If you’re an avid kaiju fan, few have quite the household name that Matt Frank does. From IDW’s acclaimed Rulers of Earth run to doing all of the art on Arrow Video’s Gamera releases, Matt has truly cemented himself as the “Kaiju King” in the world of monster artwork. If you see a professional project with kaiju artwork, chances are you’re looking at Matt’s hard work and dedication, and of course, he does this because he genuinely loves kaiju, as all of us do. On the cusp of our anniversary, I found it fitting that we sat down with another special guest; somebody that the community holds in high regard. On a personal note, I met Matt at my first G-FEST (which was also my first ever convention), way back in 2012 when I was a fourteen year old kid. It was nice having this full circle moment with Matt, finally getting to sit down with him 1-on-1 to talk about dinosaur VHS, the kaiju community, and of course, Matt’s illustrious kaiju art career.
Special thanks to Kaston Kolbachinksi for making this happen.
The Interview
JL: Jacob Lyngle (KU)
MF: Matt Frank
JL: Greetings, Kaiju United! I’m here with a very special guest. Matt Frank is an artist, a seminal figure in our community that we all know and love, and is someone I’ve been following for a very, very long time. Matt, do you want to introduce yourself for those readers that may not know who you are?
MF: My name is Matt Frank! I’m an artist mostly; although, I’ve been getting more into writing recently as well. The thing that most Godzilla fans know me from is being the lead artist on Godzilla: Rulers of Earth by IDW Publishing. I’ve also done the artwork for the Gamera blu-ray box set and Daimajin Trilogy set from Arrow Video. I recently did the artwork for the Gorgo release from Vinegar Syndrome. I’ve done other stuff such as Redman: The Kaiju Hunter, Transformers comics, and more! Lots of art.
JL: What was your first exposure to kaiju media? What started the whole thing for you?
MF: It was definitely a confluence of factors. A significant portion of us are introduced to this stuff when we’re kids, and my story starts there too. I was really into dinosaurs, of course. So, it was through just pop culture osmosis that I was exposed to Godzilla because my parents and other people were like, well, here this is Godzilla. You know, you might eat that up. Of course, I enjoyed it! But I would say the fandom part of it all, the thing that really cements in my memory with flashbacks, was when I was at a family restaurant with my parents when I was a kid in San Antonio. They had one of those big inflatable Godzilla things; it was out in the back in the play scape area. It looked like one of those things you would see at a car dealership!
As a little kid, it felt like it was Godzilla in real life, and we were just playing under him. And I remember that was a big pivotal flashpoint moment for me. I saw a couple of the movies when I was young, too. Godzilla Vs. The Sea Monster was the first one I had on VHS that I watched over and over and over. And I didn’t fast forward, like a plebeian would. I watched that movie because I related to those characters and I think that story is really well done. There are lots of other stuff, but I think at this point, it’s a little more accurate to ask: What was the introduction point for each individual franchise? I’m not gonna go through all of those, but I do remember when I got introduced to Gamera, for instance. I was watching this film on VHS: Legend of the Dinosaurs, which is a Jaws rip-off kind of movie from Toei. Have you seen that one?
JL: I still need to see that, but I know exactly what you’re talking about.
MF: It’s worth watching because it’s so weird. Structurally, it is really awkward, and the story is not very good. I find it ambitious despite that. It was definitely not for kids! (laugh) It was a straight horror movie, like I said, similar to Jaws. But the VHS I had said, “Just for kids!”, on it! I figured, well, I do really dig dinosaurs, this looks entertaining! In the film, the moon really creeped me out! Even as a kid, I remember being really upset by it, yet kind of fascinated at the same time. But then at the end of it, the kid host, he was a mini horror host. He came on with Freddy Krueger gloves and was like “I am here to show you more monster movies!” He played a bunch of trailers, and low and behold, there was this flying turtle monster! Oh, my god, it’s a turtle! He can fly! After seeing this, the fact that there is this whole universe and broad scope of kaiju films was made apparent to me.
JL: I think that’s an event people need to talk about more in their like journeys as fans. I’ll call it the “Nick Fury moment”. I’m talking about the iconic scene in Iron Man (2008), where Nick Fury is like, “You think you’re the only superhero out there?” You know, something close to that, but apply it to the moment that fans find out that Godzilla is not the only kaiju film series or franchise out there; there’s a multitude of various kaiju films across all genres. I think that’s a super overlooked moment that people in our community have.
MF: Totally. I think another moment similar to that for me — you may have seen it or heard of it. It was a VHS tape called Fantastic Dinosaurs of the Movies.
JL: I have that!
MF: I found it on YouTube the other day. When I first discovered the tape, I was like, Oh my God, what a lineup! They had Gorgo, Reptilicus, and even stuff from Harryhausen media — 20 Million Miles to Earth and The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms. This is just a smorgasbord of weird lizards! That’s another big one for me.
JL: Let’s continue the journey through Matt’s life and career. Down the road, Matt started a DeviantArt account to post his artwork, called KaijuSamurai. He did this thing called Godzilla Neo, a project in which he redesigned almost every creature from Toho’s library of monster movies under one singular universe banner. The community LOVED it. My question is — why? What made you go to that length of illustrating everybody?
MF: I think that’s actually a really good question! It’s so funny — sometimes I’ll get asked about Godzilla Neo at conventions. I’ll usually respond with like, you know, uuuughhh, Godzilla Neo, or something. I’m playing it up. You know, I’m just being silly. And I’ve had people like them later, go online who had asked me about it, and they’d be like, I asked Matt about Godzilla: Neo and he got angry. And I’m like, No, I didn’t!
It was a joke, a josh, a goofus, a funny. I’m just screwing with you. So really, honestly, I’ve thought about this a lot. When I started, there was no Godzilla stuff. I’m sure a lot of people probably remember the empty decade, this barren wasteland between 2004 and 2014. I mean, there was some nice movies; Gamera the Brave, Cloverfield, and Peter Jackson’s King Kong that kind of fit into that genre. There was zero Godzilla, though.
Around the time I was in college, I was reading an article in G-FAN Magazine about the Koichi Kawakita directed pachinko machine footage. I remember thinking oh, they filmed new footage of the Millennium suits. How cool! I noticed that there were things that kept cropping up in the Godzilla franchise repeatedly. I hadn’t really given it a lot of serious thought before then. At the time, I was also a big fan of the Ultimate Spider Man comics and how the the team at Marvel kind of took all the Spider-Man stuff and they streamlined it all down into this one coherent narrative, where certain things kind of interwove with each other. Those two things together started making me think I can do this with Godzilla. Somebody could do this with Godzilla really easily… I could do that with Godzilla really easily. I’ve got the notebook somewhere of a ton of the originals. But since I was in college, there were moments where I’m in an economics course or something at the University of Texas. I should be paying attention. I’m not, of course, because I am filling my notebook with kaiju designs, and going “Here’s how Rodan would look!”. People really enjoyed it because there wasn’t really much else. I think there might have been one or two other artists who were kind of doing something similar. Truthfully, we were all just so starved for content, so we just went screw it, we’re gonna make our own content. People really dug it, so I kept making more and more.
JL: Economics is kind of boring. I’ll design the Gargantuas instead!
MF: That’s really kind of the long of the short of it. I mean, I have a BFA in Fine Art, and I needed the barest minimum non art program to get my general credits, so I took a basic algebra course. I think it was definitely one of those courses where you can use a note card for the final exam. And you can use front and back. But you can’t you outside of it, you can only use that note card and man, I aced that final exam. I was writing notes in the margins, baby. Those are the kind of classes that I was just like, alright, I’m checking out, I have to figure out how the whole Orochi timeline works!
JL: You came back to this universe to illustrate Godzilla in his initial 2014 Legendary depiction and Shin Godzilla as well.
MF: Yes. I did one for Shin Godzilla and a few of the other Legendary monsters. And I think I did a Godzilla Earth as well. And I kind of I came up with this whole, this whole story to kind of relate to it about like, Oh, it’s a possible future, you know, and but as the Godzilla franchise has really kind of fractionalized, even though it’s all in recent years, it’s all been kind of under this new regime for lack of a better term with Toho. There’s so much of it now. And it’s going in so many different directions that I’m just like, I don’t I don’t think I need to continue. I have nothing else to add. Honestly, I’m busy doing official Godzilla stuff. That’s why I haven’t been doing any more Godzilla Neo recently. I’ve got other stuff to do now. It’s nice that people appreciate it and have such fond memories of it.
JL: Tell us about your first major credited work: “Ray Harryhausen Presents: Back to Mysterious Island”.
That was a really, really interesting confluence of factors because the publisher was Bluewater Productions; I don’t think they’re around anymore. I think they changed their name or something. I don’t know. But they were kind of notorious for just never paying their artists which, honestly, is kind of par for the course for a lot of comics stuff, which is kind of sad. It’s like, yes, I’m glad this stuff exists, but maybe these people should be paid.
Anyway, the Editor-in-Chief at Bluewater reached out to me and was like, hey, you know, you’re clearly a Godzilla fan. You’re clearly a monster fan. I like your monster stuff. Can you make us some stuff? Do you want to make a comic? Because you also seem to have design insight on making a comic.
Interestingly, I don’t know how this happened, but Max Landis was the writer on that, and yeah, this was before all of that. Honestly, the script was solid. Although, it was definitely of its time, there was some really edgy stuff in it that I was like, I don’t know about this. But I mean, at the time, the past me said, oh, man, this is really cool and cool and edgy. I mean, but it was kind of a it was a fun idea. And I think that and it just and so the problem was is that I actually I actually illustrated a whole first issue I think, and but I could not make the deadlines because I was still in college.
You can’t be on a monthly book, doing the kind of detail work that I wanted to do, and juggling college at the same time. The editor wasn’t liking the way the colors were meshing because we were just going straight from pencils to digital colors, too. Eventually, he kind of pulled me from the interiors. He was like, man, we’re going a different direction. He kept me on for covers for a while after that.
I don’t think I still have those interior pages anymore. I think those got thrown out because I had kind of ugly feelings about those interiors, which is kind of sad, because now I kinda want to go back to them. I bet I have them on a hard drive somewhere; I know I scanned all of them. But yeah, that was my first work. On the monster end of things, it is definitely a weird bit of Harryhausen lore Harryhausen ephemera that I think a lot of people kind of forget exists.
JL: I assume it’s out of print. Is it obtainable, or just one of those comics that went up high in value on the secondary market?
MF: I don’t think they’re super expensive; I have a bunch of them. But if somebody wants one, you can just email me. I’m sure I have extras floating around. And I just opened up a storefront, so maybe we can put some of that on there, so I don’t have to cart around as much at conventions.
JL: Most Godzilla fans know you from your longstanding work with IDW Publishing. Where did that relationship begin?
MF: Oh, yes. IDW is a very, very storied relationship. It started in 2010. And I remember the events very distinctly because that was a weird year for me. I had been living with my parents for the first part of the year, and then I moved back to Austin. I just graduated from college not long before that. So of course, the economy had collapsed. And there were no jobs. I had to move in with my folks for a little bit and got a part time job. I saw the announcement for the Godzilla license being obtained by IDW.
Before that announcement, I remember talking to Chris Mowry at the time, who was a writer and graphic designer. He was doing work on the Transformers license at the time, and I was talking to him and about like, oh, yeah, you know, hopefully, we [IDW] get the Godzilla license and then we can make a Godzilla comic! And at the time, Chris had since said he was having a bite. He’s on a bite of knuckle, biting his tongue rather, because they were working on the license, and he just couldn’t tell me. But um, when they got the license, and my, my buddy, Chris Mirjahangir, whom you all might know from Toho Kingdom actually called me and was “NOW you’re going to tell me?!” And I was like “Tell you what?!”, what, what are you talking about? And that was how I found out about the license.
I immediately ran back home. I was checking the mail or something. I jumped on my computer and emailed Chris Mowry (There’s a few Chrises in this story!) I was like, hey, Chris, remember me? Remember how big of a Godzilla fan I am? Wink wink. He went “Man, I’m at New York Comic Con, I’ll call you when I get home. From that point, bring me on as a cover artist. And that was when we did the stomping the Godzilla stomping cover promotion. And, and it was a perfect gig for me because it was a big promotional campaign. I wasn’t really a name, quote unquote, at the time, but they knew that I was a big fan who would probably work for cheap, but also that I could get it done.
JL: I vividly remember this. It was Godzilla’s foot crushing select comic book shops!
MF: Initially, it was going to be about 20 stores. And they said, “You’ve got about two and a half weeks to do this.” And I thought, “You know what? I’ll do the foot. And I’ll swap out the stores. I can get this done.” Then they were like, okay, Matt, we have closer to 70 stores now. What I wound up doing was pretty great. I called up just about every professional artist I knew; trying to get as many as I could. And it was just a “Okay, hey, guys, I need your help with this.” And I created a group chat for people, or I created an email chain for everybody. I essentially became a project manager at that point. I just went okay everybody, when you’re done with your lines, put it in this folder. And then colorists, this is your list, you get it from that folder, and you color it and so on. It turns out that working really, really hard sometimes does sometimes net you some goodwill with the company you’re working with!
JL: You’ve worked on Transformers and Godzilla, two iconic and huge franchises. As an illustrator, going back between robots and kaiju — they are vastly different characters in terms of layout, overall aesthetics, and bodily structure. What are some other stark differences in drawing them and bringing them to life through the comics medium?
MF: Ultimately, everything kind of goes through the same wiring when you’re drawing, but there are definitely certain subjects that you’re going to be more comfortable with than others. I think that monsters are definitely my comfort zone, my sweet spot, just because they’re so they’re very visceral, they’re very fun to draw, they have all this crap coming off of them. And you don’t have to worry too much about anatomy.
Robots are fun to start drawing, and they’re fun to finish drawing. But the middle part is so difficult because you have to keep track of their joints and their paneling. For example, a robot crossing its arms is so difficult to draw, especially a Transformer, because those characters often have these big boxy limbs. They’re not going to cross their arms the way a person does because they don’t fold like that. So, I remember, I think it was Don Figueroa who used to do Transformers books, and he would draw the Transformers with their arms folded on top of each other, extending outwards. I remember that was a really interesting way to kind of reinterpret that. So, you have to have low level engineering skills in order to make and illustrate a robot. (laughs)
That’s why I prefer Beast Wars; they’re my favorite incarnation of Transformers. I get the best of both! I get the cool dynamism of a robot, but it’s got animal stuff on it. I can also kind of cheat a little bit, and I don’t have to, you know, pay that close attention to it. But it’s also depending on the robot, too, An Evangelion Eva Unit or something are going to be inherently a little easier to draw, because they have curvier smoother lines; every line is straight. Every line needs a ruler.
JL: As we’ve covered, you’ve done work for United States-based corporations and publishers. You’ve also done work for Japanese publishers, such as Tsuburaya Productions in collaboration on their Redman comics and media. What are some of the biggest differences across oceans in working with these companies?
MF: I think that’s a good question. I’d say the one of the biggest differences is there’s not a lot of pomp and circumstance when working with American companies; you will sometimes get a nice, very formal letter or formal invitation. But generally speaking, American companies tend to be a lot less formal, they tend to be a lot more along the lines of “Hey, you want to work? You want to do this. You want to do a thing? For example, literally in the last couple of emails, job offers I’ve gotten were like, hey, we’d love for you to do Gorgo. Sometimes there’ll be a little more to it than that. When I got invited to do Arrow Video’s Gamera: The Complete Collection, it was very much a “Hey, we really like your stuff. We’re wondering if you were available, we’re working on a Gamera Blu-Ray release and would love to have you aboard.
On the Japanese side of things, it’s all formality. And it’s very polite. There’s more social graces that go into it. And that’s part of their culture as well. I mean, it’s part of our culture to be much more casual about stuff, I think. I even got a rejection at one point that was so polite. I made a proposal for a particular project I can’t talk about. But I made a proposal. And the letter back I got wasn’t an American response, such as “We’re not really going in that direction.”, or “We decided we’re not going to do this. Sorry. But thanks.” The Japanese response was, something along the lines of “We’re very sorry, we discussed it internally. And we decided that this was not the direction we were going to go in. This is not a reflection on you, or your artistic abilities, or how would we feel about you as a company, we very much want to keep working with you.” There was all these layers to it. And in a way I really appreciated the acknowledgement of protecting my feelings. Sometimes with American stuff, it can be very ambiguous. And with Japanese stuff, they can be ambiguous too. But it’s it just depends on the circumstance. But that’s the biggest difference other than that. It’s pretty much the same; stuff goes through approvals. Oh, we need to change this, or we need to change that. Because this is not on model or oh, yeah, you know, this project, you can go off model, but this project, can you stay on model. A lot of that’s the same. But yeah, I think it’s the formalities and the general tone is different.
JL: Do they usually send a fluent English speaker? Or is there some translation that goes back and forth when you’re getting notes back while working directly on Japanese projects?
There’s almost always a translator. Well, it’s also dependent on the situation too, but in my experience, it’ll go through either a person in the company who speaks English fluently, or they’ll have somebody who translates. From the get-go, there has to be a translator in the mix at some point. I do a lot of my publishing work in Japan through Phase Six; they are professional translators and they’re all bilinguals. Literally everybody in the company can speak some degree of English. They are a huge help, and they mostly pass notes and stuff like that in between the licensors and me.
JL: STATE OF THE MONSTERS is your original comic book project that is in development. What can you tell Kaiju United about that?
MF: State of the Monsters is me kind of swinging for the fences with an original story. I’ve done some original stuff before, but this one’s the big swing. It’s a story set in Texas, of course, because I live there, and I took some inspiration from real life events here, like many stories. Back in 2021, there was this big freeze that hit Texas. And for those of you who don’t know, and a lot of northern states kind of scoffed at the numbers. But the thing is, is that a lot of people don’t know that Texas does not have the infrastructure to deal with a huge statewide freeze. I mean, we were down to the minute of the entire power grid being disabled for months; it got really bad. And I think, last I heard, around 300 people died, just freezing to death in their homes. Of course, you know, there’s a lot more to that that I could go into, but I don’t you know, it’s a lot of political stuff and that can get very dry.
So, the short version is, if a Kaiju were to attack Texas, the power grid would be the first thing to go down. And that’s not coming back. Then, it becomes a domino chain. I started thinking about that. And I was already kind of kicking around some other ideas of like, well, what if I did this? And what if I did that? The big thing that I kept coming back to was that all this stuff is kind of Texas in its theming. It’s all kind of flavored around Texas. So eventually, that got compiled into this one idea. Recently, I finished the script for the first issue. The idea is that it is 15 years after Kaiju started showing up in Texas, and we have been effectively cut off. This might be a little on the nose, but the federal government built a wall around Texas. The kaiju are kept in and contained, but the people that still live in Texas are on their own,
Fast forward over a decade: What does that society look like? What are people like in this little micro country, this microenvironment? I think it’s important to remember though, that Texas is really big. You can put the entire state of Connecticut over Houston. Or, for you kaiju fans, the entirety of Japan can fit inside Texas. That’s enough room for a bunch of monsters to run around. We’re hoping to launch a Kickstarter for it if not this year, maybe next year. It’s a lot of work, especially for the standards I’m holding myself to here for this one. I want this to look really good and to read like a movie and be literally bigger than most comics. The pages will be bigger. We’re hoping to use Kickstarter, I’ve seen many independent comics get their funding on there and be successful.
JL: Kaiju comics are especially popular and successful on Kickstarter.
MF: I got Stomped recently, and I really enjoyed that. I thought that was really well done.
JL: Territory is really nice too. You should read that one.
MF: I’m familiar with it and it’s on my list! I’ve heard really good things. They actually asked me to do a cover for an issue of Territory. I wasn’t thinking I wasn’t going to be able to do it. And now I’m kind of looking at my schedule and I’m like, maybe I can… but anyway, I but I need to read it first. I would like to read it first before I actually drew for it.
But anyway, there’s a lot of familiar elements from kaiju tropes at play, but I’m hoping the way they are put together for State of the Monsters is fresh and unique. I’m gonna quote a friend of mine. They had a quote for a project they were working on called, they said, it’s a broken-hearted love letter to Texas. I feel like that’s very accurate for SOTM as well, because a lot of Texans love Texas, because we grew up here. But a lot of us are also kind of resentful of Texas, resentful of having to be here and being stuck here in a lot of ways. Texas is a is an extremely diverse state. We have a lot of different kinds of people in different communities. But there’s a lot of problems here and there are specific reasons why those problems exist that aren’t getting addressed.
However, when it comes to politics in my work, I really truly try not to be didactic, and I try not to be on a soapbox and because then you’re just grinding your story to a halt so you can yell at the at the audience. And I feel like the only one who gets away with that is Star Trek. And it’s really hard for other stories to get away with that. I mean, you have X Men, Superman, and other classic comics too. Superman Smashes the Klan is one of my favorite comics I’ve ever read. And it’s perfect political allegory. It’s so good. But with my project, it’s all about that balance. I want to say something, but I also want it to entertain and delight readers. You have to find that perfect middle ground in storytelling.
JL: The community of G-Fans has followed you for a very, very long time. I know that my first interaction with you was at my first G-FEST when I was fourteen years old. Now I’m twenty-five. I know there’s a lot of cynicism thrown at the fandom frequently, but we’d like to dispel that at KU. What is your favorite part of this community? What nice things can you say about the fandom?
MF: Honestly, whenever I see people grousing about the kaiju community, I see that and I think, man, I must be really lucky. Because a lot of my interactions have been really positive. Some of my lifelong best friends are in this community. And I think it really is a question of who you choose to give the gift of your time and the gift of your attention to.
And I feel like that’s common in a lot of communities. It’s one of the reasons why I just I don’t have any interest in talking about Star Wars. It’s not to say I’m not fond of Star Wars. I’m just very ambivalent. That one quote I think of is “Nobody hates ____ more than fans of ____”. That can be applied to any fandom.
Regarding the Godzilla and kaiju community, I think it’s a very small, very tight knit community. I think a lot of us have known each other for a long time… what G fest did we meet at? Which one was that?
JL: 2012!
MF: Oh, my God. That’s more than 10 years ago. But that’s cool, though! That’s a really nice. I remember that was a good year for many of us.
JL: So wild that many of us are decade-plus veterans of one convention.
MF: Exactly, and on that note, I think a good example of the community is G-FEST itself. Yeah, there have been some dust ups with the management of G-FEST. And, you know, that’s not really a secret; there have been some issues with getting artists into the show in recent years. I’m one of the only artists left who goes to G-FEST simply because I am I have the body of work to be able to do it. But again, it’s a whole rabbit hole we don’t have to go into, but my point is, the community of G-FEST is really strong. And most of the people I meet there are very cool, very sweet, and very tight knit.
I remember I took Kaston to her first G Fest in 2022. That was the first year they had it back after the pandemic. Throughout the Hyatt, we were walking the hallways and people were saying hi and stuff left and right. I’m just used to it. Because you know, I’ve been doing it for over 10 years. Kaston was like, it’s a family reunion or your class meetup! It’s very cute. I think that people generally, when you meet them in person, are very polite. I’ve noticed that the people who are cool are indeed cool, and the people who are dicks are just going to be looking at their feet; they’re not going to start anything.
There was this one person in the fandom, that I had to kind of coax to come into G-FEST. I felt really, really bad. And that’s not to say that people don’t have bad experiences — there are definitely stories. You get enough of a Venn diagram of humanity together, you’re gonna have some bad interactions. But I remembered this one person was really nervous about going because they had had some problems with some other people online. And they were like, well, I don’t want to go and have them start something or have them do this or that. And I told them, that’s not gonna happen. I promise. Let’s be clear about something, I’m also in a position of privilege to be able to say that. I’ve been going to G-FESTs even before I was working officially on Godzilla stuff, I still had a bit of a status before the official deals because people knew me from online, plus, I’m a white dude. I have it a lot easier than a ton of different demographics even without that big community status.
I am, in a lot of ways, kind of protective of this of this fandom, as well. Because sometimes people are a little mean and cynical — they paint the whole fandom with the same brush. And I’m like, there’s some of the coolest people I know in this community. It’s one of the reasons why I desperately want there to be a G-FEST Artist Alley again, because some of those people are super cool. And I never get to see them outside of conventions. I’m very fortunate that I have this really cool support network. And it’s really cool. I have really cool fans who are really sweet and supportive and have definitely made me cry on a few occasions.
JL: We think the same. I too, am very protective of this community, and truly value the incredible and wonderful people that inhabit it. I think that’s a good lesson to take away: your time is valuable, and you should let in people that are worthy of taking up that time.
JL, CONT: We’re nearing the end! Few more questions.
On a deeper, philosophical level, what does Godzilla/Kaiju/Toku mean to you?
MF: Godzilla, kaiju, all of that stuff, I think it’s very malleable. But I was thinking about some of the direct appeal that some of this stuff has. It’s something I was talking about with Kaston recently; I think I think there’s this kind of core appeal that kids have growing up with Godzilla specifically, or with kaiju. But you know, they always get exposed to Godzilla first. It’s the idea of being able to do whatever you want. There’s a lot of appeal to being Godzilla, you know, and especially when you’re a kid, and it’s you’re watching the actors in the suits, it’s a lot easier to put yourself in the position of Godzilla, destroying miniatures and stuff. As a kid, your suspension of disbelief is also a lot broader.
I think that there’s a direct visceral connection to basically being able to do whatever you want. And that brings out some of the best and some of the worst in the fandom. Because, you know, some of the negative aspects of that is it has this very toxically masculine approach of well, I’m Godzilla, I can do whatever I want, I can hurt people, and nothing, nobody can stop me. And then I think the reverse of that is well, I’m Godzilla, you can’t hurt me, and you can’t hurt the people I care about. It becomes this protective thing. I think that’s kind of how it starts for fans.
Expanding from that, there’s actually a line from Jurassic World that I actually think is a really good one; I think it applies. It goes “They’re there to remind us how small we really are.” As a narrative device, these creatures are there to remind us that, oh, we don’t always have control over what’s going to happen. We’re dealing with that culturally, right now, in a lot of ways, you know, there’s a lot of really bad stuff happening. And it’s really, it’s easy to feel totally powerless. What I think is important with the movies and what the narratives is that it’s important to look at the human characters and see what they are doing to solve this problem, like Godzilla: Minus One! Godzilla -1.0 is a great example of that. It’s just normal people banding together, and through that, they found a really creative way to stop Godzilla. Humans are really adaptable. We’re small, but we are adaptable. And we are capable of doing great things. But there’s just there’s always going to be roadblocks and you know, we’ll overcome those together.
JL: What a nice answer. I think it really speaks to all of us.
Lastly, Matt, what are you up to next? Where can we find you?
MF: Keep an eye on Ghost x Ghost’s shirts. That’s one thing I will say. They do have a couple of my shirts still available for purchase, but certain shirt drops are very limited. We just did the Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire shirts with Godzilla Evolved on it. That was really fun. I really enjoyed doing that. It was really cool. Seeing what Godzilla was gonna look like months before anybody else did… that was really fun! In addition to that, you can find me on my main website, mattfrankart.net as well.
I have a digital store now, too! It’s mattfrankart.bigcartel.com! I got a bunch of prints up there. I’ve got originals. I’m gonna start posting stuff from my personal collection. If you can’t come to a convention to see me, you can always support me there. I’ve got my Patreon account as well. I try to I try to update that as regularly as I can. It’s sometimes very hard because a lot of the work I do is under contract and under NDA, but I try to post State of the Monsters updates and I try to use it as a sounding board for like, what do you guys want to see me do next for prints and stuff. It’s like five bucks a month or something close to that. I’m going to try to make things made a little more worth people’s while in 2024! Also, on the main website, there’s a links section where you can find just about everything I’m on!
JL: Thank you, Matt, for sitting down with Kaiju United.
MF: Thank you! I was very excited to sit down with you guys!
