Voyage to the Bottom of the Promotional Paintings!

Nothing major for today but I wanted to share the promotional artwork (possibly concept art) done for the television version of VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA (1964-1968), featuring four giant sea monsters that never made it into the series proper.

Like my previous post on Tabby-Imago, I'm using self-created nicknames for the following creatures to simplify the descriptions and because I just want to (if every other Godzilla and Power Ranger fan gets to name the unnamed, why not me?).

The first creature, which I'm nicknaming The Clawed Chimera, appears to be a combination of several sea animals, but the prominent claws give the initial impression that it's a simple giant crab before noticing the rest of the aforementioned bodily features. To my knowledge, there are at least two crustacean-based monsters in Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea: a giant aquatic spider-like creature in "The Monster's Web" (February 27, 1966), and the titular human-sized antagonist of "The Lobster Man" (January 21, 1968).

Confusingly, the main villain behind "The Deadly Dolls" (October 1, 1967) is mockingly dubbed 'The Hermit Crab' by the show's heroes, even though the being itself is a highly advanced, energy-like machine intelligence from the distant future seeking to possess The Seaview (the show's iconic submarine) for its new physical form.

As for the second monster featured: I've always had a preference for plesiosaur-like kaiju and characters, so you know which one I like between these two otherwise nifty critters. However, the lack of two-out-of-four pictorial fins gives me hesitation about nicknaming him The Abyssal Plesiosaur, with the vague alternative of Abyssal Sea Serpent matching the odd design better.

Beyond that, the art itself is very good, especially the luminous backlighting, but I will admit the serpent's eerily calm face might turn off most monster and horror fans.

My least favorite monster in these paintings, Pink-Tooth the Sea Beast (if you can think of something better, please share), is probably my least favorite of the four, but the mudskipper-like shape and long grasping arm-like front fins positively reminds me of the Ichthyosaurus Mercurius from The Outer Limits episode "Tourist Trap" (December 23, 1963).

Last but not least is The Black Devil Dragon, who is probably the coolest-looking monster of the promotional paintings and the one that I would loved to have seen in a completed episode, possibly as some ancient and terrifying menace that The Seaview accidently awakens from an undersea volcano. Or an aboveground volcano, seeing how that's The Flying Sub firing beams at the opposing giant.

I rediscovered these paintings in my personal archives and combined the small files into slightly larger and more presentable collages above. I tried to re-locate the old Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea site I collected (stole) these from but to no avail. If I rediscover said website or stumble upon the real official names of the featured monsters, I'll gladly update this article in the future.

Pachimon Kaiju Showcase: Tabby-Imago

The Pachimon Kaiju Showcase series returns with a vengeance! And this time, with kitties!

Pachimon is a modern slang term used to describe bootlegged and stolen versions of more famous kaiju, notably in regards to bromide cards and similar prints from the 1970s that reused and repurposed elements of pre-existing kaiju characters to create quote — unquote "NEW" monsters.

While the mainstream movie kaiju are the most recognizable examples (Godzilla, Gamera, Gappa, ect), the pachimon phenomenon is taken from multiple sources including-but-not-limited to: Ultraman and other tokusatsu characters, American movie and television creatures, vintage paleo-based artwork, real-life photography of animals and locations, science fiction illustrations, and lesser known manga and other foreign comic books.

Pachimon has garnered a cult following with modern Japanese otaku, toy collectors, independent filmmakers, and artists, often leading to limited edition and expensive vinyl figures based on these suspiciously familiar faces. FAR LESS so here in America, but obscure kaiju loving weirdos like myself try our best.

In the past, I've shared Pachimon who had an official name (as official as these illegal cons can muster), but there's also a larger number of these characters lacking such titles and it's about time I started highlighting them, starting with this adorable abomination.

Again, the monster lacks an official name (or a previous fan-made one), but I personally like to refer to this one as Tabby-Imago due to it being a young tabby cat spliced with colorful butterfly wings.

Sure, Tabbyra, like the moth monster Mothra, would have been the more obvious fan-moniker to adopt, BUT that would have been the obvious way out and Tabby-Imago has a better ring to it in my opinion.

According to the Japanese web-site Room103 and its Pachimon subsections (the site's very old, so beware its lack of security), today's feature was the first in the Iwata Pro Large Monster Edition, one of the latter-era series published and sold on the cheap (5 yen a piece, apparently).

As for the real-world location shown within the card image, that's the Nishinomaru-enokida gate of Nagoya Castle in Nagoya, Japan. The gate is probably most recognizable to American kaiju fans as one of Larva Battra's targets from Godzilla and Mothra: Battle for the Earth (1992), ripping its roof to shreds in a less-than-convincing composite shot.

I'll have another menace of Nagoya next week.