Boston is “such a big part of the identity of the country—so it was an easy choice for Godzilla’s tour of the nation. Plus, it’s home to some of the finest comic book artists on the planet.”
There’s a real sense of confusion, horror, and excitement when Godzilla first shows up in your life.
Whether it is towering over a city on a movie screen, crashing through a building on the cover of a comic, or battling King Ghidorah in lo-fi black and white, the experience is life changing. Immediately, you’re able to imagine what it might be like if the king of all monsters stomped through your hometown.
Fast forward 70 years from Godzilla’s debut, and creators like Jesse Lonergan, Steve Orlando, Hayden Sherman, Matt Emmons, and Hanna Cha are living that remarkable nightmarish dream.
Earlier this year, the massive icon smashed through Chicago and Los Angeles as part of the Godzilla vs. America anthology series by IDW and Toho International. Similar to other installments, Godzilla vs. Boston will feature several stories from creators who have called this region home when it hits shelves on July 30.
Why comic book creators are bringing Godzilla to Massachusetts
Announcing the project, IDW Editor Jake Williams and Special Projects Editorial Assistant Nicolas Niño said they chose Boston simply because “it’s cool.”
“We wanted Godzilla’s tour to encompass as many facets of the US as possible,” Williams said. “It started in the Midwest, went to the west coast, and now Godzilla’s heading east to rampage through one of this country’s oldest cities. That’s what makes Boston so special—it’s a city with a long history. It’s a city that stood on the front lines of many pivotal moments in this country’s lifetime. Like Chicago and Los Angeles, it’s such a big part of the identity of the country—so it was an easy choice for Godzilla’s tour of the nation. Plus, it’s home to some of the finest comic book artists on the planet.”
Two of those creators, writer Steve Orlando, who currently lives in Jamaica Plain, and writer and artist Jesse Lonergan, who grew up in Billerica, spoke to the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism about working alongside the monstrous kaiju, how they first met Godzilla, and why Boston needs to be destroyed.
Lonergan said he’s worked with editors Williams and Niño for a few years now on characters like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and several covers for IDW. But when they reached out to him, he didn’t think he was “really Boston enough to be the writer for it.”
“I also kind of think of Boston as the capital of New England, and I feel like I can’t escape my New England-ness—and honestly, why would I want to?” Lonergan said. “Then I had this idea for a story and pitched it to [Williams and Niño], and they said yes.”
From discovering Godzilla to luring the legend to Boston
Lonergan first discovered Godzilla on TV in the 1980s. While he mostly grew up in Vermont, his dad’s family lives in Mass, and some of his earliest Boston memories include visiting his aunt in Billerica and making the drive to the city for Sox games. At home, he’d watch Godzilla movies on Sunday afternoons on WNNE, Channel 31, which served the Burlington area.
“Then in college I saw ‘Godzilla 2000: Millennium’ in the theater and absolutely loved it,” Lonergan recalled. “I just felt pure joy watching it, and I began to hunt down Godzilla movies after that. It was more of a challenge then when VHS was still king.”
He continued: “I lived in the area starting in my mid twenties and for all of my thirties, so Boston is this place I know pretty well, and in my head there was just one story: Godzilla fights another kaiju and destroys all these places I know. To me, the most New England animal is a lobster, so Godzilla fought a giant lobster, and it all sort of just logically flowed from there.”
Speaking from the place where he creates, Lonergan said that he is excited to see how others use the Boston backdrop in the other stories when the issue drops.
“I kind of did a deep dive on the locations and tried to get as much as I could in,” he said. “I didn’t get everything because I only had 10 pages, but I got a lot in there. … I love Boston. The personality of the people just feels like home to me. I miss it a lot.”
Interpolating Mocha Dick and the Gorilla Whale
When writer Steve Orlando moved to Boston from upstate New York in 2018, he was amazed by the area’s deep history. In planning for Godzilla vs. Boston, he said he wanted to play on that idea for his story with artist Matt Emmons.
“Eddie Izzard has a joke: Europe, it’s where the history comes from. In a way, I’d say the same about Boston—it’s not a huge city by land area, but its legacy is enormous. It’s fundamental. And this led me to look deeper into its history,” Orlando said. He got specific: “I have to recognize the Boston Crusaders and their recent drum corps show, ‘White Whale,’ which I saw at the Drum Corps International finals.
“This sparked a whaling history interest in me. ‘Godzilla’ can mean ‘Gorilla Whale,’ so Matt and I decided to celebrate the Hub’s history with whaling and as a maritime town and set our story in the 1800s … where a survivor of Moby Dick (or Mocha Dick, if you want the historical version) is telling his tale of terror on the tides, and another sailor recalls a monster even more terrible than the great white whale—the Gorilla Whale.”
A fan since childhood, Orlando said he recalls watching the original Godzilla with his family, collecting the toys, and pausing anytime the monster flashed on daytime TV: “I’ve long followed Godzilla, and am a big fan of Ghidorah and Biollante as well. As a kid and teen, I didn’t know the specifics of the different eras, etc. As an adult, I’ve dug in deeper and loved it. In fact, looking into the origins of the Godzilla name directly led to this story.”
Orlando continued: “I know it’s a cliche, but this Godzilla short has been a dream gig. Working with Matt Emmons, who I consider to be a visionary creator, has been something I’ve wanted to do for years. Doing an ode to [Herman] Melville has been a dream for almost as long. This truly is a moment in time for me as a creator, I’m very lucky for it to have all come together—and under Matt’s hand, it’s going to be one of the most gorgeous Godzilla stories ever put to the page.”
Steve Orlando is currently working on several projects including “Astonishing Avengers” for Marvel, and others for Image and DC Comics. Jesse Lonergan’s solo book “Drome” is coming out Aug. 19 on First Second Books.
