- Interview Date: 10/10/2025
- Interview Format: In Person, One-on-One
- Interview Location: New York Comic Con
Anime Herald: How did you choose the name “Attack Peter?”
Attack Peter: I used to have a site with another artist buddy of mine named Brian Reedy. A great artist in Miami. It was called “Attack the Planet.” Our emails were “attackbrian at gmail” and “attackpeter at gmail.” I just never changed mine. I considered changing it over the years, because we don’t have that studio anymore. My wife kept saying “It’s so catchy and easy to remember, leave it.”
Anime Herald: It’s iconic.
Attack Peter: It was totally unintentional, but I’m glad. It is not a call to action.
Anime Herald: You were a teacher for many years. Can you share some stories from that time?
Attack Peter: It’s the most important experience I’ve ever had. It’s a difficult job, but it’s also incredibly rewarding. It’s a thread that goes through my career. Opening people’s minds to what their potential is, what they are capable of. We take it for granted as people who do things. There are a lot of people, a lot of kids, who don’t have a sense that they are qualified, that they are capable of doing anything of note.
In my specific field, I was an art teacher. I taught kindergarten, up to the University of Miami, and everything in between. My main goal was to get kids to go, “I can do that too.”
That continues through Mondo now. Finding artists, working with artists, challenging them to do bigger and better things. Unlocking their potential.
Anime Herald: If you had a chance to speak with art teachers, what’s the one piece of advice you would like to share with them?
Attack Peter: The number one thing I would tell art teachers is to consider your class more as an opportunity to build young entrepreneurs. Not just teaching the art skills that they need to learn. Show them what they can do with it. Why should they care? We all have a sense that if we learn math, it will be useful. If we learn literature, it will be useful. If I learn science, it will be useful. More and more, we are losing that sense of why you should sit in a classroom for an hour every other day learning art. Something they feel like they probably can’t do anything with. The truth is, if you look around New York Comic Con, a lot of people are doing something with those skills.
Anime Herald: What advice would you have for artists who are just entering the field and who don’t know the business side of it?
Attack Peter: The most important thing is to get as good as you can get at what excites you about working. If you are someone who loves realistic illustration, you need to aspire to be the best. Someone will always be better, but your true north inspiration should always be to be the best in the arena. Because that will open more doors.
If someone wants to be a visual effects artist behind the scenes, working on a large project in collaboration, you need to know the tools. You need to be obsessed, you need to be on YouTube learning everything that is now free to consume. In the past I had to pay people for DVD’s to get little bits of information.
And you must, must, must find your community. Whether that means it’s an online forum where other people try to learn similar skills. Whether that means you’re going to conventions, setting up in Artists’ Alley, or walking around handing portfolios out. To studios and companies like ours where we can discover you.
You need to get your skill up to the best it can be and always be improving, and you need to network and be part of a community.
Anime Herald: What was your community?
Attack Peter: Funny enough, as a teacher I had decided that I’m never going to have a chance at an art career. I had foolishly decided that for myself. At one point in every school year, as the year was winding down, the kids were finishing their projects. There was a little more leeway in terms of time. They would ask me to draw something for them to take home for the summer. I would sit and draw, and sit and draw. I realized “I could do this at a convention.”
I signed up for my local Miami convention, (Florida) Supercon, in 2011. I sat there with a bunch of random art with no rhyme or reason to it. But I sold artwork. I went, “Oh!” I noticed some of the artwork sold more, and some of it sold less. I thought, “If I did this again, I’d probably do more of this, since people are responding to it.”
I did that and kept iterating with no real goal in mind. No sense that I knew this was going anywhere. Little by little, it turned into Attack Peter, print maker and artist. The specific aesthetic visual language that people have come to know. The black and white, bold graphical style. The giant monster illustrations that everybody loved. That became a thing and I just followed the wave of momentum. I didn’t craft it.
Anime Herald: Back in 2011 and 2012, the stuff that really hit for you was the kaiju?
Attack Peter: Yeah. Anything with big monsters. Alien, Predator, Godzilla, the Rancor from Star Wars. That’s what I have the most fun drawing, and I think it shows in the results that I am having fun when you see it.
Anime Herald: What attracts you to kaiju?
Attack Peter: I feel it is something primitive and primal. I probably project onto it. Something about Godzilla, specifically. He reminds me of a blue collar plumber. He’s out there doing what he has to do, but he’d much rather be at home chilling with his family. And then something else pops up. He has to get up and go back to work.
I project that energy onto it. I also love the sense of scale. Something encompassing so much space is so intimidating. And when Godzilla is a good guy, it’s that much better because you know you have the ultimate defender on your side.
Anime Herald: Have you seen the recent Godzilla movies?
Attack Peter: I’ve seen every Godzilla movie multiple times. I can’t believe that seventy years in, they’ve created what is in my opinion, the new best Godzilla movie of all time, and one of my favorite movies of all time, Godzilla Minus One. I think that team nailed the charm and joy I associate with Amblin films and (Steven) Spielberg. The impending doom and scale of some of the classic Godzilla films, like (Godzilla) 54 and (Godzilla) GMK.
Anime Herald: Yeah. I feel like this was the first one in a while that reconnected with the ‘54 original. The darkness, the suffering.
Attack Peter: 100%. There’s a sense of retribution in Minus One. You don’t see Godzilla for most of the movie. This is the first time I watched a Godzilla movie where I felt a sense of dread when Godzilla would show up. I noticed it within myself. Normally, I’m like, “Yeah, Godzilla!” This time I was like “Oh f***, we’re in trouble.”
Anime Herald: I love the line from the Minus One, “Tough bastard!”
Attack Peter: It’s so human and relatable. In this version where he’s the antagonist, you need everybody to work together. You need the science, you need the military. You need the young guy who doesn’t know better. The guy who’s seen it all, been there, done that. The family that you’re fighting for. It really is an analogy for the importance of community.
Anime Herald: What is your origin story? What got you into art in the first place?
Attack Peter: I’ve always been drawing. I loved drawing. I loved looking at my toys as a kid. I was one of the kids who would stand up his toys in a row, and just look at them and admire them. Over time, I would start to draw them. Further along in life, I discovered the Four Horsemen. The incredible sculptors who used to work in MacFarlane Studios and started their own company.
I learned there were actual people who did this. I said, “I want to do this. I want to have a life where I design something. It can exist as a drawing. It can exist as a figure. If I produce enough of it and people like it, I can meet new people, make new friendships, and open new doors for myself.”
It is almost like art was a car that took me to the place I was trying to get to.
Anime Herald: What is your professional training? How did you get the skills to pay the bills?
Attack Peter: I’ve taken quite a few atelier-style art courses. I have a bachelors in fine arts, a masters in art and education. A lot of that entailed classical portrait painting, landscape painting. Still life drawing. Critiques with professors. Classes where they rip your work to shreds. The movie Art School Confidential. I literally lived that life.
There were many moments in my life where I felt so beaten down. I felt like I was against the wall and couldn’t see any light in the darkness. I’ve almost given up multiple times. There were multiple times where I said “I’m done.”
There was always some part of me that said, “What if we do one more thing?” “What if instead of doing it the way I’ve been doing it, I try this?” That’s why I say community is so important. Up until 2011, I believed that art was a very isolated thing. At that point I realized that if I go into the community and see what the community is looking for I might be able to connect.
Anime Herald: Two follow-up questions. First, what schools did you attend?
Attack Peter: I went to the great (Christopher) Columbus High School in Miami, where my first serious art teacher was also the wrestling coach.
Anime Herald: That’s awesome.
Attack Peter: David (Scott) Isenberg. Rest in peace. A legend who had real chops. He went to the Chicago Art Institute. He was the real deal, but also, if you screwed around in his class, he’d put you in a suplex. It was this great metaphor: “If you want this, you’d better be ready to fight for it.”
From there, I went to the Miami Dade Kendall campus in Miami. I had incredible teachers and professors there. And then I went to Florida International University, where I learned the important foundational principles and techniques. But I always learned from my peers. I always found the best person in my group and compared how far I was from that person and asked “How do I close the gap?”
Anime Herald: The second follow-up question: In those moments in the darkness when you were down, how did you get back up? How did you get yourself to try one more thing?
Attack Peter: I would give myself time to wallow in my self loathing. Once I was done with my pity party I would realize it wasn’t fun anymore. I still wanted to meet and interact with new people. I wanted to be able to go to a comic con and walk up to my heroes and my idols and say “This is what I do. Can we work together on something,” Eventually, that pulled me through it.
Anime Herald: How did the connection with Pabst Blue Ribbon come about?
Attack Peter: Amazingly, PBR contacted me. Toho reached out and said, “Hey, we’d like you to do this.” PBR discovered me through Toho. Toho has been an incredible guardian angel in my life. They always recommend me. They always put me on the spot for things like this. It’s an honor, because I’m representing them when I do something like this. I’m a temporary steward of these iconic characters.
For them to say, “We’d like you to represent us on 60 million cans,” how could I say no? PBR offered it. I was enthusiastic, over the moon. When they obliged me after I asked them “Can I put ‘Attack Peter’ on the can?” they said “sure.” It is literally a dream project.
(Editor’s note: 60 million cans is in the ballpark of 10% of PBR’s yearly production.)
Anime Herald: The only beer can I can think of with an artist’s name on it is (Shmaltz) King Kirby Ale.
Attack Peter: Good call.
Anime Herald: Let’s start with Godzilla. How close is the final product to your initial vision?
Attack Peter: All of these images I carve out of a linoleum block. I take a block of linoleum. I draw the design out. I carve it with a blade. I roll ink on the carving and press paper onto it like a giant stamp. They are pretty much one-to-one the size of these cans to the size of the art. My goal is always, if I am going to draw Godzilla, and be so bold as to put it on so many cans, I want to do something unique and individual that warrants the name and the stylization.
I am always trying to reinterpret Godzilla, the way his suits have changed over the years, but still have it readable and recognizable as my work. Big contrasts, lots of patterning, and bold expressions.
Anime Herald: To me, it looks indigenous.
Attack Peter: 100%. It’s a rustic medium. The medium pushes back. It kind of tells you where it wants to be. You can have a sense of where it is going, and as you work on it you’ll realize, “Oh, we’re going this way” and then that’s the result.
Anime Herald: Let’s talk about Mechagodzilla. What was your vision here?
Attack Peter: Mechagodzilla is a perfect design. The Showa era Mechagodzilla is a perfect design. The first time I drew it I was so intimidated. I thought, “There is nothing I can do to improve upon this.” So it became more about, “What can I do to emphasize patterning, bold contrasts.”
I started to interpret the metal, as metal has high contrast shadows and lights, as opportunities to be bold with the equipment. I was looking for patterning and reflections and metal shears and things like that. That’s the design there.
Anime Herald: Mothra?
Attack Peter: Mothra was a breeze for me because she’s rich with patterns. I wanted to embrace those big wings. In my opinion, she has to be a little bit cute, a little bit charming, but mystical at the same time. I didn’t want to just focus on her face, I wanted to see the wings, which provided me with the space to put one of the Mothra eggs at the bottom.
Anime Herald: Now for my personal favorite, King Ghidora.
Attack Peter: King Ghidora is another one where it is so much, this character is so massive, so I prioritized the expressions on the three different heads. Looking regal, royal, a hint of the wings there. Emphasizing the incredible scale patterns, the specific horns, the crescent moon shape on the forehead. Making sure it fits alongside the other three.
Anime Herald: Is there anything else you’d like us to know about this collaboration with PBR, or about your work with Mondo?
Attack Peter: I hope people look our work up. You can do weird and unusual creative work and find a home for it.
If people want to share their thoughts, hit me up. I check all of my messages, but Instagram is the easiest.
Anime Herald: Thank you.
Header photo credit: Matt Shail