Godzilla: The Half Century War #1

 Art and Writing by James Stokoe

Review By Luke Herr

Godzilla: The Half Century War is a gigantic explosion of James Stokoe art and writing which for me means giant spreads of tiny details and that is pretty dang fantastic.

I’m not a big Godzilla fan – I’ve had friends who were and they’d argue about the small stuff but for me, Stokoe is the selling point for the book. One sec and I’ll pull up a picture.

Stokoe is an artist who sort of follows the complexe art school – but he makes it work. Unlike other artists whose work might end up feeling lifeless when loaded with details, Stokoe embues his with a surreality that when combined with his coloring, creates an unmistakably personal style.

The story follows the first appearance of Ota Murakami and his friend Kentaro as they witness the first appearance of Godzilla after coming in to deal with reports of “bad weather”. When Godzilla appears after this slow build up, the idea of witnessing this colossal beast and it being beyond comprehension comes across – which is a daunting task. Godzilla has become so commercialized that we’re used to seeing him as a small toy or on shirts or in comics – but Stokoe understands how to make him big.

As Ota and Kentaro struggle to survive and evacuate the city the war against Godzilla rages on, growing bigger and bigger we see the city utterly being destroyed before the conclusion that leads into the rest of the series. From what I can tell, Ota and Kentaro are going to be fighting Godzilla over and over again through the series and I have a feeling it might become this Ahab-esqe relationship. The series doesn’t have much time for a deeper characterization of the characters but when the book is focused on Godzilla destroying cities, what do you really expect?

So What?

Check it out! This is a comic I’d recommend getting digitally – if just to look at all the details close up. And as Ota says

Not much else!