Bob Eggleton
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Bob Eggleton is an American science fiction and fantasy artist who has worked on numerous projects related to Godzilla, King Kong, Gamera, and other kaiju. He is one of the best-known American artists associated with the genre, producing a huge volume of work related to Godzilla in particular in the 1990s and 2010s.
Career
Bob Eggleton has illustrated for science fiction magazines such as Asimov's Science Fiction and science fiction conventions such as Boskone and Worldcon since 1980. He began painting in the following years and doing work as a cover and textbook artist, which proved more lucrative and encouraged him to pursue art as a career.
Bob Eggleton's first commercial Godzilla piece was the cover he painted for the Dark Horse American translation of the manga adaptation of The Return of Godzilla. When working with Toho, he and other book artists were instructed to avoid the more anthropomorphized Godzilla designs featured in the 60s and 70s to depict the monster as fiercer. Toho's instructions also included similar rules to those given to Patrick Tatopoulos, the designer of TriStar Pictures' Godzilla, such as the need for the monster to have three rows of dorsal plates. After drawing covers for several issues of the Dark Horse Godzilla comic series, Eggleton approached editor Randy Stradley and suggested the idea of Godzilla traveling back in time and battling a space monster. Stradley approved and allowed him to write and illustrate the issue, which ultimately became the last in the series; consequently, Eggleton also created the final Dark Horse opponent for Godzilla, the Stranger. This story, in which Godzilla travels back in time to the Cretaceous period and fights a draconic alien who feeds on dinosaurs, would be a major influence on the 1998 Toho film Rebirth of Mothra 3.[1]
Eggleton worked on merchandising for the 1998 American GODZILLA film, including a coloring book featuring over one hundred drawings. Throughout the late 90s, he also provided art for numerous Godzilla books by Random House, including fully painting the picture books Who's Afraid of Godzilla? and Godzilla Likes To Roar!. In 2002, Eggleton was invited to watch the filming of Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla, which also gave him the opportunity to appear in the film as a fleeing civilian. After IDW Publishing acquired the comics license for Godzilla, Eggleton illustrated numerous covers for the company's various titles beginning in 2011; he also scripted and fully painted Godzilla in Hell #2. He has continuously provided cover art for magazines such as G-FAN and Famous Monsters of Filmland throughout the years.
Eggleton has won a Skylark Award, nine Hugo Awards, twelve Chesley Awards, two Locus Awards, seven Analog Readers Polls, six Asimov's Reader Polls, one Jack Gaughan Award, and four Science Fiction Chronicle Readers Polls for his artistic works in the fields of Science-Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror.[2]
Selected bibliography
- Godzilla (1990) - Dark Horse single-volume trade paperback cover[3]
- Godzilla (1995-1996) - Story [issue #16] / art [issue #16] / covers [issues #0, 9-13, 16]
- Godzilla (1995) - Dark Horse single-volume trade paperback cover
- Godzilla: King of the Monsters (1996) - Cover
- Godzilla 2000 (1997) - Cover
- Godzilla Invades America (1997) - Cover and interior art
- Godzilla at World's End (1998) - Cover
- Godzilla: Journey to Monster Island (1998) - Cover and interior art
- Godzilla Likes to Roar! (1998) - Illustrator
- Godzilla vs. the Space Monster (1998) - Cover and interior art
- Who's Afraid of Godzilla? (1998) - Illustrator
- Godzilla vs. the Robot Monsters (1998) - Cover
- Dark Horse Classics: Godzilla - King of the Monsters (1998) - Covers [reprints of Godzilla, King of the Monsters Special and Godzilla #0-4]
- Godzilla and the Lost Continent - Cover [unpublished]
- G-FAN (2000-2022) - Covers [issues #43, 50, 61, 94, 110, 112, 121-122, 136]
- Rue Morgue (2006) - Cover [issue #60]
- Famous Monsters of Filmland (2011-2016) - Covers [issue #256, 262, 269, 274, 280, 281, 287]
- Godzilla: Legends (2011-2012) - B covers [issues #1, 3, 5]
- Godzilla (2013) - A covers [issues #9-13]
- Godzilla: Rulers of Earth (2013) - Retailer incentive cover [issue #1]
- Godzilla: History's Greatest Monster (2014) - Cover
- Godzilla: Cataclysm (2014) - Subscription covers [issues #1-5]
- Godzilla in Hell (2015) - Story / art / cover A [issue #2]
- Project Nemesis (2015-2016) - B incentive covers [issues #1-6]
- Godzilla: Rage Across Time (2016) - A covers [issues #1-5]
- Godzilla Rivals: Vs. SpaceGodzilla (2023) - Retailer incentive cover
- King Kong - 2023 Easton Press Deluxe Illustrated Edition cover and interior art
Other credits
- Iké Boys (2021) - Poster
- Killer Whale SRS Cinema Blu-ray cover (2023)
- The Great Yokai War: Guardians SRS Cinema Blu-ray cover (2024)
Selected filmography
- Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla (2002) - Fleeing extra[4]
Gallery
Videos
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Trivia
- In his 2020 interview for Kaiju Masterclass, Eggleton stated that he found Shin Godzilla to be the most interesting incarnation of the character to paint.
- Eggleton uses models and toys as references for lighting[5] and has compared drawing Godzilla to drawing a tree.[6]
External links
References
This is a list of references for Bob Eggleton. These citations are used to identify the reliable sources on which this article is based. These references appear inside articles in the form of superscript numbers, which look like this: [1]
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