When did your interest in daikaiju and other giant monsters begin? What inspired it?

My love for giant monster movies is wrapped up in a love for all sci-fi films. When I was a kid, I found Bjo Trimble's Star Trek Concordance, and it changed my life. That book has complete plot summaries for all the episodes, cast lists, a glossary of all the aliens, spaceships and planets. And what Bjo had done for Trek, I wanted to do for every sci-fi film ever made. This included, of course, daikaiju movies. So when I watched Gamera vs Barugon on TV, I was taking notes. I catalogued everything in those monster movies, from Gappa the Triphibian Monster and Ebirah the Giant Shrimp, to the Oxygen Destroyer (whose inventor, the self-sacrificing Dr Serizawa, was the noblest man of all).

Perhaps you can tell us something of your career to date.

This is my first published bit of fiction, and if it's my only one ever, I'll go to my grave a happy man. Mostly I do science fiction art. But as I look back on my art, I see... a giant Elvissaurus destroying a city, a giant Chinese dragon fighting a battleship, a giant spinosaurus fighting a giant dragon. Apparently, something must have stuck.

What is your favourite giant monster film? Why that one?

Hands down, the first Godzilla (Gojira) movie. Destroying Tokyo isn't just fun and games. The morning after Godzilla's first attack, we see the wounded and dying overflowing from the hospital, and rows of tidy Japanese schoolgirls stoically singing, pleading for salvation in the face of an unbelievably powerful force. We know that they are doomed, that their song is futile, and it is heartbreaking.

Another key scene in that movie briefly shows Godzilla and an aviary. Dinosaurs -- like Godzilla -- may really be birds, and here we see the small, frantic, trapped birds contrasted with this huge monster that can go anywhere or do anything it wants. With one swipe, Big G could have freed all those birds -- his brethren -- but he does not. In a way, my story in Daikaiju! is an attempt to correct that oversight.

Can you tell us how you came to write your story for the DAIKAIJU! anthology? What thoughts lay behind it?

This was the story I was born to write. It took me a lifetime. A lifetime of movie watching! I've always thought that monsters were only looking for love -- Frankenstein's monster wants a bride, Dracula is looking for someone to stride through the ages with him. This theme is in my Guidolon story, in addition to every scientific error and bad sci-fi movie cliche I could think of. There are also half a dozen references to Apocalypse Now and United States President Jimmy Carter being attacked by a killer rabbit. My thought while writing this was: What if The Simpsons did a monster movie? This is what I came up with.

February 2005