I thought Godzilla and Frank Tieri art would be a homerun, but instead it was just solid. I mean the art itself was good, Godzilla looks great as well as a bit scary, which I always miss with a lot of modern day Godzilla. Also have to say I really liked the idea, that this is before the world has been explored, and so we have a lot of searching for the next big piece of land, and Godzilla, well he has other plans. But overall the characters felt a bit lackluster (except the BIG G!) But overall a fun story.

A 3 out of 5.

Thanks NetGalley and IDW Publishing for this arc

1.5/5 rounded up

I had high hopes for this as I love Godzilla, but i just found this really boring. I was turned off of it right at the start from the pirate headed to the gallows that was so clearly Jack Sparrow-coded. Like, there are other pirates you can base your character off of and to use as reference. It was so apparent it felt lazy and cheap to me.

I can't believe I forgot to review this! This was so much fun. What more is there to love Godzilla and pirates. Fantastic.

I had a hard time putting this graphic novel down. It was unlike any Godzilla story I have heard before, and was a true joy to watch it unfold. A pirate tells a story that at first no one believes, but soon it becomes clear this isn’t some wild tale. Soon a man becomes interested, and insists they finish they whole story. Once they do, something unexpected ends up happening. Fans of Godzilla will want to check this graphic novel out.

Thank you net gallery for the advanced copy of this book. The story was one of Godzilla and pirates and the subsequent cover up. Secret societies! The only thing I did not like was the watermark over the print in the advanced copy that made it difficult to read at times.

Epic, very entertaining and well plotted. Loved the story and the drawings
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

I thought a comic with Godzilla and pirates would be fun but god was this boring. There was to much talking and not enough of Godzilla.

In the wake of the Sir Francis Drake expeditions a scoundrel pirate named Huff weaves a tall tale of revenge, treasure, conspiracy, cults and kaiju to his jailors in effort to save his neck from the gallows. It's as good a premise as any to drops everyone's favorite atomic lizard into the 1500s to torch and armada of ships.

The human story of pirates & conspiracy is fun, the dialogue sharp, a good page turner. The kaiju battles, pretty standard fair. The art is, unfortunately, a bit of a mixed bag. Humans, ships and landscape (generally) are fairly well rendered, but the monsters feel inconstant in quality & scale from one panel to another. Considering the title of the book, this is a bit unfortunate.

All in all, a fun read, but not a must have in kaiju canon.

*ARC provided by NetGalley & the publisher in exchange for an honest review.*

It’s not good, it’s not bad, it’s Godzilla! Readers who get that distinction are in for a real treat with the fast paced over-the-top monster extravaganza. Set in the 16th century, “Godzilla: Here There Be Dragons” presents a very different take on the Age of Discovery as Francis Drake discovers Monster Island and more importantly its inhabitants. The resulting chaos is brilliant and Godzilla takes center stage.
The resulting monster infused chaos is brilliant and hard core Kaiju fans will not be disappointed.

Expect, a fate for the Spanish Armada that is not in any history book, a cameo from a redheaded monarch, anachronistic portrayals of explosives, the best bad pirate dialogue since your last trip to Long Jon Silver’s, a Kaiju death cult and lots and lots of highly kinetic monster mashing.


Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher, IDW publishing for providing me with an eARC in exchange for my honest review.

I haven't consumed any written Godzilla content and figured I should start. This was a fantastic story to begin with, playing with the "edge of the map" dangers of the age of exploration [read: colonization etc.] and the major fears of sea monsters and voyages gone astray. Much like the new Godzilla v. Kong movie, this story has Godzilla and other monsters living off the edge of the map, akin to the hollow earth concept in those newer movies.

Much like the olden days, it's not just armadas and navies running into Godzilla and other Kaiju - it's <i>pirates</i>! How fun is that? So there was a lot of fun nautical content, lots of ship art for my nerdy inner nautical history fan, as well as a fun epistolary aspect, as a captive pirate tells the navy about Godzilla. Of course there was a bittt of lag for me whenever Godzilla wasn't on-page, but that's how this story works.

The palette for this was absolutely gorgeous, with vivid, saturated colors, and every page was a work of art. The blue in oceanic and water scenes, the purples of Godzilla, the fiery reds and oranges when the pirates incur Godzilla's wrath.

I had a lot of fun with this, and there's more coming, I hear!

It’s time once again to dive into the world of Kaiju with IDW Publishing’s newest Godzilla title, Godzilla: Here There Be Dragons. This new title brings writer Frank Tieri (Wolverine, Space: Punisher, Gotham Underground), and artist Inaki Miranda (We Live, The Chase, Fairest) for a swashbuckling tale filled with pirates, kaiju, and a Kaiju Cult?!

This tale finds us traveling back to the 1500s. It’s a world full of mystery and high-sea adventure in which there is only one ruler, the King of Kaiju, Godzilla! Before humanity successfully traveled the globe, many believed that the ocean was ruled by monsters beyond the eye could see. An Ominous Warning was written on maps, to denote the areas where people dared not to go read “Here there be dragons..” that is until Sir Francis Drake circumnavigated the seas, visiting foreign lands and collecting treasure. That was what history tells of Drake, but history doesn’t know how the rest of his story goes, until now.

Godzilla Here There Be Dragons collects the five-issue series, and the story is straightforward enough for new readers to follow. Tieri gives readers a story that connects pirate tales about foreign lands, and a mysterious monster island, with a hint of political intrigue. The main focus is Hull, a pirate who was set to be executed in British territory in the late 1500s. He tried to avoid his execution by telling a tale out of this world, even featuring the King of Kaiju himself and Monster Island.

Even though the focus is on Godzilla and other monsters, it plays up to a conspiracy theory of how history is documented and how the Kaiju played a role in it, which included secret cults to worship them. The book does well in meshing together the pirate tales and Godzilla lore pretty well. It was one of the things that made the book stand out above most Godzilla titles.

The other thing that made this book work so well was the artwork. Miranda caught how fierce and frightening Godzilla and the Kaiju were perfectly. Colorist Eva De La Cruz’s (Fables, Fairest, We Live) color work in this series was a perfect fit with Inaki’s illustrations in this book, whether it was fighting among the humans or the kaiju, Miranda and De La Cruz were the perfect artistic team for a Fantasy/Sci-Fi story.

Loved the story. I enjoyed the artistic style and hiw Godzilla looked. You can see the hard work and love for the characters.

IDW Publishing provided an early galley for review.

I grew up on Godzilla movies being shown on a local syndicated channel on Saturday afternoons. Something about a giant monster wrecking havoc on humanity appealed to me. His popularity has not diminished since those days; my grown son raved about the recent Godzilla Minus One film from 2023. So, why not present a story where the giant lizard encounters historical explorers from the 1500's?

The artwork by Miranda is gorgeous, with colors by Eva de la Cruz that give it even more vibrancy. Tieri's story has the right mix of swashbuckling pirates and giant kaiju to bring back the childhood excitement and imagination in every reader. Clearly, the creative team are very much fans of this franchise as they draw deep into the catalog and lore to craft this rousing tale.

I also appreciated the inclusion of the variant covers. There were several nice pieces in the bunch.

I’ve recently gotten into Godzilla due to the now Oscar ward winning film “Godzilla Minus One” and the monsterverse films. As my first Godzilla comic I really loved it! It was what I wanted from a Godzilla property and then some!

Only a couple days after the Godzilla film series picked up its first Academy Award ever, I stumbled across the opportunity to check out Frank Tieri's "Godzilla: Here there Be Dragons."

This is part of a five-issue graphic novel collection written by Tieri with illustrations by Inaki Miranda.

The story is relatively simple and straightforward.

In the 1500s, a ship of seafaring navigators run afoul of a lost world where there is only one king - the King of the Monsters. The book is set in the time when humanity had yet to travel the entire globe and monsters were believed to rule the oceans. "Here There Be Dragons" would be written on maps as an indicator of where man dare not go.

The book weaves together pirate tales, Monster Island, foreign lands, and even political intrigue in telling its tale. Godzilla is here, of course, in a story starting with the soon to be executed Mr. Hull, a pirate being interrogated within the British Territory of 1556. Promising facts unknown for some rum and trying to buy more time alive, Hull escapes into a fantastical tale of one of history's most famous pirate captain, Kaiju, and Monster Island.

One could argue that Hull himself is the focus of this story,though Godzilla is still wildly present and vividly realized as are other monsters. Miranda's imagery, in particular, is really remarkable here and graphic novel lovers along with Godzilla lovers would do well to pick up this series.

This sci-fi/fantasy is targeted toward middle-graders and that feels about right. However, I'd imagine that any fans of Godzilla and/or Kaiju will find much to enjoy here.

While I'm not quite a Godzilla devotee, I enjoyed this offering greatly and will no doubt check out future efforts by Tieri and Miranda.

In advance, I’d like to thank IDW and Netgalley for the free review copy in return for an honest review, no other inducements have been received by me for this, my words are my own.

Minor Spoilers ahead

We open on a pirate being interrogated, trying to bargain the information that he has in exchange for his life, a story that will include Sir Francis Drake, Lost Treasure, A Fire Breathing Dragon (no prizes for guessing), and her Royal Highness.

In this alternate world, Sir Francis Drake accepted a commission from Queen Elizabeth to sail out and find the lost treasure of Martin Yanes, a pirate who had taken all the gold of Bishop Thibauld De Castillion. While doing this, Drake takes prizes of several Spanish ships and invokes their ire, prompting them to send the entire armada after him, which would surely have been the end of him, but for a mysterious storm that brings them to monster island, where Godzilla shows up and makes short work of the entire armada.

What follows is more two stories than one, the first being the Spanish attempts to end Drake, and his continued efforts to thwart them and return home with his prize. The second being Godzilla fighting with several of the creatures on monster island. For the most part, these two stories are unrelated, and proceed on different pages, with the only meaningful interaction being at the end where Godzilla arrives to save Drake

Being honest, this story felt disjointed, I liked the idea of pirates encountering Godzilla, and the introduction of the Sons of Giants cult (which played a very small part in the main story but was pivotal at the end), but everything felt a little convenient, and the suggestion that not only did the british government know something about the Kaiju, but also may have had a hand in the control of them was a step too far.

It’s an enjoyable story, brought together by the last five pages when everything falls into place, a good introduction to a wider world, I’ll be interested to see where they go with it from here.

This was a well-done graphic novel about Godzilla with fantastic illustrations. It was dark and gritty, and I felt like I was getting a peek into the past and witnessing real events that happened hundreds of years ago. Some of the characters were real characters from history, and I felt as though I was learning an unexpected side of them. Thanks to NetGalley for letting me read this.

Oh this was so fun! Godzilla: Here There Be Monsters is perfect for Godzilla and kaiju fans. The artwork is wonderful and the story is fast-paced and engaging. There is also a lot of humor in this short book. Very easy to read in one day. I loved how the artist made all characters look unique enough so I could always tell which character was talking. Overall, I highly recommend this graphic novel for readers who love Godzilla, need a short book to read to meet a reading goal, and/or readers who love graphic novels.

My son is a huge fan of Godzilla and all things kaiju. He loved this. I really enjoyed how it slipped in various historical figures and gave them epic fates and encounters with the creatures of monster island. The illustrations are truely epic and lots of fun. The air of storytelling has notes of pirates of the Caribbean and the classic Godzilla with plenty of an action. Beautiful artwork.

Super fun read with great artwork. A must read for any fans of Godzilla or monster movies in general. Sidenote: I expect this to be a popular read for teens in the library as soon as the new Godzilla film comes out this year. Highly recommend!