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Special Graphix Books
Bruce asked me what I wanted at G-FEST'99 and I told him to look for books. Since I liked my GvD Special Graphix so much, I wanted King Ghidorah and MechaGodzilla of that series. Instead, he managed to get ALL the Godzilla movie books!
These thorough books average 80 pages and follow a basic format: half of the pages are color and half black & white. While the quality and extent vary, the color pictures are film stories, monster bios & features, and production pictures. The black & white pages include more production pictures, collectibles, battle maps, interviews, concept drawings, and sections on past movies.
Godzilla vs Biollante (1989)
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The first Special Graphix book, they kept the book issues consistent over 6 years. It answers how Biollante moved (she had rollers) and showed models for a swimming Godzilla and Biollante's rose form. A history of Godzilla's suits and the military vehicles, from old maser tanks to the SY-3 (from Destroy All Monsters) to Atragon are in the latter half of the book. I still can't get over how young Miki looks. The book reminded me one of my favorite "people scenes": when the psychic children draw what they've been dreaming about! |
Godzilla vs King Ghidorah (1991)
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This book starts off with a great pic of the monsters in front of the Tokyo Metro Govt Tower (which I consider the best model in the series). I also like the many concept drawings for MechaGhidorah (my favorite mecha), Mother (the UFO), and even the Dorats(!). The GvKG "story map" isn't great, but I was pleased to find detailed maps for G'54 and G'84. Looking back, there's a nice homage to the original Ghidorah and the "Toho Mechanic Monster" (like MechaniKong).Too bad I can't read Japanese: buried in there must be the answer to those crazy time-travel paradoxes. |
Godzilla vs Mothra (1992)
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Not my favorite Heisei movie, I'm surprised how much I like this issue. Great pics of the Bato-Goji design, which is my favorite Godzilla suit. There are also excellent rampage maps and diagrams of those maser-Apache-things. An intriguing pic was the Cosmos twins (one would later play Meru) sitting next to an oversize clock and gin bottle, an odd contrast to miniaturized skycrapers. In all my Japanese books, there are English titles like "Photo Story", "Open Set", etc. In one section, they show the puppets used to portray the monsters heads, entitled "Guignol", a French word for puppet! |
Godzilla vs MechaGodzilla (1993)
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Terrific cover, I love the advance poster to this movie. Many fans' favorite movie, this book does not disappoint; detailed maps, extensive collectibles, and terrific pictures of all four monsters. There were also references to the predecessors: Minya, Rodan, and MechaGodzilla (I still like the 70s MG design better). Looking at the concept drawings, it looks like MG was meant to seperate into 3 components: a tank from the legs, Garuda, and a plane with the fingers as cannons (helps explain what's on the poster). One thing the book didn't show was the location MG's control room. |
Godzilla vs SpaceGodzilla (1994)
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SpaceGodzilla is quite a monster and he looks great in this book. Other than that, this is not the best Special Graphix book. No rampage map and there's not too many impressive pics. Between the island landscape, the asteroids, and the plastic crystals, there's just not a whole lot to work with. The less said about Mogera the better, even his concept drawings looked bad. Other than the covers, this is the only book I scanned from for this web page. Can you guess where? |
See my
reviews of the above movies.Go Back to the
Book Collection Page