While G-Fest has been the most efficiently run and fan friendly show I have attended and/or vended at in my 45 years of experience, this year’s proved to be the best attended and most exciting yet. From the vendor’s perspective it is a dream come true, with the door openings on Saturday and Sunday looking like the most frenzied of Black Friday crowd rushes and Sunday so busy that the fans couldn’t stop buying even as we were packing the van. And of course while that is a reward for all the work of setting up, curating the collections of movie posters, books, magazines, model kits and toys, pricing, loading and unloading, the real reward was the conversations and exchange of ideas with fans ranging from kids to grandparents. With the help of Damien Turner, expert model builder who ran The House of Monsters with me for its duration, his partner Kristin Andersen, and esteemed artiste and my partner in crime Evelyn Spear, every inquiry or sale led to some discussion often extending beyond the item of interest itself.

Every show brings its surprises, and this particular show saw me selling more genre magazines and books than I likely have sold at any previous show. Well over 200 magazines, including probably 40 issues of The Monster Times, a periodical that I’d been reading since I made my commute to Chicago from the south suburbs, proudly folding out the creature-crammed pages to stand out from the bleary-eyed commuters with their Chicago Tribunes and Sum Times. As my monster hoarding obsession started with magazines it’s reassuring to see so many fans are sticking with physical media in lieu of succumbing to the pandemic of digital downloads. The same could be said for DVDs and Blu Rays, as we sold out of all of our 100 odd kaiju discs as well as bringing home four fewer boxes of discs overall. The next most popular category of discs was not classic horror or science-fiction but European horror, allowing for discussion of another one of my favorite topics Spanish horror cinema, which just goes to show the diversity of interests which has been a hallmark of G Fest for many years.

The Chicago contingent of kaiju royalty was well represented with esteemed kaiju expert Ed Godziszewski in attendance selling autographed copies of his comprehensive biography on Ishiro Honda while assisting fellow toy and movie poster specialist Sean Linkenback at his Showcase Daikaiju booth. Sean was offering his Art of Japanese Movie Poster book while practicing his Bernie Sanders-like generosity in offering toys vintage and new at prices almost as low as mine. Another Chicago staple model sculptor Bill Gudmundson of Resin Chef and Bill’s Kitchen was downstairs working a modeling session, while artist and ultracollector Alex Wald was represented by a pair of his prints we were offering at our tables (and can be purchased through our e-bay store). A G friend from the 1970s Randy Whalen showed up to take his patented selfies and reunite with the Chicago Godzilla Gang, more evidence of the lure of G Fest and the sense of community fostered by the indelible kaiju connection.

Unlike every other show where The House of Monsters has a presence, G-Fest shows promise for generations to come in its appeal to kids. Like most G-Fests before it, this year’s show saw a steady parade of pre-teens and teens contemplating how to spend their allowances and such. Most were seeking out SH Monsterarts or Bandai figures, with our stock of SH Monsterarts figures running out by early afternoon Saturday. It’s encouraging to me as a purist for the origins of genre legends that while of course the younger generation (as The Monkees put it) are attracted to the latest Legendary Godzilla releases, many show the most enthusiasm for the original/Showa Godzilla series, particularly the early and mid-1960s films, with so many disappointed that Son of Godzilla is so difficult to find on DVD or Blu Ray. The time trip is seeing a 12 year old come up to the table deciding between figures that cost well over $100, while I recall the effort required to cull together $25 for an original Godzilla 1-sheet (now worth thousands of dollars) or assuring my mother that the 2 foot tall Shogun Godzilla that bore little resemblance to Godzilla was worth $24.99 (which now sells for $1000).

One can only hope these young enthusiasts will be able to attend decades of G-Fests to come. But I do worry that the message of the original Godzilla and many of its sequels, a message stressing the urgent need for peace, nuclear de-escalation, cooperation between nations and respect for our planet, has been lost upon my generation and certainly the one before it. It is appearing more and more that Gen Z might have to resort to Plan Z as it was executed in the original Gamera, rocketing itself to other planets to escape the nuclear winter or climate induced catastrophes of our own. The lessons from Godzilla (1956), King Kong vs Godzilla (1962), Godzilla vs Mothra (1964), Godzilla vs Hedorah (1971) and so many other Japanese fantasy films (let’s not mention Catastrophe 1999/The Prophecies of Nostradamus (1974)) are not lost on G Fans, with diversity and inclusion being such an integral part of G Fest and fans feeling free to express themselves without concern of being judged. It might be aspirational to hope Gen Z G Fans will be instrumental in the movement to change our country’s trajectory away from perpetual war, potential nuclear confrontation and suffering the catastrophic effects of climate change, but then who ever thought so many thousands would join together in peace and harmony to celebrate a mutated reptile awakened by US hydrogen bomb testing at Bikini Atoll?