Kaijumax Vol. 1

Kaijumax #1

by Zander Cannon

THE COMPLETE SEASON ONE! On a remote island in the South Pacific lies KAIJUMAX, a maximum security prison for giant monsters. Follow doting father Electrogor as he stands up to the cruel space-superhero warden! See corrupt guard Gupta manage his illicit uranium-dealing empire and pay off his gambling debts to the Queen of the Moon! Watch Mecha-Zon battle his own programming when the monster he was created to destroy shows up on the pound! These stories and more will assault you from every angle in the cesspool of corruption that is KAIJUMAX.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Science Fiction, Fiction, Monsters, Crime, Fantasy

kindle_edition

First published February 24, 2016

About the author

Alexander Cannon is an American cartoonist, known for his work on books such as Top 10, Smax and Kaijumax.

Reviews

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

A unique concept here. This story is a prison story (think OZ) combined with a Kaiju story. (Kaiju are giant monsters, like Godzilla and Mothra and the like.

It's a cool idea. And well-executed. The characters come across really well, and there are a lot of clever things to enjoy here, even for someone like me who isn't a huge Kaiju fan. (I really only know the term because I have a friend who is into it.)

What's more, there's some real emotion tied up in this story. A really startling amount, considering the cartoonish look of the book, with big primary-color monsters. This book managed to play on some emotions really well...

Here's the problem. I didn't necessarily like the emotions it evoked. There's some really dark stuff in here, of the sort that you might expect from a gritty prison story.

Intelectually, I really appreciated what's been done here. But I didn't really enjoy it. A lot of this is probably because I'm not a big fan of the two genres being mashed up here. (I picked up this book because I'm a fan of Zander Cannon.)

So how do you rank a book like that? Original, well-executed, evocative.... but I didn't enjoy it.

Not knowing what else I should do, I'm giving this a conflicted 4 stars.

But the key is, if you *do* like either of these two genres, odds are you'll really enjoy the book and should pick it up.

[Chad · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a genius concept. A mashup of Godzilla and prison shows like Oz or Orange Is the New Black. Kaijumax is an island where Kaiju (giant monsters like Godzilla) are captured and sentenced to. It's full of clever ideas like using waterfalls as a shower room, a weightlifting room where the monsters lift skyscrapers, using the hulls of ships as shivs, Ultraman as the guards, prisoners getting high off uranium and smog.



There's so many concepts here that just made me straight out laugh. But there's also this weird juxtapose, because Zander Cannon takes this shit seriously. It gets incredibly dark in places, like kaiju on kaiju rape dark. The artwork is not as defined as I've seen from Cannon in the past. He's opted for a simpler, cartoonier style in the book, full of bright colors.

I'll leave you with my favorite moment in the book, when a guard comes up to two monsters who are about to fight. One of the monsters replies to the guard, "We just redking around, no reason to go five lion on us." That right there sums up the warped genius of this book.

[Dev · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley

This wasn't a bad book, it just wasn't what I was expecting. Mainly I wasn't expecting it to be as dark and depressing as it was. I mean it's a really good story and it's interesting how they've used the kaiju as a metaphor for real-life prisons [although honestly I think a lot of kaiju related references went straight over my head, suuuper casual fan over here] but the whole thing is just ...so depressing. I mean I knew it was going to be serious but I thought they would try to balance it out or something and just ...nope. So if you want to read something super depressing and you think you will get all the in-references that I feel like I missed then this is probably for you, but it just wasn't for me.

[Cale · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure what I was expecting from the concept of giant monsters in prison, but somehow it wasn't this. I think the issue is tone - I was expecting the tone to be lighter and wackier, with the absurdity of the concept being played up. But no, this is more Oz than Orange is the new Black, complete with prison rape, shanks (radio towers rather than toothbrushes, though), converted zealots, and lots of corruption. The artwork is cartoonish, but that's really the only thing about this that is. And that's fine - if that's what you're expecting. There are some compelling stories being told, with the different types of Kaiju forming different gangs, and the prison officials often using those groups against each other. It's got some depth and heft to it. Just make sure you don't go in expecting a comedy, because this certainly isn't that.

[Zedsdead · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kaiju-movie skin stretched across a prison drama frame. KAIJUMAX is a remote island prison for the giant city-stomping monsters originating in Japanese rubber-suit movies after WW2 (and hailed in the classic arcade game Rampage). Monsters with names like Electrogor, Mecha-Zon, and Ape-Whale. Better yet, The Creature from Devil's Creek, and Giant Monster Terongo, Terror of Pago Pago. The guards are all sweet Ultraman variants who pop into giant form when the inmates get out of line.

Regarding the art, I'll point out two things. 1) Awful colors. I haven't seen this much hot pink and electric yellow in one place since the 80s. 2) A manlike figure on the back cover is captured mid-stride...and I can't tell which is his right leg and which is his left. That's not right. [Note: The art is significantly better in later volumes.]

Cannon is a better writer than illustrator, supplying excellent world-building for his ensemble cast prison drama. A lot of thought went into the details: the prison gym contains skyscraper machines that can be repeatedly pushed over or stomped on. Cargo shipping containers function as bags or wallets. Waterfalls are used as showers. Shivs are made from the hulls of oil tankers. Monsters get hooked on depleted uranium and snack on megalodons. Prison intake involves deploying a submarine up an inmate's gigantic rectum to look for contraband. (And this last was so expertly put together that it took me two pages to realize what was happening. Appallingly delightful.)

Even the ways prisoners organize and speak are well thought out. The pseudo-mafia prisoners are old space kaiju; they've been in power a long time and don't get the respect that (they think) they deserve from the young upstarts. The giant mech monsters approximate a Muslim prison gang (as I recall them from Oz and other fiction); they worship "the Cloud" and preach self respect and renounce violence. A younger tattooed gang is called the cryptids. (Get it? CRYPtids? Heh.) The dialogue is peppered with themey vocabulary substitutions like "megafauna" and "mon" and "marianas" (hell). Everything clicks.

But it's not for the faint of heart. The happybright color scheme makes for disturbing contrasts, like happybright prison rape, and happybright beatings and amputations.

I have issues with the art but I do love the way the panels are composed. First-person robo-kaiju perspectives perfectly convey what's going on in the mech's head; a mix of closeups, long shots, deep shots and angles keep the panels from getting boring. Well done.

There are a LOT of plot threads driving the series forward. The central one involves a new inmate with children hiding on the outside. But there's a corrupt prison guard who owes money to the wrong people, inter-gang power plays, a prison break, a good guard guilt-stricken over an arrest gone wrong, a seedy guard/inmate romance, and more. It's chock full of stories.

Apparently the book is LOADED with sly references to the abundance of kaiju movies from which Cannon drew inspiration. I don't have a lot of kaiju experience (Pacific Rim, a couple Godzilla movies, The Host) but I found Kaijumax to be vastly entertaining based just on general movie and pop culture literacy. Four and a half rounded up, in spite of the art. Can't wait for v2.
------------------------------------
SECOND READ UPDATE
I was too hard on the illustration. In spite of the misfires, it just flat out works. Combines fun and functional without having to work at it.

And the more kaiju movies I see, the more this resonates. No rounding needed, this is a hard five-star title.
------------------------------------
THIRD READ UPDATE
This series is criminally (heh) under-read. I get the niche nature of the subject matter but Kaijumax should be famous. It's extremely good on multiple levels.
------------------------------------
FOURTH READ UPDATE
If Zonn were a character on an HBO series, he'd be despised the way Joffrey was despised.

[Stewart Tame · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kaijumax combines prison drama with giant monster movies and TV shows, “Kaiju Films” as they're known in Japan. Obviously, once these creatures are captured, it would be inhumane to simply kill them. So imprisonment on an island surrounded by force fields is the only option. The guards all basically have Ultraman’s abilities, and can grow to giant size if need be to put down uncooperative prisoners. Zander Cannon is clearly a fan of kaiju entertainment, and fans of the genre will delight in all the references (“Oh! That one is clearly based on Mechagodzilla. And that's the bad guy from the one Ultraman episode”, prison tattoos like “Ghidorah was right” or “17 S, 177 E”, etc.)

Cannon also knows his prison dramas, and, while there's certainly humor in this series, there's definitely plenty of drama: gang fights, corrupt guards, new prisoners finding their place in the pecking order,a warden trying to keep order without drawing the attention (and interference) of his superiors, escape attempts, etc. There are multiple plots in progress, and this seems designed as an open-ended series. I’m certainly looking forward to Season 2--Cannon is calling these Seasons instead of Volumes.

I really enjoyed this. It's undeniably quirky, and it's definitely darker and more dramatic than you might think on first hearing the concept. But it all works quite well. I found myself really getting into the characters and story. The art, particularly the coloring, is lovely. It's just the right mix of cartoony and serious. In particular, the cover grabbed the attention of my wife. “What are you reading? Those colors are gorgeous!” I'm hoping she’ll read it now that I'm done. She's a bigger Godzilla fan than I am, and I think she'll love it.

Quirky? Yes. Good? Definitely. Recommended? Most certainly!

[Brian Dickerson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A much deeper storyline than I imagined, super-max for giant monsters. Chatty for a comic, but still a quick read. Zander Cannon is awesome with cartoony depictions of the typical prison and very real social problems with a twist. I cannot wait until season two!

[Tom Ewing · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brutal prison saga starring radioactive monsters, giant robots, cryptozoological beasts, aliens and more, Kaijumax is a tremendous advert for mashing-up unlikely genres. With a human cast, the stories of hopelessness, corruption, and relentless struggles for power wouldn't just be grim, they'd be corny, and visibly the product of a creator whose knowledge of the topic comes from watching the same shows as anyone else. But make it about movie monsters - in other words, explicitly about media tropes - and borrowings from Oz et al become just more references: two species of pulp thrill mingling.

That's enough to get you quickly used to Kaijumax's blend of the fantastic and the harrowing, but the combination would still just be glib if Zander Cannon weren't so good at execution - giving expression and emotion to his enormously varied cast (body language included, which is a tough taslk when almost nobody has a standard body) and skilfully setting up motivations and subplots for a dozen or so characters. Cannon is not kind to his monsters, particularly hard-luck protagonist Electrogor, but that's what makes the comic so engaging.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

This comic series is just nuts. It's Godzilla meets Oz, Shawshank Redemption meets Ultraman.

"Kaijumax" is an island maximum security prison for kaiju - giant monsters who've been dragged away for various (literal) crimes against humanity, like stomping on cities and eating monorails. The guards maintain order with their ability to instantly transform into giant Ultraman-like forms.

The story is basically a prison drama, with gangs, drug dealing, corrupt guards, prisoner-guard romances (eww), and even the rape-in-the-shower scene, except all the characters are various types of kaiju. The artist/creator knows his kaiju history and Kaijumax is full of in jokes. There is not a single kaiju or prison drama trope that isn't parodied and stomped hard.



Don't be fooled by the cartoonish drawings and the big silly-looking monsters - there is a lot of violence and gore in this book. (Admittedly, most of the gore is various shades of green.) It's gross at times, and funny at other times. Most of the value comes from enjoying such a bizarre genre mash-up. But I admit I want to read the second volume and see what happens to Electrogor and Green Humongo.

[Rod Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think people who grew up watching the Godzilla movies and Japanese TV imports like Ultraman would probably get a big kick out of this. Alas, my local TV stations didn't carry much of that when I was a kid, feeding me mostly a diet of John Wayne westerns and American sci-fi like Star Trek and that movie with the Michael Ironside lookalike where women rule the world and men are mutants (every other weekend at least).

I like this as a parody of prison movies and the HBO Oz series, and I started getting caught up in all the scheming and plotting by the end despite not much caring about all the big monsters and robots.

[Nicolo · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd imagine the elevator pitch for this series went like this: Tokusatsu prison drama, where the inmates are kaiju and the prison guards are superpowered Ultraman analogues.

The story is structured seasonally too, like they do television or Netflix drama these days. Thus, no major arcs are resolved at season's end, it only serves to bring you to the next season of stories. It is really interesting though, as a reader you get see first hand the descent into madness of several main characters. So much so, that getting into season two should be a given after reading this.

[Alex Sarll]

The island where giant monsters are deposited after their rampages recast as a brutal prison drama a la Oz, complete with Ultraman-style guards and its own grubby slang (humans? 'Squishers'). And it all fits surprisingly well! There are rackets trading in highs like uranium and electricity, horrific incidents in the showers (well, waterfalls), and gangs divided by origins and attributes. One of which even has to put up with the boss' son, who really isn't cut out for the life. I expected this to be funny, and it is, but also more affecting than I bargained for.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know what kind of deranged madman would think to mash-up giant rampaging monster movies with gritty prison drama, but thank god someone did, because KAIJUMAX is a total blast.

[Jason · Rating 3 out of 5]

Elevator pitch: Orange is the New Black meets Pacific Rim

By far one of the strangest and most unique graphic novels I've read in recent memory.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, I went into this one not sure if I'd like the art style or not. It's very cartoony and seemed to be light and kinda superficial. I was wrong. Kaijumax is just weird and funny and it works. How in the heck these guys came up with this concept is beyond me, but they made it work.
Basically, there is an island in the ocean, somewhere that has been converted into a maximum security prison that has one purpose; to hold Kaiju. There are many of the standard Kaiju from the movies and anime and manga that we love. They didn't use their names, but the look of many of them is spot on. Rodan, Smog Monster, King Kong, MechaGodzilla, etc., yeah they are all here. Many are hardened criminals and the standard stuff you would expect from a prison series or movie goes on here. They need pure Uranium as their drug of choice. Some build homemade stills where they can siphon off electricity for its mind altering features. There are gangs and there is a quasi religion, led by mechanical Kaiju who are peace loving and pacifists.
Sounds crazy and a little dumb, don't it? Well all in all this is a fun read with some story and substance behind it. It was really kind of fun and I read the graphic novel in one sitting. I enjoyed it thoroughly, and I will refrain from my normal goings on about art, but in this one the art kind of fit this mish-mosh of ideas and tropes and for me, it was just fine.

Danny

[Wayne McCoy · Rating 3 out of 5]

'Kaijumax Season One: Terror and Respect' by Zander Cannon seemed like an interesting premise, but by the end, I felt like it had worn out its welcome with me.

A remote island in the South Pacific serves as a supermax, or kaijumax, prison for out of control monsters. They all live here in uneasy peace. There are radioactive monsters and robotic ones and weird natural ones like giant goats and a bigfoot. The guards manage them using powered suits that help them grow to a size that helps give them an advantage. Not all the guards are clean though. Some have their own cons and blackmail going on.

I really liked the concept. I liked how it mimicked a prison story. I even liked the slang and profanity that was made up for the story. The art is pretty average, and the writing just left me wanting it to be over. I have the next volume to read, and I'm hoping that one is more interesting.

I received a review copy of this graphic novel from Oni Press and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.

[Kevin Hogan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like Zander Cannon's work a good deal, and it has been fun to watch his storytelling chops mature from Chainsaw Vigilante through The Runaway God to here. Ultimately, my complaint is that I wanted a different story than the one that I got. What I wanted was a kaiju story set in prison. What I got was a prison story with kaiju. Think "The Wire" with kaiju and you're heading in the right direction. For the right person, this would be a 5-star book.

[Scott Corsi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love the spin on ultraman, godzilla, and other tokusatsu.

[Paul Decker · Rating 3 out of 5]

*I received this book as an eARC from Oni Press via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*

This fun story brings empathy out for giant rampaging monsters. It's a look into their side of the story. This comic book takes place in a giant prison full of these kaiju. The designs of all these characters are cool, fun and original while still referencing well known giant beasts.

I give this comic a 3/5. The book didn't keep my full attention, but that could be because I'm not very familiar with kaiju.

[Ann D-Vine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Let's get this out of the way up top: if you're a tokusatsu or daikaiju fan - and I mean fan, like, own figures and DVD box sets kind of fan - this series is your people. There are so many references and nods and bits that rub that nice part of your brain; the somewhat exclusive "I got that reference!" allure of being reminded of stuff that you, and perhaps few others, know exist. Characters all say "Goj" instead of "God" - if you know why, then this book is for you. I was enraptured by how much Zander Cannon flaunted the most obscure of film knowledge, and in increasingly subtle ways - basically affirming just what audience this is meant for, and, luckily for me? I'm part of it!

...therein lies my immense disappointment, then.

Kaijumax is a kaiju pastiche wrapped up in the structure of a prison drama. Think of Godzilla's Monster Island, with prison guards that are practically Ultramans (Ultramen?), and all the genre trappings that go with it. So far, so cute.

Now add in all the stereotypical prison "cliques". Each subgenre of kaiju - be they nuclear mutations, or metaphors for man's hubris, or large cryptids, or big robots - is represented in the kaijumax, and is analogous to a subgenre of criminal, be they organized crime mobsters, or born-again religious types, or... well. Maybe you can start to see where the problems lay. And, just for context: Zander Cannon is very, very white.

So, yeah, there's 'hood gangsters in here. They go around fistbumping and saying "my 'zilla" to each other; they refuse to go by their "terror name" that the humans picked out for them (among more, extraordinarily contentious AAVE wordplay). And it's one the most uncomfortable, cringe-worthy, inherently racially-charged punning I've perhaps ever read in a comic. It's not out-and-out racist, but when they start talking about how some kaiju are just "victims of circumstance," the metaphor gets really muddy. I totally get where Cannon is coming from, but ho ly fu cking shit, dude. You ostensibly has a book that tries to paint giant, city-crushing monsters as an allegory for an incarcerated black population, and it doesn't matter how many cute references you throw in, no matter how much a trapping of the genre it is, that's the kind of confused messaging I expect from, well... a white guy writing a prison drama.

And then, to top it off: there's a graphic sexual assault in the shower.

Look... Kaijumax ain't bad. It's brilliantly illustrated, it works dramatic tension and comedic levity aptly, and, like I said, its devotion to its genre is spellbinding. It is the same devotion to genre, with the prison angle, where it finds itself in service of accuracy, above sensitivity, or even clarity of point. It's satire! It's homage! It's all these things, and it does it all very well! It just does so at the expense of marginalized folks that actually have to live within a fundamentally, systemically racist carceral state. Which just isn't cool.

[Rob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Last year, while attending PAX West, we dropped by the Oni Press booth. They had some discounted comics for sale, and since I've only read their Bryan Lee O’Malley books, most of it was new to me. I picked out the first volume of The Sixth Gun and a funny little book called I Was the Cat, both of which I still haven't read, and then I asked which book he'd recommend. He chose Kaijumax, because it's hilarious and different from anything he'd come across.

He was correct! This is a very odd book. It takes place on an island that holds a maximum security prison for Kaiju monsters. I'm still a little confused as to whether Kaiju is the term for the monsters themselves or the film genre, but it's basically your Godzillas and Mothras mixed with Orange is the New Black. When he told me the book featured Kaiju, I stared back at him blankly for a while, which I think lost me some major geek points. After he explained it, I vaguely remember hearing the term before, but it's definitely a part of geek culture that I don't know a lot about.

Thankfully, being a Kaiju newbie doesn't get in the way here. There are gangs and racial tension, drug smuggling, corrupt prison guards - everything you'd expect from a prison drama. Zander Cannon takes those known clichés and mixes them with monsters and the result is surprisingly fresh. He does very clever things in mixing the two styles. The monster's gym equipmen is a good example of that.

This comic gets surprisingly dark at times as well. The illustrations are disarmingly cute, so when these things happen it really sneaks up on you. The main drama centres around a monster who was just admitted and the fact that his children are still out there, unable to feed or protect themselves. It's a completely bizarre premise that happens to be grounded with somewhat relatable issues.

Cannon wrote and illustrated this himself, so you're getting one person's (extremely bizarre) vision, which I think gives it a nice personal touch. I will probably pick up the second volume at some point, to see where this story goes.

Book Blog | Twitter | Instagram

[Alexander Lisovsky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Крутая тюремная драма в ярком антураже няшных годзилло-подобных монстров. Эдакий "Побег из Шоушенка" в мире "Тихоокеанского рубежа". Мафиозные группировки, продажные охранники, нелегальные лаборатории по производству наркотиков, психологическое и физическое насилие, застарелые травмы и нервные срывы, социопаты, психопаты, укуренные обдолбыши, война всех против всех - всё здесь. Никто не безгрешен, но и у каждого героя есть своё человеческое лицо (даже под хитиновым панцирем).

Иной раз автор на мой вкус перегибает палку, повествование начинает явно манипулировать эмоциями читателя. Но это скорее от некоторой перегруженности комикса поднимаемыми проблемами (развить каждую не получается достаточно плавно и естественно). Тем не менее, комикс на редкость оригинальный и достойный. Накал гангста-сленга, выдуманного и реального, достигает уровня сериала The Wire (не завидую будущим локализаторам). Радуют постоянные визуальные каламбуры, когда финальная реплика одной сцены прекрасно укладывается в начало следующей.



По рекомендации "Спайдермедии".

P.S. Kaijumax выглядит как логичное продолжение идей "Top 10" Алана Мура, и не зря - Зандер Кэннон тоже над ним работал в своё время. В данный момент идёт четвёртый сезон из планируемых шести.

[Des Fox · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kaijumax is incredible. Opening this book, I expected funny, okay maybe, but I did not expect a powerful prison drama. This book is crafted with a lot of love, featuring Zander Cannon at all posts, creating a fully realized world, full of relatable gigantic monsters, and true to life misery and tension. It's a brilliant idea that hits total fruition, ending on multiple hooks leaving the reader begging for more. This is easily one of the best books Oni is putting out at the moment, and I hope we see many more installments of this brilliant book.

[Jason]

Went in blind and can honestly say I've never read anything like this before. The completely unexpected mashup of genres is fresh the whole way through and Cannon takes his premise seriously enough to allow the reader to feel genuine emotion for the characters. Wow.

[Sesana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Much more of a serious prison drama than a kaiju thing. If that's what you're looking for, you'll probably love him.

[Skjam! · Rating 4 out of 5]

Electrogor just wanted to feed his family. His children were the only things in the world he cared about. Unfortunately, what Electrogor’s children eat is gigawatts of electrical power and he got caught trying to tap one of the humans’ power cables. There is no trial for kaiju (giant monsters) so it’s off to prison he goes!

Once the kaiju were powerful, effectively rulers of the Earth who laughed at the puny humans’ attempts to fend them off. But those days are over. The humans have the technology to fight the monsters and imprison those that break human law in an island facility in the South Pacific referred to as “Kaijumax.”

This Oni Press miniseries by Zander Cannon combines giant monster action with prison drama. It’s an odd combination that works about eighty percent of the time. Mr. Cannon has mentioned that while anti-kaiju prejudice has echoes of real world bigotry, kaiju should not be read as any specific race or religious group; it’s whatever works for the story.

While Electrogor is sympathetic ala Jean Valjean, many of his fellow prisoners are on the island for good reason. Drug dealers, murderers, organized crime types, and some who are just plain evil. There’s a lot more of them than the ones who just made a mistake or had an accident. (Or in the case of Whoofy, son of Ape-Whale, just related to a criminal.)

To be honest, it’s not as though most of the guards are much better. The Warden is brutal and has little sympathy for his charges, guard Gupta is openly corrupt, and the prison doctor has compromised her ethics for a prisoner she’s emotionally attached to. Any guard who comes in with idealism will soon find much of it crushed.

In the tradition of prison soap operas (I used to be a big fan of Australia’s Prisoner, aka Prisoner in Cell Block H) we follow multiple characters in their own subplots. Electrogor, the new meat, learns how the prison works and who he can and cannot trust. Whoofy, abused by his father, meets a mysterious human boy who suggests how to get even. Gupta wheels and deals, but may have gotten in over his head. Mecha-Zonn, a pacifist built to destroy the monster Zonn (but who refused to destroy anyone), has family issues with his creator/father and little sister.

This volume has an explosive (literally) climax that leads into the events of the second volume. (Watch for my review of that one!)

One of the nice things about having kaiju as the main characters is that each can be a unique design and thus easy to tell apart, making it easy to follow the story. The humans are a bit harder to differentiate, especially as most of them in this volume are wearing uniforms. The art is a good kind of cartoony, and doesn’t skimp on the backgrounds.

On the less good side, every so often there’s a moment that doesn’t quite nail the combination of goofy and dramatic, and that took me out of the story multiple times.

Content note: Rape and abortion happen, as well as a lot of monster gore. This is a “Mature Readers” title, despite the usual obscenities and ethnic slurs being substituted with other words. As a movie, maybe a hard “R”?

Overall, I have already purchased the second volume, and recommend this to grown-up kaiju fans and prison drama fans who can accept the bizarre premise.

[Bill Coffin · Rating 5 out of 5]

The concept is as simple as it is brilliant: What if Monster Island from Godzilla was really a supermax prison, complete with all of the indignities and injustices of a real prison? We're talking drug use, gangs, shankings, inmate sexual assault, corrupt guards, and a prison-industrial complex that ensures people of a certain kind go right to jail and never really get a chance to get out. Such is Kaijumax, Zander Cannon's masterful take on crime, punishment, justice, freedom, personal demons and the world we wish that was and the world we know that is.

Kaijumax is uniformly excellent. Do not be fooled by Cannon's technicolor cartoonistry; this is a narrative that is as compelling and as bleak as the come. It is supremely well done, but it is often an unpleasant read. Not because Cannon drops the ball, but because Cannon nails so perfectly the grimmest truths about life behind bars that we all know, but have the luxury to look past. This is a world where there is true evil that deserves punishment, and decent people who are ground up by an uncaring and corrupt machine. But throughout it all are characters we care about, turns we believe in, and a series where, even though we might sometimes want to hide our eyes, we demand to know how it all ends.

Kaijumax is not for kids. But it is required reading. Nowhere else will you get such a terrific blend of character study, social commentary, brilliant wordplay, meta-commentary on the kaiju genre, and more. Stomp directly to Tokyo and grab a shipping container of this one, mon. You'll be glad you did.

[Demian Katz · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have a life-long love of giant monster movies, so this series caught my eye. It's certainly odd and distinctive, though I didn't enjoy it as much as I had hoped. It's a strange mash-up of monster and prison movie conventions, set on a Godzilla-style monster island facility where the monsters (a misunderstood minority) are imprisoned because society can't find a place for them, and the largely corrupt prison guards can transform into Ultraman-style giants to keep the prisoners under control. This strange blend of genres is complemented by a strange blend of styles -- cute art overlaying a story that is, more often than not, quite dark and grim, and occasionally gruesome. Both text and illustration are jam-packed with references to Japanese monster movies and television shows, giving fans a lot of details to pick out and appreciate... but some of it felt rather forced and took me out of the story. I did enjoy the dark twist on the plot of "Godzilla's Revenge," while the recontextualization of a key plot point of "Gamera vs. Jiger" was profoundly disturbing. In the end, I think my opinion of this series will depend on whether there's some underlying message, or it's just regurgitating prison exploitation movie cliches -- and at this early stage, I honestly can't tell. I'm intrigued enough that I might read Season Two to find out... but I didn't love it so much that I'll go there in a big hurry.

[MechaComicReviews · Rating 3 out of 5]

When Kaiju from across the world are put into prison by Ultraman-like jailers for the supposed good of mankind, you get Kaijumax by Zander Cannon. Overall, it's good, quirky, and unique, but it never quite reaches greatness. The concept itself is good, but the plot is meandering like a slice of an inconsistent jail life documentary for the different Kaiju.

Cannon does all of the work in this comic, and it is monumental. None of the Kaiju are too complicatedly designed, which works since they call back to older films and fiction. It's also easier to identify each Kaiju, and Cannon breaks them up into different categories. Where Cannon falters is in a focused plot and the shading in the coloring of the comic.

Since the plot focuses on so many characters and the inner lives and day-to-day activities of the Kaiju, there are a lot of stories to keep track of. It can be distracting when you're wanting to follow a specific character for more than an issue. The coloring is also done by Cannon, and for the most part, it's bright and vibrant with the varying creatures. The shading looks like he shaded with only light and dark shading tools rather than a mixture of more colors. Because of this, it ends up looking a little muddy and amateur.

Overall, this is a comic like no other with a compelling twist on the Kaiju and prison genres. However, the details in both the writing and coloring make this book falter enough to not warrant getting more volumes.

[tony dillard jr · Rating 4 out of 5]

A combination of Godzilla movies and the HBO drama OZ. Imagine there is a island in which after a kaiju destroys a major city, it's captured and sent to a maximum security island for rehabilitation.

This twist on the prison drama has a lot of the usual cliches. There's the inmates who've found religion. The slimy prison guard whose running a side racket inside the penitentiary. The crime capo whose running things behind bars. There's the newbie whose considered fresh meat. And there are those acts of unspeakable depravity and gall.

While the cliches are there in this book, because of the sci-fi nature of the characters, there's some twists to this book as well. So while I feel like I've seen this before, Kaijumax is unlike anything I've ever seen or read, before!

While parts of this book made me quite uncomfortable, I was in awe of this book. Zander Cannon's (Star Trek: The Next Generation) labor of love was something that I couldn't look at yet couldn't put down at the same time. I liken the feeling to a driver who passes by a car accident- He does want to look at the carnage, but he can't stop looking in the wreck's direction either.

I really want to read season 2!