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.

Pachimon Kaiju Showcase: Doilar

The Pachimon Kaiju Showcase returns with today's subject, Doilar!

Cleaned-up and enlarged version of Doilar's bromide by your truly

For the uninitiated, the so-called Pachimon phenomena were cheap bromides (collectible postcards) created by Yokopro in the 1970's, around the time when movie monsters and television superheroes were very popular among children within Japan, all apart of The Henshin Boom or The Second Kaiju Boom as some pop culture scholars have dubbed it.

These bromide cards consists of 'new monsters' created from altered or touched up images of pre-existing characters, ranging from icons like Godzilla, Gamera, or the many opponents of Ultraman, to unorthodox sources like illustrated dinosaur books, real-world animal photography, foreign comic books, and lesser-known television monsters.

"Pachimon" itself is an unofficial and relatively recent fan-made term meaning 'stolen monster' which gives you a clear sign how suspect if not shoddy Yokopro's otherwise successful attempt was.

Although still quite obscure, The Pachimon Kaiju have garnered something of a cult following among modern-day collectors and otaku, which have resulted in vinyl figures (both official products and custom-built independents), fan-made video games, artwork, direct-to-video films, comedy spoofs, and other inspired extrapolations.

Unaltered version of the original Doilar bromide

Originally presented in Yamapro Edition set, Doilar is a thinly disguised Gorosaurus, a fictional descendant of Allosaurus who first appeared in King Kong Escapes (1967) as one of the dangerous beasts who roamed the equally fictional Mondo island.

Gorosaurus was meant as a one-time only homage to The Meat-Eater from the original King Kong but, due to a fortunate stroke of luck via quality prop storage over at Toho Studios, Gorosaurs was re-used in the 1968 multiple-monster-romp Destroy All Monsters where the former antagonist joined the heroic Kaiju of Earth to battle against the evil space dragon King Ghidorah, delivering a memorably fearsome kangaroo kick to the three-headed villain's back.

Doilar vs. Gorosaurus: Compare and Contrast

The image source used for Doilar's creation isn't a publicity photo of the Toho dinosaur but a beautifully rendered illustration taken from Ultra Books: Destroy All Monsters, a tie-in book and record album combo based around said film.

Upon retrospect, I believe a lot of the Pachimon based on the more famous movie monsters used secondhand materials, perhaps in a half-hearted attempt to avoid lawsuits or copyright infringement. it obviously worked considering how many of these oddball cards that there was.

LIES! The freeways in downtown Los Angeles are never this nice or vacant!

Speaking of things that makes ones heart sinks: I couldn't find the background of an urban highway used in Doilar's card though I'm tempted to say it's downtown Los Angeles due to how it reminds me so much of the area, particularly the road bridges overhead, having driven through it myself many times before, trapped in way worse traffic than what's falsely presented above (Rainbows? Bull!).

In typical Pachimon fashion, not a single driver seems phased by the giant Doilar creeping towards them.

Doilar's Arctic Holiday (1967...NOT)

While I usually don't do corresponding artwork for my Pachimon Kaiju Showcase articles (cannot afford the time and related stress), I did manage to whip up this photo-manipulated mock-up, taking a publicity photo from Gorosaurus' debut and added some rhinoceros horns and stegosaurs back-plates, all to give you Doilar's Arctic Holiday: a not-at-all-real production where the monstrous reptile saves a struggling ski resort and science station from a nefarious land developer.

Again, in true Pachimon fashion, I threw in some indifferent, un-phased, non-reactive vacationers (familial in-jokes) into the picture, like the indifferent, un-phased, non-reactive Londoners surrounding Danopura.

Lastly, here's an alternate version with just Doilar all by himself.

Happy Easter, Rabbit, The Giant Rabbit!

My horrible timing once again ruins me as I completely oblivious that today is Easter Sunday and should have posted something Easter related for this group, whether it be original artwork or a rabbit-based kaiju like Lunaticks from Ultraman Ace or Hiso from Gekiranger (there's also the enlarged killer rabbits from Night of The Lepus but that would have been the easy way out).

Thankfully, l have a backlog of older commissions and thus I present to you a separate gallery featuring Rabbit: an enlarged rabbit kaiju I drew for the now obscure tabletop RPG Smash Monster Rampage, published by 5th Street Games back in 2010. The product didn't make any significant waves upon its release that same year but I was paid handsomely for the gig and deeply appreciate the assignment and its producers.

While not my design nor original character concept, I came to love the playful, strangely innocent, but no-less destructive Rabbit while illustrating this pieces.

Extra thanks to my friend Luis Calderon for assistants on the fittingly cartoony background inks.

Yes, that's supposed to be Dr. Serizawa from original Godzilla '54 below.

Battered and bruise, surrounded by hostile humans on all sides, Rabbit retreats in sorrow.

Terror of The Tertiary Titans: July 2020

So... What the Hell is Terror of The Tertiary Titans?

This is a new series of articles where I showcase three or more minor monsters (giant or otherwise... but usually giant) from fiction who barely had enough screen-time or impact to deserve a full article and presented together with no particular rhythm or reason.

Yeah, that's about it.

Scavenger Raven: "What?"

SCAVENGER RAVEN
First Appearance: King Kong (1933).

A large species of scavenger bird native to Skull Island of whom sailor Jack Driscoll encounters as he approached the freshly killed carcass of the Meat-Eater (the official name of the not-quite-a-tyrannosaurus-rex-not-quite-an-allosaurus-either-dinosaur there). Startled by the human, the lone Scavenger Raven flies away.

Scavenger Ravens also appear in the 2005 novel Kong Reborn but I know nothing significant concerning said book to share here.

For the longest time, me and many other monster movie fans assumed this odd-duck (pun interned) was a Teratornis: a once living North American bird of prey whose size is virtually near that of the onscreen Scavenger Raven. While similar, The Scavenger Raven is supposed to be its own fictional bird which adds extra flavor to the relatively little seen fauna of the 1933 classic.

RELATED LINK: Wikipedia's page on this same character.

TRAUMA GAMERA
First Appearance: Gamera III: The Revenge of Iris (1998).

A terrifying nightmare version of the otherwise benevolent giant turtle, Trauma Gamera briefly appears in the black-and-white nightmares of Ayana Hirasaka, a high school student who blames Gamera for the death of her parents during the latter's battle with Super Gyaos four years prior, tying back to the events of Gamera: Guardian of The Universe (1995).

Gamera's current form in the 1998 film is not that dissimilar to Ayana's traumatic visions and the turtle's unintended but no-less-callous destruction of Shibuya while battling a pair of Hyper Gyaos only fuels Ayana's hatred, leading her into awakening the villainous monster Iris to ultimately battle Gamera to the death.

While this monster technically doesn't exist within the film's reality, Trauma Gamera has been given a secondary life through model kits and similarly rare merchandise (not to mention unofficial fan art and fan fiction). Trauma Gamera was created via a refurbished suit leftover from the aforementioned 1995 film.

Interestingly, an early concept for Gamera III was to have the trilogy's titular turtle go up against a pure evil variant of his own species before the creative crew opted for a more unique newer monster instead.

Another villainous clone of Gamera was featured as the surprise final boss in the 1995 video game adaptation of Gamera: Guardian of The Universe for the Japanese Game Boy.

BEZAZELSHUN
First Appearance: Godzilla In Hell, issue 1, variant cover by Jeff Zornow.

Okay, now we're getting to the truly obscure goodies!

Bezazelshun is a large Hell-spawn demon who appears only on the EC Comics inspired variant cover for the first issue of Godzilla In Hell (July 15th 2015).

While meant as a homage to EC Comics (the publisher famous for Tales From The Crypt and other 1950s horror comics), artist Jeff Zornow took a more imaginative and admittedly more awesome heavy metal route with the Hellish landscape it presents.

The winged humanoid goat demon who appears to be casting judgement on Godzilla has no finalized / official name but a helpful Facebook chat with Jeff Zornow himself christened his creation as Bezazelshun - an obvious play on Beelzebub.

Before we move onto the next entry, mention must be made of the two gigantic devil skulls littering the background, suggesting that far bigger demons once inhabited Hell.

EMERALD CITY COMIC CON MONSTERS
First Appearance: Emerald City Comicon 2008 advert by Dan Brereton

One-off postcard advert for the 2008 Emerald City Comicon, illustrated by comic creator Dan Brereton and featuring his genetically engineered hero Giantkiller up against two monsters while straddling The Seattle Space Needle.

Giantkiller himself (or Yochu as his scientist creator calls him) was the titular star of Brereton's 1999 comic book miniseries who hunts giant monsters that have crossed over from a paralleled universe, having taken over and settling in San Francisco, California, during their initial invasion.

While the miniseries featured a nice variety of monsters (heavily inspired by Japanese kaiju films and the pre-Spiderman-era monsters of Marvel Comics), the two featured above are wholly exclusive to this standalone advert.

Speaking of advertisement exclusive giant monsters...

THE THING (That Isn't Mothra)

First Appearance: American adverts for Godzilla vs The Thing (1964).

In one of the most blatant examples of misleading Hollywood ballyhoo, the North American release of Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964) not only renamed the film Godzilla vs The Thing but also had the official poster (beautifully illustrated by poster artist Reynold Brown) pitting Godzilla against a tentacled eldritch horror hidden behind a censored sign, giving an ominous mystery to who The King of The Monsters could be fighting.

Of course, if my previous paragraph didn't give it all away, The Thing's true identity within the movie itself isn't some mind-blowing mass of horrific feelers but the more comprehensible form of Mothra.

While Mothra is a beloved figure in pop culture today whose popularity has garnered her multiple film appearances (something the more edgy giant monster fans regret, similar to hardcore Batman fans' resistance towards Robin), she was relatively new and untested in 1964 with this film being only her second appearance. 

American International Pictures (AIP) who distributed Mothra vs. Godzilla under the new title, felt audience wouldn't go for a monster movie where one of the titular beasts was basically a fuzzy butterfly and decided to hide that fact behind an admittedly cleaver mystery to what 'THE THING' might actually be.

I don't know how disappointed or pleasantly bemused American audiences were with Mothra's reveal but I can state that the hidden identity ploy extended into the US theatrical trailers as well, minus a few brief glimpses of Mothra's twin larvae babies and the brightly colored egg they both hatched from.

Of course, what conversation about misleading movie posters and giant Japanese movie monsters wouldn't be complete with mentioning those wacky Italians!

Italy released a steady steam of Kaiju EIga throughout the 1960s and the 1970s and, while that's commendable compared to other European countries that had less luck with the genre (SEE Britain and Russia), the Italian releases were a little infamous for their wildly misleading titles and wildly more misleading posters however beautifully painted many of them are.

Re-titled Watang! Nel favoloso impero dei mostri (literally means Watang! In the Fabulous Monster Empire in English), the Italian release of Mothra vs Godzilla took the original Reynold Brown ad art and reworked it to feature more dramatic background mayhem and an uncovered Thing itself, now an otherworldly starfish-like weirdo over a plant-like mass.

The Italian release poster for the original "Mothra vs Godzilla"

That's it for the first edition of Terror of The Tertiary Titans; when I do another one of these, I'll probably limit the number of featured monsters to three-or-less entries just to make things a little easier for my typing fingers.

The Giant Tortoise Against The Rocket Car!

Because I have no life, I often wander the web and stumble upon obscure giant monsters through Japanese-based blogs and twitter accounts. Again, I'm a lifeless nerd.

During one such time-wasting exodus, I found Tsutomu Blog: a nifty site dedicated to Japanese toys and model sets from yesteryear, particular ones involving giant monsters.

Unfortunately, Tsutomu Blog has been permanently discontinued and I plan to share as many salvaged images I had grabbed before it's shutdown starting with this spiky oddity.

Box art for "Rocket Car Against Gamess"

The toy is roughly called "Rocket Car Against Gamess" with the titular monster being a giant tortoise as Gamess (ガメス, or the English alternative 'Games') is a play on the Japanese word for turtle, kame.

Titanollante, one of the web-masters of Wikizilla, helped me with the description apparently offered by the box art though he noted that the following its a rough translation:

Inhabiting the deep waters of the Mariana Trench, its energy source is a kind of heavy liquid that flows out from the seams of the seabed strata, one supply powering it for 450 days.  Its personality is "ferocious". Spraying viscous body fluids from its mouth, Gamess will eat anything.

Turtle-based monsters have always been a personal favorite kaiju motif and Gamess is another fine addition to that shelled legacy. However, like many obscure giant monsters, Gamess' name is terribly vague in the English sense and hence I could track down ANY information online to confirm the release date for this set (I'll add updated notations if I come across them later).

I also love the concept that you get a smaller but no less powerful super vehicle to combat against / play along with the larger monster figure, but the option to fit the car in its mouth doesn't come off too well in my opinion - I know Gamess will eat anything but that's still an unintentionally off-putting visual.

"I can't believe I regurgitated the whole thing!"

Once more, massive thanks to Titanollante of Wikizilla for the translations and a grateful salute to the late great Tsutomu Blog.

Cicada Human? More Like Cicada GIANT!

With the recent loss of www.cyberkids1954.com, an old Japanese site dedicated various fantasy film productions that were never made (including some extreme obscurities that would cause your common Godzilla fan's brains to melt and pour out from their ear-holes), I've decided to use Enshohma's Corner as a archival back-up for any and all giant monster obscurities that I may stumble upon... Even if some of my own knowledge on the featured materials are as limited as your typical Godzilla fan, I must sadly admit.

I'm no August Ragone but I freaking doing my best, okay?!?!

*Ahem*

Nothing major for this first attempt, just a little show and tell, showcasing an awesome illustration from the Japanese children's book "Original Reprint Edition: Ultra Q" (rough translation).

This illustration features a 'what if' scenario where the creatures Gorgos, Cicada Human, and M1 in mortal combat with each other.

What makes the artwork even more intriguing is the fact that both Cicada Human and M1 were small human-sized characters in the original "Ultra Q" series and have never achieved giant monster status even in their later return appearances.

So it's honestly cool to find this image and see both of them pumped up to Gorgos' level even if M1 (the ape-like fellow in the lower right corner) is still relatively puny, looking like he's barely 16-feet in height when compared to the fleeing humans on the opposite end.

As for the 'Giant Cicada Human'; I honestly have no idea what's up with that yellow scarf wrapped so stylishly around his neck. At first, I thought it was a direct reference to another insect-theme character from Japanese fiction, the iconic Kamen Rider, but that notion seemed doubtful as that grasshopper-inspired superhero was still five years away from "Ultra Q" original broadcast.

However, the book's title of "Original Reprint Edition: Ultra Q"  may suggest that the yellow-colored sight gag was both timely to Kamen Rider's 1971 debut and, as such, most deliberate.

All these book images were found on this Japanese web-site: https://kodansha-cc.co.jp/comic/ultraq/