Review | Panel Patter

Gonna do a better job at updating this blog with KAM news. I apologize for the radio silence; it’s been a busy summer and early autumn processing Kickstarter rewards. I’m almost done with that though, so I want to get back in the groove of posting here.

Even when it’s just a quick note to say that Rob McMonigal at Panel Patter wrote a nice review of the book. Here’s an excerpt:

May has to cover a lot of expository ground as he and Copland create this world, but I never felt like the story bogged down. We find out a lot by seeing it, thanks to Copland’s panels, and I think the serial nature of its origins as a webcomic forced May to find a way to get across the information in bits and pieces while the overall story kept moving. (There’s nothing worse than a webcomic that bogs down into days upon days of narration.) The introduction of the AI robot, learning of the Paris Underground, and even finding out that perhaps some humans are traitors to their kind all weave into the story organically. It’s some of the best world-building I’ve seen in quite some time.

Thanks, Rob!

Kill All Monsters in comic shops tomorrow!

According to Diamond, Kill All Monsters, Volume 1 should be in comic book shops tomorrow (July 17)!

If you’re a Kickstarter backer, keep watching your mailbox; I’m getting them shipped as quickly as I can sign and sketch in them. That’s right, each Kickstarter copy comes with a sketch by me. You’ll immediately understand why I turned my creative focus to writing, but hopefully it’ll be a fun, rare thing to have in your Kill All Monsters.

Regardless of how you get your copy, it would be completely awesome if you could go to Amazon and leave a review. We’ve got one already (5 stars!), but the more the merrier. I’d love to hear what you think and it also helps people find the book when there are lots of reviews.

Finally in this roundup of KAM news, Otis Frampton finished his Kill All Monsters piece and it’s so fantastic. Thanks again, Otis! This has to go in Volume 2!

Draw All Monsters | Frankie B. Washington and Daniel Mead

Frankie B. Washington (Robot God Akamatsu) went and colored that RGA/KAM piece he did a while back. It’s gorgeous and available as a print from Frankie’s DeviantArt page.

Also on DeviantArt is this great piece by Daniel Mead. I didn’t realize how excited I would be to see Dressen’s SkullBot standing next to classic giants from Mazinger Z and Ghostbusters. It’s the tenth in a series of giant-related pieces, so check out Mead’s gallery for the rest.

He also did a SkullBot solo…

…and one of Spencer’s LionBot too.

Really cool work by both of these guys!

Kill All Monsters is almost here!

Kill All Monsters, Volume 1 shipped from the printers last week, which means a couple of things. First, it means that it’s available for pre-order on Amazon (they don’t list a release date yet, but stay tuned) and since Diamond should also be getting their copies, it should also be in comic book stores soon.

The good news for Kickstarter supporters is that I just got my copies, so I’ll be starting work on getting those out next week. They don’t really fit with my kitchen decor anyway.

While you’re waiting, enjoy this interview that Jason and I did at C2E2 with Robert Million and the fine folks at Con Men:

Review All Monsters | Pop Culture Hound and Comics Bulletin

There were a couple of recent reviews that I want to point out, but first let me thank Joseph Mallozzi and my pal Jay Mac, who gave shout outs to the Kickstarter from their blogs as we wrapped up.

Chris Thompson and Taylor Lilley of the Pop Culture Hound podcast talked about the book and made me cheer, especially when Taylor said that he’s not a kaiju fan, but was won over by the story anyway. Both gentlemen talk about the cast’s diversity and how they felt like that worked organically as part of the story without our calling extra attention to it, which was exactly how we hoped it would be. The Kill All Monsters discussion begins around the 25:00 mark, but be sure to stay tuned for Chris’ fantastic interview with Gabriel Hardman about his new comic, Kinski at Monkeybrain. It’s a wonderful podcast and I’ll be tuning in for future episodes.

Nick Hanover at Comics Bulletin wrote a great review too. He says that starting the story in the middle of a long fight is “a bold move, sure, but May’s got fight scripting down pat and with a partner like Copland, he knows he can trust the action.” He also notices that “May wants you to feel for the humans who have to deal with these creatures, since this is a story not about a first attack, but about a world after monster defeat.”

Thanks to Chris, Taylor, and Nick for reading and sharing thoughts on the book!

SpringCon killed all the monsters

SpringCon was great last week. For those who aren’t familiar with it, it’s the larger of the two Minnesota conventions put on by the wonderful folks of the Midwest Comic Book Association. FallCon is a one-day show in October, but SpringCon runs Saturday and Sunday, usually in May. The Minneapolis/Saint Paul area has a great comics scene and the MCBA goes out of its way to treat creators like royalty, so there’s always a lot of participation. Both conventions are fantastic, family-friendly shows and highlights of my year.

My wife was out of town for a friend’s college graduation, so David and I hung out together all weekend. David made the second issue of Hulkasaurus, his series of mini-comics about his own giant monster, and I had several copies of Kill All Monsters left over from C2E2. KAM did very well and I sold out early on Sunday.

David sold most of his copies of Hulkasaurus #2. A couple of other friends of mine were also exhibiting with their kids who did very well all weekend. It’s great to see children getting into making art and comics so early, and even greater to see the local community support them so much.

David had an iguana puppet at his table, which is the model for a giant monster in Hulkasaurus, so he had a great time using it to attract people to the table. Or just playing with friends:

As usual, we sat near Grant Gould who’s always amazing with kids. He and David did an art trade, with Grant’s drawing one of David’s favorite characters and David’s drawing something Grant had mentioned earlier: a dinosaur/scorpion hybrid.

In addition to talking to people – and I know I’m leaving out so many of them; I’m sorry – I bought a bunch of comics of course and a couple of pieces of art, including this Godzilla silhouette by Jennifer Menken.

One final memory of the show was how humid it was. We had unseasonably hot weather at FallCon a few years ago and it was appropriately dubbed SweatCon. This year, I thought that MoistCon would be appropriate until the torrential rains started coming down on Sunday and it turned into something more like HurriCon.

Not that that “dampened” anyone’s fun. It was a great time and thanks again to the MCBA for hosting!

More reviews and fan art of Kill All Monsters

Well, the Kickstarter is all done. Or, the pledging part is anyway. Now’s the part where Jason and I go to work fulfilling rewards, which we’re thrilled to do. People chipped in $11,910, which is 476% of our goal. Absolutely amazing, so one last massive THANK YOU to everyone who pledged and helped spread the word.

Got a couple of more Kill All Monsters-related links, starting with the awesome Skullbot drawing above by Vincent Kukua. Vincent is a talented production artist at Image Comics and you can check out more of his stuff on his DeviantArt page. Thanks, Vincent!

Next, a couple of cool sites mentioned us recently. Lonnie Nadler from Bloody Disgusting gave the Kickstarter a nice push and Greg Burgas at the Comics Should Be Good! blog wrote an amazing, really insightful review. He picks up on a lot of stuff I wasn’t sure if people would get (the significance of the date when the giant monsters first appeared, for instance). Here’s a taste of what he thought, but check out the whole review:

Kill All Monsters is an interesting comic, because it starts out as one thing and slowly changes into something better, and that’s always nice to see. It’s as if May thought “What if I made a comic with giant monsters fighting giant robots?” and once the “That’s AWESOME!” factor wore off, he realized he had to come up with something else. I’m sure he had it plotted out further than just the robots fighting the monsters, but for the first several pages, he just has Copland drawing that, and while it’s quite keen, you always need something more than that. So May settles into an interesting story that borrows liberally from plenty of sources, but still manages to be a compelling read.

Finally, I thought I’d point out that if you like art featuring giant monsters and robots, we’ve got a Pinterest gallery dedicated to that.

Kill All Monsters at SpringCon

As I mentioned yesterday, my next convention appearance will be at SpringCon in Saint Paul/Minneapolis. That’s always a fun, creator-focused show with lots of opportunity for fans to interact with legendary talent from the Golden Age to today. This year’s group includes people like Howard Chaykin, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, Phil Hester, Dan Jurgens, Ryan Kelly, Pablo Marcos, Ron Marz, Amy Reeder, and Trina Robbins.

There are also lots of great, not-as-legendary creators from the thriving local scene, which is where I come in. I’ll be there with some copies of Kill All Monsters and some great prints that Jason made of the book’s wraparound cover. Mark your calendar!

So, how was C2E2?

C2E2 was amazing. It was great to hang out with Jason in person for the the first time in a few years. It never feels like it’s been that long, because a) we talk quite a bit online, and b) that’s just the kind of friendship we have.

Kill All Monsters did extremely well at the show. We almost sold out of our supply, but still have several for SpringCon on the 18th of this month. I’m a little concerned about selling out early at SpringCon, but we’ll see how that goes.

To clarify: these were a small run of print-on-demand copies that we printed just to have at conventions a little ahead of the official, retail edition. The official version will be printed on an offset press in large quantities for shipment to stores and Kickstarter backers. In terms of content, the two editions are identical and neither are marked to make one more special than the other. The only difference will be a slight upgrade in print quality on the offset version. The POD version looks great, but the offset version should look even better. The only advantage to the POD is getting to hold it in your hands a little sooner.

Let me know if you have any questions about any of this. We’re not trying to pull a fast one on anyone and want everyone to have access to exactly what they want as quickly as we can get it to them.

We talked to a couple of retailers at C2E2 and were pleased to hear that it’s not just our local shops that are ordering the book. We also had a lot of readers stop by to tell us that either they’d already backed us on Kickstarter or had heard about KAM online. Even people who didn’t buy a copy right then were very complimentary and it was just a really pleasant experience meeting so many comics fans. I’m usually running around covering panels and talking to publishers and creators during C2E2, so it was a change getting to sit still and just meet readers for three days. I enjoyed the heck out of it.

Last couple of days for the Kill All Monsters Kickstarter

The Kickstarter ends on Friday, but whatever the final total is, it’s already far exceeded my and Jason’s hopes for it. Everyone’s been so supportive and encouraging, we’ll never be able to express our gratitude appropriately.

Same goes for those who’ve helped spread the word. I’ve got a couple of more links to share from the past week.

Matthew Meylikhov wrote a great Kickstarter Spotlight about us for Multiversity Comics, calling Kill All Monsters “essentially what all Godzilla books should be, but few are, focusing neither on one option [robots punch monsters!] or the other [humans talk about feelings!] and instead celebrating both, mixing it up in a style that flows seamlessly.” It’s a fun review and Meylikhov is a funny writer. You should check it out.

Meanwhile, Rick Hansen wrote up his reflections on C2E2 for Comic Impact and mentions picking up Kill All Monsters. He let us know on Facebook that he liked it so much he went ahead and chipped in a little Kickstarter money too.

Thanks so much to both Matt and Rick. Jason and I love hearing that people are enjoying the book. If you’ve written about Kill All Monsters and I haven’t shared it here, please don’t be shy about forwarding your links. I’d love to see and post about them.