If you like Kill All Monsters, try Robot God Akamatsu

I consider Robot God Akamatsu a sibling comic to Kill All Monsters. Both writer James Biggie and artist Frankie B. Washington have been incredibly supportive of KAM since our webcomic phase, and have an awesome comic themselves in RGA. You can read it online, but it's also available now in print and you should totally try it out. My print copy's moving towards the top of my reading pile and I can't wait to get to it.

Kill All Monsters art and reviews

Three things: starting with this awesome pin-up by my good friend Gavin Spence. I love how he even worked in the zipatone effect. Thanks, Gav!

Then there's this picture that Robot God Akamatsu's writer James Biggie posted with evidence of his son's very discerning taste in literature.



And finally, I don't know I forgot to link to this earlier, but fellow Robot 6er JK Parkin very nicely talked about Kill All Monsters in our Report Card column after the graphic novel hit stores last month. I've known JK a long time and we have really similar tastes in comics, so it makes me especially happy that he digs KAM.

He writes, "May and Copland have engaged in some pretty cool world-building, taking the basic idea and running with it until they have something special that goes way beyond what you might expect from 'another giant monster title.'" Thanks so much, JK!

Draw All Monsters | Frankie B. Washington and Daniel Mead

Frankie B. Washington (Robot God Akamatsu) went and colored that RGA/KAM piece he did a while back. It's gorgeous and available as a print from Frankie's DeviantArt page.

Also on DeviantArt is this great piece by Daniel Mead. I didn't realize how excited I would be to see Dressen's SkullBot standing next to classic giants from Mazinger Z and Ghostbusters. It's the tenth in a series of giant-related pieces, so check out Mead's gallery for the rest.



He also did a SkullBot solo...



...and one of Spencer's LionBot too.



Really cool work by both of these guys!

More love for Kill All Monsters

A couple of the biggest supporters of Kill All Monsters are James Biggie and Frankie B. Washington, creators of the amazing, kaiju-themed webcomic Robot God Akamatsu. You may remember the awesome print James created for us (which is one of the Kickstarter reward levels, just sayin') and be forgiven for thinking that he's the artist on RGA. As talented a visual artist as he is though, James actually writes the webcomic and Frankie draws it. And now Frankie's done his own, stunning version of what an RGA/KAM crossover (A-KAM-atsu!) would look like. Check out RGA and also be sure to like their Facebook page, a one-stop shop for keeping up with giant monsters and robots news.

Since I mentioned the Kickstarter, the quick update is that as I'm writing this we just passed $6,000.  That's so far beyond my initial hopes for the campaign that I can't even remember them. A few people have been nice enough to mention the Kickstarter, including Tom Spurgeon at The Comics Reporter, the folks behind the Outré anthology, and Crimson Engine, so thanks to all of those people.

There've also been some more reviews, starting with my Robot 6 compadre Corey Blake talking about KAM in our What Are You Reading? feature. "After the novelty buzz of the concept wears off," he writes, "you're actually left with a world and people that you want to spend time with and learn more about. There's some mystery, some intrigue, some questioned motives, some social commentary, all lightly peppered throughout to keep the story chugging along even while the oversized slugfest takes a break."

My pal Siskoid at the indispensable Siskoid's Blog of Geekery also had an advance look at KAM and praises the team's diversity (something very important to me) as well as Jason's loose style. "The material (robots) might have called for very technical drawings, but Copland's work has a sketchiness to it that trades technical accuracy for energy, which I think is really the way to go." Jason had been wanting to loosen up his style for a while and debated about whether or not Kill All Monsters was the time to do that, but I totally agree with him and Siskoid about its being perfect for this series. It gives everything a grittiness that makes the world real.

The last review was from David Goodman at Geekadelphia. He wasn't familiar with KAM until he heard about it on Twitter, so it's fun to hear from someone who's coming at it totally new. "Yes, a few pages in I had distinct visions of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and wasn’t sure what I had gotten into. But once I really got into the tale May and Copland were telling, you realize that Kill All Monsters is science fiction storytelling at it’s best. You have robots the size of buildings beating the snot out of giant monsters in what’s left of Paris, while at the same time you get to experience a very human story of survival. Add in a conspiracy theory or two, some tensions among the pilots and dynamic art that is just a joy to look at and you have a prime example of why webcomics are so great."

Thanks to Corey, Siskoid, and David for the very nice comments!

Finally, a couple of interviews: Russ Burlingame from ComicBook.Com interviewed Jason about the comic, Kickstarter, Jason's influences...lots of stuff. It's a great, comprehensive interview and I even learned some new things about Jason myself.

And I got to talk to my friend and colleague Tim O'Shea for his "Talking Comics with Tim" column at Robot 6. Everyone at Robot 6 feels weird when we talk about Kill All Monsters - and no one more than me - so it's especially nice of Tim to go for it anyway. Check it out; Tim always asks fun and interesting  questions.

James Biggie's Kill All Monsters! print

Today would be where we talked about Scrooge's nephew in the Teen Titans #13 version of A Christmas Carol, if the comic actually included that character. Since it doesn't, I'll use the break to show you this awesome poster James Biggie made for Kill All Monsters!.

James writes Robot God Akamatsu, an awesome comic that also happens to feature giant robots slugging it out with giant monsters. Though Frankie B. Washington draws RGA, James is a talented artist and designer his own self as you can see. He's given us permission to use the poster as a Kickstarter reward once we get that up and running, so you'll soon have the opportunity to own one of these for yourself.

Thanks again, James!