When writer Jeremy Robinson was growing up in Beverly, Mass., he’d look out his bedroom window and imagine Godzilla, the giant movie monster best known for terrorizing Tokyo, rising up out of the ocean and laying waste to Beverly before marching south toward Salem.
As an adult, he’s made those daydreams a reality. The prolific Seacoast writer’s latest work is “Project Nemesis,” a comic book adaptation of his series of giant monster novels (he calls them “kaiju thrillers,” named for the Japanese genre that encompasses Godzilla, Mothra, and other giant beasts). The series, a collaboration with artist Matt Frank, debuted earlier this month, and the second issue is scheduled for a Nov. 4 release.
“I’m basically a grown-up version of my younger self, who now gets paid to tell stories,” Robinson said in an email.
Robinson tells a lot of stories — he’s written some 57 novels so far, from “XOM-B,” a zombie thriller with a sci-fi twist, to “The Berserker Saga,” a trilogy about a tribe of post-apocalyptic Vikings traveling through the wastelands of Europe. The “Project Nemesis” books, and their subsequent comic adaptations, follow Jon Hudson, a Homeland Security agent initially tasked with investigating paranormal activity who soon finds himself rallying a rag-tag team against an invasion of massive monsters.
Some novels are released under his own name, while others, like “The Berserker Saga,” are released under his two pen names. There’s Jeremy Bishop, who writes horror novels “that are far more gross and dark than what I traditionally write,” and Jeremiah Knight, who writes post-apocalyptic thrillers.
“I use the names to reach a more divergent audience. Some people who have read my action-adventure or fantasy stories might not believe I can pull off a dark horror novel, but they’d be willing to give Jeremy Bishop a try,” he said.
Robinson “works a normal schedule,” writing every day from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. He aims for two chapters a day, about 4,000 words, and sticks to tight deadlines. His novels have attracted a devoted base of fans, he said, which has presented its own interesting challenge.
“Fans are starting to remember (the previous novels) better than I can,” he said.
The new “Project Nemesis” comic is something of a return to Robinson’s roots. His career as a writer started with “Ralph,” a self-published comic that Robinson wrote and illustrated himself. While working on it, Robinson said he had an epiphany.
“It wasn’t just the art that I loved. It was the storytelling. Even now, I identify myself more as a storyteller than a writer,” he said.
(Giant monsters) help us process our fears of larger-than-life problems that seem impossible to surmount — global warming, Russian aggression, Donald Trump’s hair. — Jeremy Robinson
The first issue of “Nemesis” was the hardest to write, he said — some 90 pages of the novel had to be condensed into a 22-page comic book, one with “a good cliffhanger.”
“I had to locate and trim what wasn’t necessary to the story and keep things flowing in a way that made sense,” he said. “It also helped that the artist, Matt Frank, was a big fan of the novel and was able to really bring my vision to life.”
Robinson’s visions just happen to be populated by giant monsters with inscrutable motives and an insatiable desire for smashing cities and crushing humans. “Project Hyperion,” his fifth kaiju thriller, was published in late September, and Robinson said he’s seeing other authors get in on the monster action.
Giant monsters “reflect the kind of things that make us afraid. … (They) help us process our fears of larger-than-life problems that seem impossible to surmount — global warming, Russian aggression, Donald Trump’s hair. There is something about colossal monsters that taps into those inner fears, and telling stories where they are survived or overcome gives us hope.”
The next issue of “Project Nemesis” hits local comic shops on Wednesday, Nov. 4. For more about Jeremy Robinson’s novels, visit bewareofmonsters.com.