Brendan Albetski Prepares A Fist Full of Kaiju As He Joins Up On Dauntless Stories' Next Campaign
- Doug Wood
- Aug 16
- 7 min read
Comic Yeti Contributor Doug Wood sits outside the Yeti Cave with Brendan Albetski to discuss the upcoming Kaiju Fist Kickstarter campaign.
Comic Book Yeti: Thank you so much for allowing me an advance copy of your comic. Let's start this at the beginning, how did the collaboration with Dauntless come about? How did the decision to make this book a crowdfunded book come about?
Brandon Albetski: Dauntless hired me to do some art assistant work on another book, "Unbroken," and I got to talking with Marcus as a result of that. I knew he was a fan of my Maru Kiru series, so I floated the idea of doing some kind of collaboration. We talked for a second about the potential of Dauntless publishing Maru Kiru, but I'm very protective of Maru so we both agreed that doing a new book was the best course of action for our first venture together.
Marcus pitched me the idea of an alt-history WW2 comic in which nuclear research created Kaiju, which were then employed as superweapons in the war, and a combat wounded human soldier who has the titular Kaiju Fist and uses it to fist-fight these giant monsters. It's a killer idea, and I was hyped to do it. He offered to write it for me but I wanted to do all the jobs on the first issue. After discussing it we agreed that it would be best to have it take place in a an original world, so we could explore some of the horrors of war without exploiting real-world tragedy, much in the same way that Full Metal Alchemist did. Marcus sent me the brief and I kinda just ran with it from there.
As far as crowdfunding goes, that was also a collaborative decision. Dauntless let me decide if I wanted to launch the book to the direct market or go the crowdfunding route. Personally I don't have a whole lot of faith in the DM, and I had just seen how much success that Dauntless had had with the campaign for Markiewicz and White's excellent "Who Killed Sarah Shaw?" so it felt like an easy choice.
I've also had some crowdfunding success on my own with Maru Kiru and I just feel like it's a better way to make a book. I found out later that it's the direction Dauntless prefers as well, so it worked out well.
CBY: You touched a bit on my next question, how do you pitch this book to readers in the quickest way possible? What part of the story got you most excited to draw?
BA: I think this book is for anyone who ever saw Godzilla and thought "I bet I could take him." It's a very stylish action book that fights with morality of war while also fighting with giant Kaiju monsters.
Like a lot of my work, there's a theme of overcoming an impossible challenge when the only thing you have going for you is tenacity. The layers start to come in when you consider the protagonist team of Kayge and Atom. Kayge is young, full of anger and spoiling for a fight, just waiting to be pointed in the direction of the enemy by her superiors. Atom is a weapon that doesn't want to fight anymore. He's weary and exhausted, just looking for a moment of peace, but not being allowed that. They both have a long road ahead of them, but they have very different views on their shared struggle. Because they share the same headspace they can have these drawn out arguments and debates while locked in mortal combat with a giant creature.
I love that theme of a weapon that is ashamed of itself for being what it is, and I also love the idea of fist-fighting things you should not be able to fist-fight. I'm not sure if there's any other medium where you could so seamlessly marry those concepts, so that got me very excited to make this book.
(I guess it should be mentioned for folks not in the know that Kayge is a human soldier with an amputated arm, and Atom is the titular Kaiju Fist that has replaced that limb, and the mental spirit that lives in Kayge's head as a result of the joining)
CBY: You mentioned some story inspiration, but what about art inspiration behind these pages? You have a very tight and action heavy style that is absolutely perfect for this type of story. Can you go into some comics that you love that are action focused?
BA: I think at least 80% of what I read nowadays is from Shonen Jump. Dan Da Dan, JJBA, Dragonball, Chainsaw Man, Demon Slayer, Sakamoto Days, etc. It's amazing to me that SJ has been going for decades and continues to push the envelope on action. Manga is not afraid to let action BREATH. You can build an entire sequence of several pages around a single punch and allow yourself to feel the tension and the artistry behind the fight choreography and the impact of the hit.
Yusuke Murata's work on "One Punch Man" inspired a lot of what's going on in "Kaiju Fist." There's at least one direct visual reference that I can recall. It's great because there are so many instances of opponents who are a size mismatch, which is really helpful for inspiration.
Also One Piece is something I read religiously, and I respond well to that style of action. When I first started doing this, my best friend told me that if I wanted to draw battle manga I needed to be able to draw people getting hit, and making it look like it really hurt. He recommended One Piece as a prime example, I've been into it ever since.
It's funny, I used to describe all my books as being "manga style" or "manga inspired," but then I started to have editors telling me outright that western pubs just aren't interested in that style, so I started burying that lead on my work. I just came back from Terrificon and had multiple people (all young readers) tell me "I don't read comics, I only read manga," and they were immediately interested in my stuff once I told them that that's pretty much what I do. It seems to me that the current and next generation of readers are really excited to read stuff in this style, and I'm thrilled to bring it to them because it's what I love.
CBY: There are so many manga inspired artists in the direct market. I can name so many off the top of my head. So it seems silly for anyone to dismiss your art over the style. Since we are talking about manga so frequently let me ask how you came to reading it? So many of my generation probably caught Dragon Ball or Sailor Moon on tv and then had to scrounge to find anything translate on shelves. You’re a bit younger so what was your entry point to the medium?
BA: It all goes back to Pokemon. That was THE phenomenon when I was in school. Cards, games, shows, we were obsessed with the whole thing. The anime is what really did it, that's what opened the door, and things just progressed from there. Folks my age, and I think a lot of those awesome artists you just mentioned, grew up with this stuff being bound to our DNA because it permeated every aspect of our lives. They banned pokemon cards in the schools but we still sang the damn pokerap at lunch. It's impossible to separate from it and why would we even want to?
CBY: Looking back at your comic Maru Kiru and now this comic, it seems you are focusing on works for younger readers, what draws you to continue to work on comics for earlier ages and do you think it will continue to be your focus on future projects?
BA: There's this knack that young people have for being earnestly enthusiastic about things they love, and those are the people I want to make happy. I appreciate that level of honesty. If a kid tells me they like my book I know it's legit. If they tell me there's something they don't like I take it seriously. If I do my job right they'll still be buying my books in 20 years. This is a marathon and we need to look ahead with binoculars.
Haha, I honestly don't know what age group Maru Kiru is supposed to be for, it's just full of stuff that I personally think is rad. I guess there's a ton of stuff that I liked when I was 14 that is still rad, so I try to create things that have a vibe that stands the test of time, and says something that I think is important.
There's a reason that people like you and I still think anime is awesome, that wresting is awesome, that comic books are awesome. Those things are all ostensibly "made for kids" but they speak about universal and powerful things that have stayed with us all our lives. I believe that we have to try to be that for the next generation now, and communicate that perseverance will take you far in life, or that tyranny and oligarchy are horrible things that need to be resisted, that we can beat terrible self serving villains if we lift each other up and stand shoulder to shoulder. And I mean, nobody enjoys being preached to, so maybe I can couch that message in a book about punching monsters so hard their heads explode.
CBY: Ok last question, what reward tier are you most recommending?
BA: Lol I actually can't answer this one yet, but I can predict that my recommendation will be the one that gets you both physical books.
CBY: Alright, thank you for your time on this. Let me know you social media deals.
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