Previously covered on the site was the hit independent comic book, Colossal Conqueror, created by writer and illustrator Tyler Sowles. Putting together an entire comic book by yourself is no easy feat, but Tyler’s incredible dedication and passion into making a creation like this, and then to make it free, is quite the colossal feat in giving back to the amazing kaiju community. Join us at Kaiju United as we break down Tyler’s love for the 1990’s, Saturday Morning AM Cartoons, and most of all, kaiju behemoths from the horrors of our imaginations, and dinosaurs that captivate us all!
Jacob Lyngle — Bold
Tyler Sowles — Italics
Hello, Kaiju United! We are back this week with Tyler Sowles, the creator of the fantastic independent comic book, Colossal Conqueror! Tyler, if you want to just go ahead and introduce yourself; tell the Kaiju United folks what you’re all about.
My name is Tyler. And I like dinosaurs and monsters and stuff. I’ve been doing this for a while. Man. I’ve been working in indie comics for the better part of 15 years, something like that. I used to do a comic called Durontus: The Lost Serpent a while back with my buddy Scott Schmidt. And that kind of led me to working on CC. In other words, I have been a longtime kaiju fan since I was a wee little one. And I ended up kind of merging that with my passion for illustration, drawing and whatever else.
What led you into the creation of Colossal Conqueror? Tell us about your background with these monsters and dinosaurs in the media.
I think that I’m trying to reach like an eight-year-old in me. Like, what I wish that I could have had when I was a kid. There wasn’t a ton of Giant Monster or Giant Dinosaur content out there. Especially comic books. Like, obviously, you had Godzilla, Jurassic Park, and stuff like that. Growing up in the late 80s, early 90s, we were kind of limited to what was available to us. For those around then, we got to watch like the reruns on TNT MonsterVision. And that’s how I got all my Godzilla movies and stuff growing up; taping them off of TNT. And like, none of the Heisei movies or anything were available when we were kids, either. So, we pretty much had next to nothing. I remember when TrendMasters came out with their Godzilla toys in the mid 90’s. And I lost my mind because I was like, oh my god, they made something for me.
There was Dark Horse Comics too. I think that was like my first introduction to the idea of giant monsters in the comic medium. For a long time, all the above was what was widely available, unless you imported or went over to Japan. And I think now, it’s way different. Now the word kaiju is kind of more of a household term, because of stuff like Pacific Rim, and Legendary Pictures’ 2014 Godzilla. I feel like there is a much wider audience and hopefully, that means people will be more receptive to different media, different ideas. Familiar, yet different is my hope, in terms of what I’d like to see, and what I would like to do with CC as well.
Yeah, totally. Personally speaking. I was born in 1998. So, I’ll carbon date myself a little bit. But even when I was growing up in the 2000s, we had Sony DVDs coming out around 2004, and the Heisei films were on VHS and accessible. Otherwise, we didn’t really get that Blu-ray boom of almost every kaiju film being completely available until around 2011. I absolutely welcome as many new people to kaiju media as possible, but it is fun telling them about how there was pretty much nothing Godzilla from 2004 to 2014.
Ha-ha, since you carbon dated yourself a little bit, I don’t know if you’re familiar with TNT’s old programming block, MonsterVision from like, the early 90s and stuff, but it was like a late night event. They would play like these chopped up, pan-and-scan bits of Godzilla movies. All of it dubbed, of course, and shortened down for broadcast to like an hour. And I would just eat that up. I’d have to tape them as they broadcasted onto a blank VHS and that’s what I had for years and years.
I cannot remember any of the names of the small companies and stuff like that, but they did release a handful of Showa films on VHS. Most of them that I recall fondly have a gold rim border. The one I treasure most is that one Mechagodzilla release. I saw those in the video stores when browsing with my dad. “Dad! Dad! Dad! Look!” and I’d point out the cool new monster and dinosaurs on the front cover art. I practically begged him to buy them for me. The Heisei films were releasing at the time, but they weren’t there when I’d go look.
My first exposure to those films was when I read about them in The Official Godzilla Compendium. Mark Cerasini and J.D. Lees wrote that I’m pretty sure. It came out around the Tristar Godzilla film coming out, ironically in 1998, when you were born. It was my bible That was my introduction to all of the 90’s movies because it had a synopsis of all of the movies, art and production photos, the woris. I was like, “Oh, my God, there’s movies I’ve never even heard of in here! How am I ever gonna see these?!” Of course, we had a boom during the promotional time of the Tristar film, and we got more VHS releases of Showa films and the Heisei movies. But before that, it was what I could see on TNT, and the few VHS releases available. One of the few non-Godzilla films I enjoyed, and still am obsessed with, is Gorgo. I think the Gorgo is a really underrated movie. I thought that the film was just fantastic. I didn’t hear about Gamera or any of the others until much later in life.
That is like the path I undertook as a fan. I had seen most of the Godzilla films released in that 2004 boom, and enjoyed them, but it wasn’t until Millcreek released this “Gamera Trilogy” that things amped up for me, and I became a dedicated and lifelong fan.
With the comic, when you advertise or talk about Colossal Conquer, you always say that it’s heavily influenced by comic books of the 90’s. Is that just because of everything we kind of just went over? Like you just grew up in that 90s time? Do you have a fondness for an artist that worked in that time? Is there a primary influential figure in the art world there?
All the above? It’s funny you said that, because I haven’t really given it that much thought after saying it in promotional material. It’s kind of complex to break down everything. Of course, I don’t draw super zany, like Rob Liefeld doing Wildcats, with all the pockets all over the people, and crazy, action stuff like that. I am not going to lie; I do love that style. I know people crap on and all the time, but it’s nostalgic for me. The weird proportions on people, the bonkers storytelling. It’s dated for sure, but it’s a nice time capsule for entertainment.
Speaking of nostalgia, I really do think that is the gist of it. I’m trying to reach the inner child. I grew up with the 80’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon, in the 90’s I was super into Street Sharks and Spider-Man: The Animated Series. I originally wanted to do in the comic with painted backgrounds and cell-shaded art styles, but it was just going to take so long that I just stuck with what I was talking about earlier… familiar, yet different! I’m trying to a late 80s, early 90’s vibe with it. I don’t know if it’s as prominent as I wish it was. But I’m still trying to kind of sneak it in there a little bit, especially like with some of the some of the random characters, in the main bad guy, and other future upcoming stuff with the series, since we’re only on Issue 2.
Do you have a definite plan for the series? I’ll bring up a few of your peers here for example. We know that Kaijus and Cowboys by Frankie B. Washington and Matthew Blair is going to be 12 issues. Are you setting a definitive number of issues, or do you want to work on Colossal Conqueror until you just get tired of doing it?
I would like to do it for until I just can’t stand it anymore. I know that my short-term goal is to do five issues and then potentially collect that into a larger trade volume. I think at around five issues, I can finish off like the first story arc that has been set up. I’ve got it kind of written out to be roughly five issues right now, so I think that that’s my first goal.
I’ve started thinking about what’s next after those, for sure. If people are reading and enjoying it, why stop doing it? I don’t even really want to charge money. I just want to give people something else to look at and be entertained by.
I really like that about your comic. You can just find it and read it anytime, and if people really dig what you are providing them, there are links to your Patreon, and other different ways to support creators and artists in your communities.
It costs me nothing to make. Like, yeah, it takes time. Sure. But it’s a labor of love sort of thing. I genuinely enjoy doing it. I have to work on the comic between my day job, and other freelance work. Because of that, the process does not go as fast as I wish it could. You hear about these other guys that work on comics or like anybody who’s on a monthly comic schedule, it’s like, there’s no way I’m going to be able to do that! I just kind of squeeze it in between working on other things, and that’s why I don’t think it’s fair for me to try to charge for it or anything, either. The comic is something that I am passionate about, and I hope that other people find it and they’re like, oh, I get what he’s doing. That’s cool. I really like it!
You are also not restricted by any kind of deadline. When the next page is ready, you can upload it to your medium of choice at any time. I think that is liberating, in a way. A pressure- free environment.
My goal right now is to complete a full single issue a year. I would love to do more than that, but with all the other things going on in my life, that is the goal I have made for myself on this project. But I do kind of pressure myself to be like, alright, it’s getting close, you need to finish it up, so there’s a little bit of pressure there. I’m trying to keep that going for myself, because I think that if I don’t give myself any sort of deadline, I will just let it slide too much. I don’t want to do that. I do feel like I’ve put a fair amount of thought into what I’m doing. I’m not going to go out and say that I’m the best writer or artist out there, but I am doing the whole book. I don’t want to screw myself over by you know, putting a lot of effort into a bunch of thoughts and ideas and then never following through with it. If there are people that are reading it, I do not want to screw them over either. I want potential readers to have something to look forward to, each time.
I think those weekly “versus” sketches and illustrations you do on the CC social pages are a great idea. Kind of like a “tide you over until the next cool issue” kind of approach. It’s like, hey, here’s some cool content for you in the meantime!
Right? And that was totally the idea. Funny enough, I think it started with a whole selfish approach, ha-ha. I wanted to draw my monster fighting somebody else’s monster, or a monster that everybody already knows, just for fun. So, I was like, why don’t I just go through the list of monsters to draw? There are some kaiju that I haven’t drawn in years or haven’t even drawn before. Mechagodzilla II, for instance. I want to challenge myself and draw some cool stuff.
The main creature featured in Colossal Conqueror is called Genogwa. Obviously, your love of dinosaurs is there. Iguanodon specifically, in terms of looks, and the name itself was referenced early in the series issues. Were there other avenues of inspiration behind designing that creature? Or was it kind of just more like a “Let’s make Iguanodon cool!”?
I think that’s part of it! I’m on a couple of dinosaur groups on Facebook. And people are always arguing about the cool carnivorous dinosaur thing. Who’s the biggest and meanest? There’s always this art of your herbivore dinosaurs getting just torn up, eaten, and eviscerated by these large reptiles with gigantic teeth and predatory dominance. Everybody just craps on the herbivores, and they have some cool features! I was like, what if one of them was like, badass? I started sketching, what it would look like, and I was thinking to myself, man, this would make for a really killer kaiju, and it gradually led into that direction.
At the end of the day, I just love dinosaurs. I love giant monster movies, too, of course, but if I were to have to pick between something like a Godzilla, or something closer to an Ultraman, it would always be Godzilla. Other than direct kaiju movies, I grew up with all the black and white stop motion animation dinosaur films. Stuff from Ray Harryhausen. Some of the movies that come to mind are The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms and The Giant Behemoth. I just prefer something more dinosaurian, versus crazy alien and robot media.
My favorite is The Valley of Gwangi!
Yeah! That’s a fun one. I just like that stuff instead of your Ultraman type stuff. You have your Elekings, and they have their rotating antlers and all that sort of weird stuff. It’s cool. But it’s not my favorite. So, I mean, I think I, if I do more than five issues, I think I’m going to get kind of wild and outer spacey in the second volume and introduce some wacky or space monsters and stuff, for sure. But, we had to start with the dinosaurs first!
What about the second monster? Carnaja?
That one’s a girl too. I don’t think we went into that in the issue itself. I decided to create these “toy” backing board bios for the monsters for fun on the socials, again, trying to get into that like 90’s toy attic cartoon vibe there. If you download the PDFs of the comics themselves, they have these backing boards on the back that look like classic toy backing boards, and they have like the biographies and histories of the monsters. It’s fun!
With Carnaja appearing as the first “battle” in the comic, I wanted to have that vibe of Godzilla Raids Again, where it’s just two big dinosaurs trying to kill each other. In attempting to find something that would intimidate Ganogwa as a character, I went with something more carnivorous looking… with the teeth, the head structure, and whatnot. And then I gave her like, I don’t remember the name of the dinosaur specifically, but it had these awesome neck spikes, so I took some inspiration from that. So, I just kind of threw some different elements from different dinosaurs together to make weird mutant creations. They aren’t supposed to replicate or be a specific dinosaur, just a mishmash of mutated dental remains.
The mystery goo coming out of the pipeline kind of seeped into the fossils and reignited them in a way. There’s your Atomic Age reference right there. Of course, we don’t quite know where that goo comes from yet, but I’m assuming that’s the driving force behind the creatures not only coming back to life, but being hideously mutated into something new?
There is an explanation of the goop I promise that there does get resolved. We’re just not there yet.
The opening set piece of the comic is a protest of an unpopular pipeline that happens to be carrying goop around underground. Was this more in line with referencing other real-world pipeline projects that drew controversy? Or is it more of a Ninja Turtles goop, where it’s just more of a development macguffin?
It’s definitely a few things. Literally, the dinosaurs in this comic are made with the goop. It’s very much like the retro mutagen that makes your Ninja Turtles and Street Sharks. I wanted to make the bad guys in it feel very reminiscent of that time, too. They are like corporate villains. The Sloan guy, he’s like, like an evil CEO type. He’s modeled after the villain from the Toxic Crusaders cartoon. Then he’s got these grunts they’re not quite soldiers, but they’re all wearing gas masks and anonymous in a way. That’s the foot clan!
And then there is some stuff that is going to go on with the main human characters. It is going to help tell the story, and they will become more important later. This is something that even the major movies struggle with; trying to find a delicate balance between the people stuff and the monster stuff. Because I feel like people are going to want to see monster stuff more than they’re going to want to see people stuff if they picked up a monster comic.
You can only tell so much of a story with you know, a non-speaking, not super emotional being. But it all it all ties together… the people, the monsters, all of it. There’s going to be some resolution that brings the characters all together. Hopefully there is enough entertaining stuff in there for people to like.
One stand-out for me visually, was the “health bars” that popped up once the climactic first battle began between the two monsters we covered earlier. What a perfect usage of storytelling in a medium that heavily relies on visuals. I don’t think that’s been done in a kaiju comic before, at least, any that I have read.
I’m just drawing from stuff that I like, and I also do play a lot of video games. I just figured, let’s add health bars like Mortal Kombat! Make them tick down whenever they get hurt. And I think it also gives people a fun visual language to determine how powerful certain attacks are and kind of make it a little bit more video gamey in a way like oh, they can see how much damage certain attacks will do. For example, a claw attack is weaker than a bite attack, but a beam attack is the most powerful.
Originally, I wanted something closer to Yu Gi Oh! and Bakugan, with the number system. When monsters get hurt, you’d see their HP number decrease over the battle. I also had plans to power scale them with numbers, but then I had to do a bunch of math and decided it was not worth it. More fun to do the health bars!
One of the surprises for me with that battle specifically was the beam attack from Ganogwa. Instead of a direct, focused laser beam like Godzilla, and most kaiju, Ganogwa kind of vomits a beam that spreads across a Target, like the range of a shotgun!
There’s so many kaiju and monsters and stuff out there so I wanted to just try to do something a little different, right? At first, I wasn’t even going to do like a breath attack because it’s been done a million bajillion times. But I kind of realized that having a bipedal kaiju in my comic without an attack like that was kind of weird. Sometimes you must adhere to tropes, but just do it in your own way.
I don’t think people should beat themselves up too much about originality if you can make it your own. I don’t really think anything is truly original if you wanted to boil down the history of storytelling fundamentals. It’s all from ancient mythology, really.
Of course, we base a lot of our stories on Greek mythology and themes. This entire comic is just a love letter to everything I loved and enjoyed as a kid. I wanted something that would have had 8-year-old Tyler losing his mind if he saw it on the spinner racks at the grocery store.
Is your book eight-year-old friendly? Could a child your age that was reading Dark Horse Godzilla pick up Colossal Conqueror, and read it? Or is it something more akin to someone your age that grew up in that period, and want something that emulates nostalgic times of the past?
I’m hoping for both. I am trying my best to make it as close to all ages, like rated G as I can, I’m trying not to put in any crazy violence. There’s no cusses and I don’t think any of the subject matter is too heavy. I think there’s some topics that could be a little bit heavier if you read into them with an adult lens, like the whole thing with like the pipelines, ecoterrorism, and corporate corruption, but a kid reading it will see “goo mutates dinosaurs, and dinosaurs go roar” and have fun with it.
I’m trying to not tackle anything that’s like, too grown up. I mean, I’m not even making it as violent as the recent Godzilla movies or anything. For example, there’s close to no blood and gore in the comic. In my career, I’ve drawn lots and lots of blood and gore comics, because people like books to be gritty. It is of hard when of course, you’re making two giant animals fight each other, to avoid things like gore, as they would probably be bleeding and stuff, but I don’t I don’t want to incorporate that because that’s not the central focus of the comic’s direction. Really, I want the fights to feel more like more like a video game or more like you’re playing with toys than a National Geographic video of two animals mauling each other to the grave. It’s supposed to be fun!
I’m not a big fan of over-the-top gore and violence either. I mean, sometimes when it’s funny, I guess, like the old Jason stuff. I think that it has its place. But with this comic, I would rather be friendly for any kind of potential reader. If an eight-year-old sees it, and wants to read it, I want it to be appropriate for them. I don’t want his parents to be like, well, you can’t read this because there’s ridiculous violence or sex in it or whatever. And I just want to steer away from that with this.
I agree. I like having my kaiju fights feel like classic wrestling. Throw each other around, have fun. I don’t really want to see someone’s skull get bashed in.
Can we talk about your previous comic a little bit? Durontus: The Lost Serpent?
I think it was in college. And then I started messing around with ideas for it, like shortly after I graduated. So, like 2009-ish, I think that is when I started posting stuff on DeviantArt. On that site, there was a group of likeminded Kaiju nerds on there. We used to share pictures back and forth and stuff and kind of encourage each other to draw on that.
At the time, I was doing some pinups and convention work. I decided that I wanted to see if I could pull off an original comic book, and I did this like four-page black-and-white comic. I don’t even remember what it’s called. I had this Nessie-type creature, called Durontus, fighting a space monster. And it went nowhere. It was my first practice run.
And then on an old kind of book forum back when I used to do that stuff, that’s where I met Scott. We basically just swapped ideas back and forth, and kind of came up with the background of the story and did a single issue for it, called Durontus: The Lost Serpent. It had some mild cult following, and people liked it, but we didn’t really do any follow-up with it afterwards. And then in 2015, we did a Kickstarter for a second issue. And it was it was a relatively successful Kickstarter, nothing crazy, but it was enough to, you know, fund a second issue. I worked on that, and that was kind of a mess. There’s plenty of personal reasons I won’t go into here, but the second issue eventually came out. I think it grew an audience because we did the first issue a long while ago, and it had time to sit on the internet during a time where people were really clamoring for kaiju content. Since it’s been around a while, people look back on it fondly.
Is there a future for Durontus? Or do you feel like Ganogwa took over that role for you?
Well, it’s hard to say… So, Scott and I, we’re both almost 40. And we spend a lot of time, you know, with our families. When we were in our twenties, I think that we used to do the whole comic book circuit and run around, and we were going to try to be big shots. And we were, you know, trying to rub elbows and all that sort of stuff. That time has passed for us, and we’re just so busy. We talked about bringing him back a while ago, but it didn’t really come to fruition. I wanted to create something, but everyone involved in Durontus is busy with their families and whatnot, so I just decided to do my own thing that I can work on in my free time. I do think that Colossal Conqueor is a spiritual successor, for sure.
Yeah, it feels like a spiritual successor in a way. I was going back through your posts on both social media pages. I saw a post in 2020 where you were like, I’m designing a Kaiju and it was very close to Ganogwa!
Yeah, that was the time when I started designing Ganogwa, and I think that’s kind of when it was starting to dawn on me of like, it’s not going to kill anybody if I just start doing this for free for myself. You know, like, do it for fun, and just put it out there. If people like it, great. If they don’t, well, like it’s not going to hurt anybody. I mean, its small potatoes compared to some of the other stuff out there, especially because now there’s quite a plethora of different kaiju comics to choose from. When I started, there weren’t really any, but now there’s so many fellow creators out there, it’s awesome. I hope people just happen to enjoy mine.
How are you feeling about this indie kaiju comic revolution? There are so many ways that people are telling these independent kaiju stories. There’s something for everybody out there. You have Frankie and Matthew doing Kaijus and Cowboys, for example.
It’s great! I love that you brought up Frankie. Frankie is an OG as far as I am concerned. He is a passionate, passionate man. And he really knows his stuff. There’s also the Titanicus stuff, the Nemesis books getting a comic book adaptation, even IDW is back with Godzilla stuff! Just a kaiju renaissance all around.
What’s next for Tyler? Just hardcore focus on Colossal Conqueor?
I think between that and some other projects that I’ve spoken to others about, yeah. CC takes up most of my free time stuff. Typically, in comic production, you’ve got a small team, putting a book together. You’ve got somebody who does the writing, someone pencils, someone inks, another person does the design work. I’m doing all of that.
I’m a graphic designer by day, but I’m also not super used to lettering comics all the time and stuff. So, I’m still learning little tweaks to make my life easier when I do it. But yeah, it can be a lot to go, you know, cover to cover like that. But it’s very satisfying for me. It’s really cool to sit back and be like, holy crap, I wrote this! I drew it. I did the letters for it. It all came together!
It’s a great feeling. I mean, I’m a movie guy. So, I feel that way when I film stuff. From one creator to another, mad respect for undertaking the process all by yourself.
I just wanted to personally thank you for hopping on with Kaiju United and taking the time to sit down with me. It’s been great showcasing your comic to the community and having another great figure spotlighted for their work!
Thank YOU for giving me a place to showcase my work, and for talking to me! And I think that what you guys are doing is absolutely awesome. I think it’s cool that, you know, you’re reaching out to indie people too. And I mean, your website looks fantastic. It’s super professional. You and Rachel work hard. We’re all trying to make something cool in this in our limited time on planet Earth. So I think that what you guys are doing is great.
We really think Colossal Conqueror is great, and I’m personally excited to see the next page and future issues!
Thank you! I can’t wait to release the next issue soon! Thanks for having me!
Read Colossal Conqueror here!
Tyler’s Website
Colossal Conqueror Facebook Page
