Preview Pages and Q&A with GODZILLA: ESCAPE THE DEADZONE’s Ethan S. Parker & Griffin Sheridan

"What’s going on inside the Deadzone?! Find out in the second book of the KAI-SEI ERA, IDW’s new connected Godzilla universe!

There are stories of a man. Or rather…a half kaiju, half man…who travels freely throughout the Deadzone. Some say he can even kill a kaiju. Some say…he’s not the only of his kind."

Having read the first issue of Godzilla: Escape the Deadzone, I was instantly hooked on this mysterious new world from writing duo Griffin Sheridan and Ethan S. Parker, along with artist Pablo Tunica, letterer Nathan Widick, and editor Jake Williams. In our latest Q&A, I caught up with Sheridan and Parker to learn more about the birth of this new series, their love of Godzilla, and more. We also have preview pages you can read right now!

Thanks so much for taking the time to talk with us! Can you share with our readers what first got you into Godzilla growing up? Also, what's your favorite Godzilla film?

ESP: Funny enough, I’ve always had a phobia of anything giant-sized. Big stuff just freaks me out, and there’s nothing bigger or scarier than the King of the Monsters. As a kid I was mesmerized by the scale and the horror of the 1998 film, and even more so as a teenager during the 2014 film. For me, though, Godzilla Minus One is just as good as it gets. The human drama, the visceral action… The absolute best.

GS: What isn’t there to like about Godzilla as a child? A giant fire-breathing lizard monster? Cable re-runs of Emmerich’s Zilla could not come frequently enough. From there was the discovery of the character’s legacy, and the original film, which continues to enthrall me to this day. The multitudes contained in that initial work only become clearer the longer we look at it. But a favorite? F*ck it, Final Wars.

This series is the second entry in IDW's new Kai-Sei Era. How did this project come together and what was the process like for pitching this story? Is this something Toho had to approve?

ESP: Our wonderful editor Jake Williams is the engine behind this thing. He came to us at San Diego Comic-Con and laid out his plan for expanding Godzilla’s universe, including a wasteland full of kaiju. We pitched him a million different concepts before we settled on our core group of characters, and many of those other fun ideas will be seen in later issues as we still ended up finding them a home in the Deadzone. Toho has given the official seal of approval on all these new additions to the Godzilla mythos, and they’re delightfully supportive when it comes to greenlighting the craziest and most exciting concepts.

GS: Ethan and I are just about some of the luckiest fellas in the business coming into the great collaboration we have with Jake, IDW, and Toho. While we did pitch numerous ideas for the series, finding all the right ideas actually came very naturally once we all got to talking. The excitement around the entire Kai-Sei universe is palpable, even within the creative teams.

The story introduces us to a human-Kaiju hybrid. What was the process for developing this character and why are you excited for Godzilla fans to meet the Deadzone's "Wanderer"?

ESP: It became evident early in our discussions about this book that our Mad Max-esque world needed a Max, or a “Man with No Name” style character who could go toe-to-toe with the most frightening creatures the Deadzone has to offer. He’s a vicious fighter with a mysterious past, but what’s really exciting about him is his dual-nature. He knows what it’s like to survive as a human in a world of monsters, but he also has this other side to him that is a rageful beast. He walks between those worlds, and it makes him unpredictable. And badass, obviously.

GS: Deciding the specifics of the hybrid, and how we can weave that into Wanderer’s backstory and (potential) abilities, was quite a bit of fun as well. And then seeing Pablo find the character’s visual so quickly was the first sign that we were really on the right track with him. Wanderer is just the tip of the iceberg though. There are so many weird, disgusting, vicious, potentially lovable things that are lurking in the Deadzone.

I’m also really loving the concept of this quarantined Deadzone, especially since it’s full of dangers beyond the usual massive Kaiju. Can you give our readers some of the backstory behind the existence of the Deadzone?

ESP: Without spilling the beans entirely, there was a sort of “shot heard ‘round the world” when the kaiju made first contact with humanity. They made their big splash, and absolutely devastated massive swaths of civilization. Seattle, Washington took the brunt of it, and what was left behind was this crater full of Kai-Sei energy that warped and changed every living thing that remained. There are monsters, of course, but you also never know what else you’ll find there.

GS: Perhaps one of the saddest realities of this book is that there are now entire generations being born in the Deadzone, who don’t know about the “outside world.” So even the inhabitants of this hellspace are beginning to forget just quite how it came to be… just as I seem to be doing right now. (Sorry!)

I’d love to hear more about your collaboration with Pablo Tunica. Pablo's art style is perfect for bringing this strange world to life. How has it been working with him?

ESP: Pablo is, really and truly, an absolute dream artist to collaborate with. Not only does he bring the grossest and most lovable sides of the Deadzone to life with unbelievable skill, but his style of cartooning is so beautifully expressive that every character on the page absolutely drips with tangible emotion. Working with him is one of those amazing scenarios where you can hand him all of your most insane ideas in a script, and have full faith that he will elevate the material beyond what you imagined. Plus, the man can design a monster that stands among the most iconic of all time, and that is just bonkers.

GS: We seem to be so in-sync with Pablo about the atmosphere of this world, the tone of the story, and the personalities of these characters. To be aligned on all of that is the sign of a really special collaboration, which is what I think we have here. Pablo renders everything with so much life and texture, I don’t think folks are ready for what he is doing in this book.

Without giving too much away, can you give our readers a tease of what’s coming in the issues beyond the first?

ESP: Once we get acquainted with our cast of characters, we go on a journey with them that takes us on a tour of the most bizarre places and people in the wasteland. As the mysteries of the Deadzone and the Wanderer are unraveled, there will not only be the appearance of some familiar monstrous faces, but some new characters that you NEVER thought you’d see in a Godzilla story.

GS: There are a couple characters that are really introduced in issue #2 that Ethan and I are just over-the-moon about, I feel like we could write them for hundreds of issues. And just like The Wanderer, they blow the doors open on the kaiju mythos of the Kai-Sei Universe. We can't wait for you to meet them.

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"What’s going on inside the Deadzone?! Find out in the second book of the KAI-SEI ERA, IDW’s new connected Godzilla universe!

Inside the new IDW Godzilla universe, there exists a mystery larger than any other…what is the Deadzone? Inhabitants of this new world know the Deadzone to be a walled-off portion of the Pacific Northwest, sequestered after the most disastrous Godzilla attack the country has ever faced. The government would have its citizens believe that nothing is still alive inside the Deadzone…but do you believe that?

There are stories of a man. Or rather…a half kaiju, half man…who travels freely throughout the Deadzone. Some say he can even kill a kaiju. Some say…he’s not the only of his kind.

Journey into this mysterious new world in Godzilla: Escape the Deadzone with the Eisner-nominated writing duo Griffin Sheridan and Ethan S. Parker (Kill Your Darlings) and fan-favorite artist Pablo Tunica (TMNT/Ghostbusters 2, Sea Serpent’s Heir)."

Godzilla: Escape the Deadzone #1 will be released on August 6th by IDW Publishing. June 30th is the pre-order cutoff for comic book shops, so hit up your local comic book shop before then if you'd like to reserve a copy.