Posted in: Comics | Tagged: crowdfunder, godzilla, kaiji, mark stafford

Mark Stafford's Most Social Embarrassing Gaffe For a Kaiju or Godzilla

Published Sun, 18 Dec 2022 06:57:11 -0600

Last updated Sun, 18 Dec 2022 07:20:41 -0600

Earlier in the week, Bleeding Cool highlighted the crowdfunding campaign for Mark Stafford's massive anthology of his work, Salmonella Smorgasbord, garnering praise from the likes of Gene Ha, Mike Mignola, Kieron Gillen, Hunt Emerson, Rian Hughes, Shelly Bond, D'Israeli, Joseph Cavalieri, Bob Fingerman, Dave Elliott, Gary Spencer Millidge, David Hine, Bryan Talbot, Mike Collins, Jamie Smart, Roger Langridge, Alan Cowsill, Rufus Dayglo and more. We managed to give the project a Bleeding Cool bump to push it over its goal, but today is the final day you can donate to get a copy of Salmonella Smorgasbord. And maybe a further bump may be necessary. So here is the beginning of just one of the many stories in the 200+ page volume, his Godzilla story, Clash Of The Behemoths, which reflects Japanese culture in both the actions of kaiju and also the social embarrassment of society…

How does this resolve itself? Are they tired of trampling Toyko? You'll have to pick up Salmonella Smorgasbord to find out. I usually describe Mark Stafford as a very British cross between Robert Crumb, Charles Burns, Troy Nixey, Evan Dorkin and Skottie Young and the above may show why. He is Britain's very best-kept secret despite having drawn comic books published by Dark Horse, Heavy Metal and Boom Studios over the years. Mark Stafford's Salmonella Smorgasbord will be a fat-but-fairly-priced book from Soaring Penguin collecting a selection of his work from the last couple of decades or so, including strips, art, design, illustration and all sorts. He tells me "I spent a fair chunk of my life under lockdown digging out old files and scanning art, restoring some stories and completing others and putting them all into some kind of order that makes sense to me. So it contains my small press comics, contributions to anthologies, unpublished gems, beer labels and posters, two stories and a foreword by Mr David Hine, an afterword by Dr Bryan Talbot, a collaboration with a Korean poet, two adaptations of olde folk sings, a library mural, a bittersweet Busan love story, much creepy business and an interview conducted by Mr Jason Atomic at the end to vaguely explain why you're reading what you've read. I'm pretty happy with it, and it's all done bar a few cover wrangles and the printing." And today is the final day…

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