PBR and Godzilla fans can find the limited-edition cans and cases practically anywhere through January.
A tall, glass cabinet full of monsters takes up an entire wall in Peter Santa-Maria’s studio. The Cuban-American artist, known to the world as Attack Peter, has been dreaming up his own kaijus and interpretations of famous monsters from Japanese pop culture for nearly two decades.
In the center table are the artist’s primary tools: stacks of linoleum, black paint, a roller, and a whole collection of carving picks. While Santa-Maria works with different media, from graphic design to painting, he excels in printmaking. His latest collection of prints features the most famous kaiju monster of all: Godzilla.
In celebration of the giant lizard’s 70th anniversary, PBR has produced 60 million specially designed cans and cases featuring Santa-Maria’s original designs of Godzilla, Mothra, Mechagodzilla, and King Ghidorah.
“I was really happy to see that PBR started to become a platform for creatives,” says the Miami-born and bred artist. “They’ve been putting artwork on their cans by different independent artists over the years, and that really is a huge thing for an artist and for the art community.”
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Santa-Maria grew up watching old Godzilla movies on Sunday mornings, and he’d spend the rest of his weeks doodling the superhero lizard. Godzilla, he says, is the ideal avatar for kids who are obsessed with dinosaurs and the like. Except, he adds, “Godzilla has a sense of personality…he’s a big, lumbering guy, but he has his own set of goals.”
To a novice, Godzilla is a terrorizing force tearing down city buildings. But true fans view the monster as a hero of sorts, fighting other kaijus and saving people in the process. “He goes back into the water every time. He’s not trying to mess with anything,” says Santa-Maria. As he speaks, he adjusts his sturdy studio apron, his hands gripping the corners and showing off two brightly colored Godzilla tattoos, one on each knuckle.
Santa-Maria has been producing unofficial Godzilla pieces for years and selling prints at comic conventions, which led to his discovery by Skybound Entertainment in 2019. He worked with the company for a few years before accepting the position of senior creative director at Mondo, an online shop that creates collectibles and is owned by Funko.
Through his work with both companies, Santa-Maria was introduced to Toho Studios, the Japanese company that owns the rights to Godzilla. For the past five years, he’s collaborated with Toho and created official figures and artwork featuring the scaly creature. This most recent venture resulted in the artist’s work being featured on PBR cans, which are rolling out nationwide.
Photo by Carolina del Busto
PBR and Godzilla fans can find the limited edition cans and cases practically anywhere the American lager is sold. From gas stations to grocery stores, they’ll be out in the wild from now through January. The 12- or 30-pack cases all include 12-ounce cans that feature only Godzilla, as do the individual 16-ounce cans. But, if you purchase a 25-ounce can, you’ll also see Mothra (a magical moth), Mechagodzilla (the armored lizard created to defeat regular Godzilla), and King Ghidorah (a three-headed dragon that’s Godzilla’s archnemesis).
“They’re classic characters from Godzilla’s history,” says Santa-Maria excitedly. “You know, these are some of the most well-known Godzilla characters, and having four different designs on those cans has been a really cool thing to see people collect.”
Before his foray into figure-making, Santa-Maria was an art teacher at various public and private schools around Miami-Dade, and he fell into printmaking by way of that teaching career. His students would lose their minds when he’d teach the craft — there’s something special about being able to produce multiples of a design and have a tangible, finished work of art, even if you’re not the most artistically gifted kid.
Later, as Santa-Maria began to frequent comic conventions, he noticed a ton of posters and action figures, but not a lot of printmaking. “Now they are everywhere,” he says with a laugh, “but at the time, nobody was doing this. So I started to build a portfolio of prints and take an inventory to conventions, and it really popped off from there.”
Santa-Maria is also developing a book based on his original monster, a kaiju named Takoro. Looking down at the space underneath the table, where a stack of prints nearly two feet high accumulates, he says, “I want to make sure I can make and build something that’s mine.”
