Review by Ian Keogh

As Skate or Die opens a group of skating teens talk wistfully of a day two years previously referred to as Coin Toss Day, but we’ve no idea what it means, and neither do we know why their speech patterns are distinct and deliberately different. Louie Joyce takes a while to feed in explanations, the second being that Skate or Die takes place in an Australian coastal town. Kaiju manifestations are horrific intrusions, but they’ve happened before and there are protocols in place, but where Godzilla and Varan are due to clash if they continue on their current trajectories is the Coin Toss.

Godzilla has become one of those characters able to adjust to a variety of completely different artistic interpretations, and Joyce adds to the spectrum by not moving away from his spiky skate-punk visual ethos when the monsters appear. Any concerns about this rapidly evaporate on seeing the effect on pages such as the sample art, or Godizlla slamming across a battleship. When concentrating on the core cast, Joyce opts for as many small panels as possible on a page, a work intensive method when fewer panels could convey the necessary story points. An imaginative use of colour, though, constantly catches the eye.

It’s a while before the revelation that the Coin Toss is the ideal skatepark, created by the four featured characters two years previously in a disused shopping mall. Their belief is that somehow they’ll be able to protect the venue from two rampaging monsters, and there’s the added complication of the authorities having ordered the area to be evacuated. It’s not greatly used, but it turns out there’s a reason a long-deserted industrial park has never been redeveloped.

Joyce introduces that element at exactly the right point. We know the cast and their obsessions, we’ve seen the battling monsters, and we know what the army’s up to, and it seems the reset button’s about to be pushed one time too often. Skate or Die needs a big finale, and it’s difficult to see where it’s coming from before Joyce shows the way.

Godzilla is a silly concept that’s somehow caught the imagination for generations, and there’s a recognition of this in the way Joyce approaches the idea. Think about what happens here and it’s not remotely plausible even if allowing for giant monsters, but Joyce embraces the possibilities and generates the fun.