since I can remember. I grew up watching these movies, I’ve gone into debt numerous times buying toys and whatnot from it, (laughter). Made a lot of people angry because I’ve got to go buy this thing… Really, it’s the fans that are driving this book, and it’s the fans that we are making this book far.

As far as people that might not have, or they have a certain vision in their head of like, “oh, Godzilla’s like this…” I’d say this book is definitely for you then if you like the movies because we do try to make it feel like a movie, and we just don’t have the budget for screens like a movie, so we can do all kinds of crazy stuff and Matt Frank’s art is just so spot on with how the monsters are, not only the way the monsters look, but the mannerisms they have, expressions that they use, it is really…

I could not recommend it enough for people, I am not just saying that because I am selling it. I try to treat everything we do at IDW with that license. I am also the creative control for it, basically I bugged these guys to get the license for it for years and years and we finally did and they are finally giving us a chance to write some stuff. I always approach it as would I spend my money on that, or would I get behind that, and I am glad to say that with my own book, yes I would. It is something I would recommend. It is fun. It is not binding, it is not lock and key, it’s not an awesome series, it’s not bad…

UTF: There you go (laughter).

Chris Mowry: It’s not this great novel, great piece of writing or anything, but the art’s good, I try to make stuff fun as much as we can. I think people should get behind it and I think people have been doing that and it’s really all because of the fans and hopefully we’re going to get a lot more.

UTF: Alright well that sounds great, and once again I want to take the time to thank you for sitting down for me, once again for Unleash the Fanboy, it was an awesome day to talk with you and talk Godzilla and I can’t wait to see what you do in the future.

Chris Mowry: Awesome, thank you very much Harrison, and thanks to Daniel, I want to give Daniel a special shout out, thank you very much for reviewing the books, I love reading the reviews, I’m glad he’s liking the book.

UTF: Alright.

Chris Mowry: And, it’s Godzilla’s birthday today, so happy birthday Godzilla.

(Editor’s note: This interview had taken place on November 3rd, Godzilla’s 59th anniversary!)

And there you have it! Of course a personal highlight for me was getting a shout-out, but what about you guys? Are you excited to hear that Jet Jaguar and Orga might be somehow connected? (Stay tuned to next week’s issue for more on that.) Also, you have to love Mr. Mowry’s honesty. The perfect mentality when writing anything is asking whether or not you would put down money for it. And that’s why Rulers of Earth is by far the best Godzilla Ongoing from IDW.

Daniel is the guy for everything Godzilla related at Unleash the Fanboy. Besides the Big G himself, his favorite monster is Rodan and you can follow him on Twitter: @Destroyer_199