Pachishohma: Riza of the Bloody Gaze

Around May 2022, I started my own series of Pachimon-inspired parody illustrations, repurposing my fan art of pre-existing fictional characters, all popular pieces online but useless for professional reuse, and dubbed the endeavor as Pachishohma (Pachimon + Enshohma).

I've made nearly 40 entries in this series and plan to independently print some art books featuring these weirdos in early 2025.

In the meantime, I'll be sharing my Pachishohma monsters here as well, both as extra content and as an additional backup for the aforementioned art book.

We'll start with the very first, off-color entry into the series, starring Riza of the Bloody Gaze, alias Bloodsucking Eyeballs.

NAME: Riza of the Bloody Gaze

ALIASES / NICKNAMES: Bloodsucking Eyeballs; Eyeboobies; Vampire Giantess

SPECIES: Demonically-enhanced vampire / parasitic demons

GENDER: Female

HEIGHT: 10 meters (over 32 feet)

WEIGHT: 90 metric tons

EYES: Red / yellow on both pairs

HAIR: Picotee blue

HOMEWORLD: Earth (Universe 1052620221970-S)

AFFILIATION(s): Rainbow Rogue (ex-boyfriend)

Riza was a callous and spoiled vampire mistress of lesser nobility who was active in 16th century Spain until her unnatural undead life was forever changed by an encounter with The Bloody Gaze, a bizarre pair of floating demonic eyeballs who may have originated beyond our known universe.

True to their title, The Bloody Gaze invaded Riza's hunting grounds and started absorbing the same human peasants that the vampire routinely feasted upon.

This macabre conflict lasted for six gore-filled nights until Riza and her loyal human familiars cornered the monster eyes, attempting to destroy them, only to have The Bloody Gaze violently possess Riza, resulting in a horrific battle of wills and a physical transformation into a twisted combination of the three fiends: a half-demon blue-skinned freak with a new pair of jumbo eyeballs, protruding from where Riza's bountiful bust once resided.

For most villains, merging with a demonic force would be considered a dark blessing, abandoning one monstrous form for an even greater one. However, for a vain and self-conscious blood-sucker like Riza, a giant pair of ill-placed eyes was too embarrassing to handle, and soon she ran off into the nearby woods, but not before drinking her familiars dry in a violent tizzy.

As the centuries passed, Riza mutated further into a wild giantess who could now magically extract and absorb the blood of her victims through her mutant optics, earning her the moniker of Riza of the Bloody Gaze.

Sometime in 1976, Riza's global hunting leads her to meet and fall for a fellow weirdo with fatal powers, the interdimensional taker of literal colors known as The Rainbow Rouge. The two were a terrifying power couple of gigantic proportions until an epic breakup in 1999 when they became bitter enemies.

Why the falling out isn't known by mere mortals but, as one last slight against his ex-girlfriend, The Rainbow Rogue lured Riza to the mountainous outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where a local giant statue has effectively imprisoned her within the region to this day... Though Riza still finds wayward prey who tragically venture beyond the city limits.

Artist's Commentary: Riza is a reworking of Maximax, a bodacious Brazilian giantess, greedy hoarder of treasure, and occasional predator of lesser mortals, created by fellow artist of monsters and babes Animewave-Neo, as shown in the compilation piece above. Another major influence was the colorful if unsightly and crass demons-of-the-week from the 1972 animated series Devilman.

EXTRA ARTWORK:

PREVIEW: Pachishohma, Volume One

Inspired by the real-world phenomenon of Pachimon (unofficial Japanese bromide cards featuring dubious reworkings of pre-existing giant monsters), I've been taking all my past fanart illustrations and portraits to rework them as parody characters, inserted into comical photo-collage backgrounds, coining my process as Pachishohma (Pachimon + Enshohma).

I'm gathering all these gag monsters into an art-book for this coming October. With additional creature contributions by my friend Mark / Hawanja, who is also serving as an editor and co-writer, alongside author Patrick Galvan and comedian Banjo Wilkins as extra proofreaders, I'm presenting a preview of the book thus far below - enjoy!

One of Mark / Hawanja's contributions.

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.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 vs. Gamera: Round 2

While we all eagerly await for Godzilla vs Kong this coming Wednesday, I would like to share something humorous and offbeat in a turtle shell to help ease your kaiju cravings if at all possible.

Back in 2019, me and my friends wrote, filmed, preformed, and produced a fan-made series entitled MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER VS GAMERA: ROUND II, featuring the two-of-three older era Gamera films that were never featured on the cult comedy series. Here's the very first entry featuring GAMERA vs. VIRAS (1968).

Here is the second episode, featuring GAMERA vs. JIGER (1970), my personal favorite of the two produced thus far.

In the wake of the 2020 pandemic, production for episode three centered around GAMERA: SUPER MONSTER (1981) has been slow-downed: the safety and well-being of the crew (my friends and I) is the absolute priority and, in the interest of social distancing, at this time we're unable to begin filming.

However pre-production has wrapped and we will continue as scheduled as soon as it is deemed safest for all to do so later in 2021. 

We're all putting this time to use, sets and costumes have been retrofitted, several new physical models and props are being constructed, and higher quality filming/lighting equipment has been invested in to make the presentation of our Super Monster fan-episode (and potentially future ones) much better.

Zelmkethou, The Living Threshold

Time for old kooky Enshohma to once again share his original creations with you.

Zelmkethou, The Living Threshold

NAME: Zelmkethou (pronounced Zelm-Keth-Thoo)
SUBTITLE: The Living Threshold
ALTERNATE NAMES: The Abyssal God; Great Zelmkethou
SPECIES: Extradimensional

GENDER: Nonsexual (completely lacking any form of gender in a true evolutionary sense - extremely difficult for most humans to comprehend)

LENGTH: 299 meters (roughly 980 feet)
WEIGHT: 100,000 metric tons (estimated)
EYES: None

Zelmkethou is a gigantic sea dwelling monster who originated beyond our known universe and possesses a unique feature to its biology: housed within its orb-shaped shell lies a fully stable dimensional wormhole that reacts to the willing mental desires of anyone who enters it, hence making Zelmkethou a living gateway to anywhere within The Whole of Existence that anyone can wish to be transported to.

While this sounds like a living miracle, there are several key issues with this gateway, the first being that it's on the back of a giant monster and one that's particularly hostile towards anything outside of itself. Many attempts to reach Zelmkethou's shell via spaceship, submarine, and massive-sized robot have almost all but failed.

Secondly, smaller scale attempts such as single individuals simply swimming up to the beast is as dangerous for Zelmkethou is ignorant if not unresponsive to anything too small for its notice and thus many have been accidentally killed by beast during such attempts.

Thirdly, The Zelmkethou Gateway, the orb-like shell itself, is a one-way trip as those who have made it to the portal have never returned. This is simply the nature of The Zelmkethou Gateway much like how most time travel methods are highly limited to one temporal direction. There have been evidence confirming the lucky few have survived after entering the dimensional orb but this has still led to widespread conspiracies across the universe theorizing that there is no portal and Zelmkethough is simply using a giant deception to lure in smaller-sized prey - The Zelmkethou Gateway being nothing more than a illusion-sporting digestive organ.

Finally, the fourth reason why it's nearly impossible to reach The Zelmkethou Gateway... No one agrees what planet the great monster resides upon or within. It's fully agreed that Zelmkethou lives in a water-heavy environment to support its great weight but the exact identity of said world's been lost over time.

The gorgeous water world of Jumo-Umo, the dying oily seas of Ranagader Ex-Prime, the vapory gas giant of Vinhea, the weather chaotic world of Barley Open, the silver seas of Dahmeia Third, the water-ammonia oceans of Neptune, and the briny seas of Earth, all have been believed in being the home-world of Zelmkethou but no positive identification been made on the matter.

The Great Zelmkethou is a living miracle, a colossal hazard, and a frustrating mystery all wrapped up into one gigantic monstrous package.

ENSHOHMA'S COMMENTS:

Despite my love for the works of cosmic horror author H.P. Lovecraft and his various contemporaries, I have an admittedly tertiary knowledge of The Cthuhlu Mythos as a whole. Because of this, Zelmkethou is something of a repurposed blunder since its design started out as my misinformed (and misnamed) rendition on the titular monster from The Dweller in The Gulf, a 1932 short story written by Clark Ashton Smith.

I didn't even get The Dweller In The Gulf's name right!

Also known as The Eidolon of the Blind, The Dweller is is an ancient, possibly immortal subterranean creature that dwells deep within the planet Aihai (known to us humans as Mars). It is served and worshiped by a cult of Martians who have been captured and blinded by the beast as its equipped with two proboscises for the extraction of eyes (how charming, Clark).

While The Dweller in the Gulf resembled a tortoise, albeit one of gargantuan proportions, its more alien or at least chimeric in overall form and, despite its connections to The Cthuhlu Mythos, is a relatively tangible animal instead of the reality warping cosmic entity I had originally imagined based on a scantly read character description.

When I returned to revisit this design and compared it to its source inspiration, I realized it wouldn't work as an adaptation of The Dweller in The Gulf and revised it as my own loosely inspired creature, hence Zelmkethou The Living Threshold.

My friend Jesse Alonso helped with the monster's name which is a play on the Czech phrase for globe, zeměkoule.

RELATED LINKS:

The Dweller in the Gulf at Monster Wiki:

https://monster.fandom.com/wiki/Dweller_in_the_Gulf

The Dweller in the Gulf at H.P. Lovecraft Wiki:

https://lovecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Dweller_in_the_Gulf

Buuu, The Telepathic Terror of Tiny Town

Buuu, an original character from yours truly

NAME: Buuu (pronounced 'Boo')

ALSO KNOWN AS: The Boyish Wonder; The Gray Guardian; The Telepathic Terror of Tiny Town

AGE: 19 (145 in Earth years)
SPECIES: Zetaculian (extraterrestrial)
GENDER: Female
BIRTHPLACE: Zeta-5500 (massive space colony)
HEIGHT: 2 ft, 5 inches
WEIGHT: Variable
EYES: Marble black with bright blue pupils
HAIR: Non... Like at all
SKIN: Purplish gray
KNOWN RELATIVES: Dood (father)

LIKES: Jake Tanaka, breakfast, animals, upbeat music, good friends, happy people, sunny days, slapstick comedies, telepathic flight, barbecues, horse riding, the great outdoors, wood carvings, camping, county fairs, barn raising, Jake's marijuana cookies, empathy, hiking, Baltimore, and benevolent clowns.

DISLIKES: Jack Hogson, urban decay, cloudy days, politicians, cages, insincere superheroes, government agents, Areas 51-56, inter-dimensional police officers, chocolate, Z-Men, bullies in general, mentally projected walls, shopping for clothes, apathy, hive minds, and evil clowns.

Fan art of Buuu by my friend Earth-Baragon

Buuu is a small telepathic alien of the Zetaculian variety who flies and floats around through her telekinetic abilities. Buuu is the fifth joining member of the struggling California-based super-villain organization G.L.U.E. though she didn't start out nefariously:

During her teenage years in Intergalactic Community Collage, Buuu stumbled upon an illegally imported copy of Action Comics #1 and, inspired by the tales of heroism found within, soon dropped out of her studies and headed for Earth in 1948 to become a superhero much to her father Dood's disapproval.

Unfortunately, her career as a superhero was far from ideal, starting out as a sidekick to the corporate-mascot-turned-crime-fighter Waffleman (secretly Bruce Mansly, the CEO of Mansly Bakery Goods Incorporated) and later, long after cutting ties with Waffleman, tried the hero game solo as The Gray Guardian of whom her current outfit was originally tailored made for though it was a single bright gray color back then.

Being a space alien, however, kept Buuu from enjoying any long-term success as an independent heroine as the governments of the world showed great contempt for all benevolent extraterrestrials - all this while truly malevolent otherworldly beings were treated far better, both out of hypocritical fear and for selfish ulterior motives on the humans' parts.

Buuu The Boyish Wonder, sidekick to Waffleman

In 1978, Buuu retired as a private citizen and moved to upstate California where she purchased some farm land and a woodland cabin. She quickly came to love the country life, making many local human friends along the way. Life was peaceful until 1986 when Buuu ran afoul of the newly formed super-villain organization known as The Global Lords United Endeavor, or simply G.L.U.E. for short.

G.L.U.E.'s founding leaders, The Head Representative and Queen Noleena The Oversexed, tried to illegally buyout California's government before Buuu put an end to their operation... Only to then have her heroic actions met with hostility as xenophobic US authorities arrested her right after, banishing Buuu to a military prison for five long months before breaking herself out via embarrassing means that are best not mentioned here.

With her superhero career seemingly in ruins, an abashed Buuu had no other choice but to become a super-villain and with the only evil society equally desperate enough to hire her also being the same one she had recently vanquished: G.L.U.E.

It wasn’t an ideal working relationship at first, especially with the more nefarious G.L.U.E. members constantly keeping a watchful murderous eye on her, but Buuu eventually proved herself by helping G.L.U.E. win many small victories against the clandestine governmental forces, often the same ones that caused Buuu to join the proverbial dark side in the first place.

What truly took the tiny alien aback during her first few months in G.L.U.E., however, was just how amazingly inept her partners-in-crime were, constantly endangering themselves when left to their own devices, vices, and corresponding stupidity.

Because of this, the G.L.U.E. members came to value Buuu’s positive presence serving as the group’s quasi-conscience, which has kept them from going overboard in their self-destructive villainy...At least most of the time as some of their own madness has long since rubbed off on poor Buuu.

From left-to-right: Slimeball, Buuu, and Jack Hogson

ADDITIONAL FACTS ABOUT BUUU:

*Buuu has a romantic longing and sexual lusting for her fellow G.L.U.E. teammate Jake ‘Orange Coat’ Tanaka, whose good mental vibes and handsome human looks makes him irresistible to the diminutive alien. Despite caring for her as a friend and coworker, Jake, unfortunately, finds Buuu disturbing looking and compares a possible relationship with her to  ‘trying to do it with a baby sea-lion or a spooky-looking Muppet’.

*Buuu’s actually quite adorable in an unnerving thin-bodied sort of way but she's also too self-conscious about her appearance when around regular Earthlings and is almost always seen wearing her large hat and cloak to hide said body. Another reason Buuu dons this get-up is because the limited alternatives are the baby and per-school children's wear sections at clothing stores - something she deeply loathes shopping for.

*Buuu's large hat holds an ember-like head jewel that heightens her Mind Bullets: a laser-like  percussion ability that's Buuu's main form of attack.

*While on Earth, Buuu has lived among friendly and good nature country folks that her extraterrestrial people would usually prey upon for suspicious scientific reasons. Because of which, Buuu considers herself a country girl at heart, living in a comfortable cabin in the woods far beyond city limits. This trait also explains Buuu’s love for westerns, farms, pony rides, county fairs, and pie-eating competitions.

Buuu at a county fair pie eating contest

*Buuu has come to befriend and form strong bonds with most of the members of G.L.U.E. with the two major exceptions being Jack Hogson, the violent and childish scientific officer, and Johnny Laser-Fin, the treasurer and sleazy cyborg business person, both of whom she openly states of being total jerks that radiate bad mental vibes all the time. Needless to say, hilarity ensues when Buuu is forcefully paired up with either of them if not both.

ENSHOHMA'S COMMENTS ON BUUU:

Well, DeviantART done gone and funk itself all sorts of messed up!

The art sharing web-site that I had once called home, my main online port of call, was bought out by the web-design company Wix and, like all new owners taking over established businesses, had to give everything their own face lift / urine soaked marking.

While I have seen far worse online, DeviantART's new design and interface still sucks, turning a once simple straight line of user friendliness into a vague maze of time-sucking confusion. I still plan to keep my DeviantART account but will also be using my other online outlets as coherent alternatives when sharing my artwork and original characters, with little Buuu here being the first of many.

I have a lot to say about Buuu's creation BUT I will save most of my thoughts for later this month through a second article and a series videos that also features little Buuu.

I will note, however, that Buuu’s based off the famous Grays of modern extraterrestrial lore though her pointy ears and a yellow-colored carapace covering her cranium (all hidden by her hat) was from older movie alien influences like “This Island Earth” and "Invasion of The Saucer Men".

Excerpt from Reader's Digest Mysteries of the Unexplained (1985)

A Special Announcement for April 2016

Not Final Logo Art...Or So I Hope!

So if all goes REALLY well, I'll be starting a podcast entitled "Review All Monsters" with my long-time friend and co-host Burkion (Jesse Alonso), where we will review ALMOST every giant monster movie ever made and in order whenever possible.

The pilot episode will be dedicated to the rules of our planned series, alongside the still-in-progress master list of films, including giant monster focused television shows, special edition episodes, and possible audio guest stars related to the main subject.

Expect to hear the pilot for "Review All Monsters" sometime in middle-to-late May, uploaded onto my YouTube page with all other succeeding episodes for the foreseeable future.

I am excited for the project, as it has been something both me and Burkion have been wanting to do for years now, especially since we're both disturbingly knowledgeable, respectful and fair-minded with giant monster-based media, as well as being acerbic (Burkion) and eccentric (Enshohma) comedians who also don't mind poking A LOT of fun with the material at hand.

That alone is something missing from a lot of other movie review-based series online, along with the insane list of films and TV shows that "Review All Monsters" hope to tackle.

I will keep you all updated on our progress.

Deadpool Video Podcast Review Thingie

Some very old geezer once asked me "Enshohma...What's a Podcast?", and not being all that computer savvy myself, I could only reply with "It's like talk radio programming, but produced digitally and posted on the internet", which is an apt description I hope.

The old codger then asked me "Enshohma...What's a Radio?". Our conversation ended soon afterwards.

Above is my video-based podcast review for the recently released film "Deadpool", co-hosted with friend and colleague KaijuNoir, whose already done his own podcast review for this same film on his separate YouTube channel.

And here's a better look at the title card illustrations that I did for the video posted above, inspired by the title character Deadpool's own artistic talents straight from the film.

Deadpool Himself

Enshohma (My Pen-name Monster)

Draco Azul (KaijuNoir's Original Robot Hero and Mascot)

Bruceploitation Double Feature

As you probably all know by now, I do title card art for movie reviewer and content creator Brandon Tenold, and his video series Brandon's Cult Movie Reviews.

Redundantly worded sentences? Welcome to Enshohma's Corner!

Back in February of 2015, I did a 'pilot' for my own series, Illustration Commentary, which as the title suggests, is where I talk about my artwork, both in-and-out of my commissions for Brandon.

I'll be doing a second, and possibly third episode before the week's end. Until then, here's the far-from-perfect pilot, entitled Bruceploitation Double Feature, based on two title cards done for the films "Challenge of the Tiger" and "The Dragon Lives Again".

Here's the title cards and original "Brandon's Cult Movie Review" episodes they both hail from. Starting with "Challenge of the Tiger" (1980).

And here's the same deal, for the far weirder "The Dragon Lives Again" (1977):

As you can see, "The Dragon Lives Again" is a martial arts fantasy-comedy, which has a Bruce Lee type stand-in fighting a supernatural mafia, within the literal Chinese Underworld. Think of the NON-Hellish versions of Hades (the place, not the old world god), from Greek Mythology...Only Chinese in origin.

And several famous characters (stolen without copyright consent) are among this 'Underworld's Underworld', including blatant steals of Dracula, James Bond, The Man With No Name, and infamous erotica heroine Emmanuelle. 

I'll end this article with some screen-captures that Brandon sent my way, used as references for the final card art. Starting with 'Notcula, Substitute Sovereign of the Damned':