Godzilla: Skate or Die
Writer/artist: Louie Joyce
IDW Publishing; $17.99
Just about all Godzilla narratives, be they films or comics, have two distinct threads to them, one devoted to the giant monster and/or his foes, and another to the human protagonists and their conflicts and drama, which are generally derived from the monster action on some level. Within that formula there is, obviously, a great deal of latitude for creators to tell all manner of stories in different genres and with different tones, messages and character types.
In cartoonist Louie Joyce’s Godzilla: Skate or Die, the human protagonists are a group of young skaters, and the appropriately light-hearted story involves them trying to save their beloved skate park from being ground to dust beneath the heels of a pair of battling kaiju. That likely seems an impossible task, but they do end up succeeding, and saving the world in the process.
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In this Godzilla comic, giant monsters are apparently regarded as an unpleasant fact of life, something akin to natural disasters like hurricanes. The story is set in Port Kembla, Australia, and the kids are Jimmy, Sushi, Jules and Rolly, two of whom ride skateboards and two of whom are rollerbladers.
One particularly portentous day, everyone’s cell phones start buzzing with news of emerging kaiju and evacuation orders. Godzilla has surfaced in the Indian ocean, and another giant monster has appeared in Western Australia. This is Varan, a spiky monster capable of flying on flaps of skin stretched between his limbs. He’s a relatively minor member of Toho Studios’ giant monster menagerie, having starred in his own film, 1958’s Varan the Unbelievable, but then only making a pair of cameos in later Godzilla movies (1968’s Destroy All Monsters and 2004’s Godzilla: Final Wars). Despite that, he’s appeared along with the rest of the Toho monsters in various comics and video games over the years.
The two monsters are heading straight at one another, and for some reason it seems the point where they will collide is The Coin Flip, the name the kids have given their skate park. One of them has left something extremely important to her there, however, and so they break the evacuation orders and evade police and military to get there.
Before the adventure is over, they will discover exactly why the monsters are heading there. It has to do with a secret government lab underground, and an alien meteorite being researched there.
Joyce’s artwork is unlike any other used to depict Godzilla and company thus far, which is something of a feat, given how diverse IDW’s licensed Godzilla comics are in style. His work is bold and highly kinetic, filled with hard sharp lines, cartoony points, and speed lines used to suggest fast movement and chunky, abstracted designs.
His Godzilla and Varan don’t look much like anyone else’s, but they do look quite cool, Joyce incorporating various graphic elements to show their actions, roars and responses. The choreography of their battle is quite effective too, depicting their moves and countermoves while keeping a sense of scale, none of which is as easy to do in the static, silent medium of the comics pages as it is on film.
Some of the slang our heroes use might be a bit hard to parse (although I’m not sure if that’s because they are Australian, kids, or skaters), but I got used to it pretty quickly. Overall, the book is a very fun, extremely distinct take on the storied franchise, making the very unlikely combination of Godzilla and skating not only work, but genuinely sing.
And yes, there is an image of Godzilla skateboarding.
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