DAILY MONSTER 30
Good morning. I hope that you had a great weekend and that a manageable week lies ahead of you. Not much time is left in 2006 and I’m excited to pop the lid off of 2007 very soon. My wish is that we all get to make it through the final 14 days of this year in one piece and in good spirits.
Monster 29 allowed Magnifico Sam Berkes to spend some quality computer time with his goddaughter Sally K, who sealed their bond with a squishy dab of gooey vanilla wafer on Sam’s cheek. Truly, the family that watches Monsters together, stays together—mess and all.
Sam and Sally see in Number 29 a traveling salesman with a powerful vision for alternative energy generation. Nice work, guys! Milo thinks him a Steve McQueen lookalike, which is very charitable, I feel. Perhaps 29 needs a nice fastback sports car? He could probably manipulate the gear shift with his tongue.
New contributor Amy Lenzo envisions a parsnip-related street performer with dreams of the Broadway stage. Amy, as it turns out, is an expert in ecopsychology, which seems worth investigating. Thank you for joining in the monster fun, Amy. I hope you’ll contribute again today.
Magnificent Rose re-joins us after a day of R&R and brings us excellent verse about Wiffle, the Nasal Suction Monster. From her description, I wouldn’t be surprised if his nose turned out to be an interdimensional portal of sorts. Nice job, Rose. Many thanks for finishing the week on a high note.
Many thanks as well to Laura for selecting David Bowie’s Golden Years as the soundtrack for Number 29. A fine choice, indeed. (Now I’ll have to coax forth a monster that fits Bowie’s Heroes, just because I so love that song!)
Sam and goddaughter Sally asked about the animation technique I use for the monsters that move. He guessed correctly that I use stop frame animation. In fact, I film the whole drawing from beginning to end, including the step-by-step additions to the tongue of Monster 29. I then edit out my hand from the sequence to be animated, clip the “frames” to equal length, adjust the speed, and export it all into a finished sequence. I do it all in Quicktime, which is a laborious and altogether makeshift process, but it gets me where I need to go. I did another little animated finish today. Each frame started out as footage of different lengths, so when I compressed those bits of film to equal duration, the pitch of the ambient noise shifted accordingly. The resulting effect is quite fun, I think. I hope you’ll like it, too.
Visually, Monster 30 marks a return to some formal purity. No period clothing for this guy—just unadulterated monstrosity. What do you make of him? What happened to his eye? Does he inflate it voluntarily? Is it an allergic reaction? The result of a monster bar brawl? A lover’s quarrel, perhaps? Or something far more bizarre? Please tell me! I must know! Have a great Monday! Doors will open for you when you realize that 344 LOVES YOU
P.S.: Over the last few days I kept glancing at the counters on Revver and YouTube as they were approaching a combined total of 100,000 views. Well… I checked again just now, and we’re at 132,986! Unbelievable! Virtual champagne corks are popping! What a way to end Month 1 of the Daily Monster! Thank you all so much for coming. (Monster 31 is hours away.)
Hm, I prefer your other technique more …
I’ve been watching your blog since about #20 and have finally caught up on all the previous ones.
I love your technique and it’s so much fun to watch the monsters emerge!
This is Harry Eyeball.
No no, I’m not the one making the pun, this is a forty year old pun, and this is where it came from.
Harry grew up in a barn in Kansas. Details are sparse on his early years, but it has been figured that he was uncomfortable at home and decided it was time to move on. Harry was walking down the highway distraught and was picked up by Stanus Alsterprix (Monster # 08). Stanus understood what it meant to be an outcast, and the two drove around together in Stanus’ rig for two years. They had a quiet friendship built on understanding. The both liked and hated the same things, and all in all had a good time driving together.
When they made a delivery to New York City one day Harry was smitten by the buildings and the collection of outcasts that inhabited the city. After the delivery was unloaded Harry declared “Well, this is where I get out.”
“Alright. Be good little fella,” Stanus replied. And that was the end of the two year journey
Harry, still a bit untrusting, would walk around the city and get strange stares. He saw them all. When he was particularly angry his eye would flare up (like at the end of the video).
Harry did make friends. They would sit around, have a few beers and laugh and have a good time. Harry was kind of a mean drunk and would flare up his eye whenever someone made a joke. Everyone would laugh and say “AH! You’re getting the Harry Eyeball!” This would only make Harry angrier, and make everyone laugh more, but all was forgiven by morning.
Eventually his friends started using the term in every day speech as a term for when someone gives you a disapproving or confrontational look. It started to catch on, and since not everyone knew Harry, they thought the look was called a “Hairy Eyeball.”
I’d say that this is what happens when the Hypno Toad looks in a mirror
Thanks for such a kind welcome, Stefan! I love how you gather together and nurture your community of commenters!
I cracked up that out of everything you could have picked you identified me with ecopsychology – and the wikipedia entry you linked to is a particularly weird representation of the field – but hey, that’s cool. 🙂 It’s nice to be recognized, and being know as a nature lover can’t hurt.
As for today’s monster – Brilliant! I believe mogabog has been taken in by Harry’s normal identity, however, without being aware that the guy is a Master of Disguise and as such has an important role to play as a member of the UN Espionage team, UNET.
It’s true that the ‘hairy eyeball’ he sports with such panache did originally occur as a result of an encounter with a bottle of 110% proof vodka, smuggled in from the Ukraine by Harry’s late godfather, but that was a long time ago and another story entirely.
Since then, the inherently-gifted eye has undergone extensive (and highly expensive, I might add) surgery to enable it as a BIONIC EYE that sees all, and is especially alert to changes in emotional temperature. These are broadcast subliminally and picked up by the powerful radar of Harry’s eye-organ before being electronically transferred to UNET headquarters in Zurich.
Harry’s particular talents have been used extensively in the after-hours cocktail parties infamously associated with World Peace Summits, where he is usually placed undercover as a bartender in whom they all eventually confide as the wee hours approach and political inhibitions recede.
seems possible that the hands protruding from his belly are on the inside… the struggling person he just ate for brunch is making his eye bulge.
ahh, i’m morbid on mondays 🙂 🙂
I like the Amy’seses comments 🙂
I think that this monster’s name is Simon, as one can play simon with his eye.
jeez… I feel like such an ingrate… 344 loves me so much, and I’ve been neglectful… sorry… some family issues.
On to the monster… I like the technique by the way!
“Ok dude, seriously, get me to a hospital,” Chad Brunswillick said after a William Tell-esque attempt to knock a jar of mayo off his head with a hiking boot went terribly wrong. This isn’t the first time Chad’s been to the hospital for his antics, Chad always felt the pressure to go the extra distance to be one of the guys since he doesn’t have any legs.
Like there was this one time that his boys found the solidified remains of heavy whipping cream in the back of the fridge (which, to all of their dismay is NOT the same as whipped cream). They bet Chad 11.67$ that he wouldn’t eat it… He did… and he just recently got over his battle with botchulism.
Or there was this time that they bet him he couldn’t climb to the top of the Wal-Mart on the big pile of boxes out back… he got halfway before his grand demise…
All in all, a busted eye is pretty tame compared to the other injuries he’s sustained, but come on Chad, those boys aren’t your friends…
Todays monster has been listening to Placebo Headwound by The Flaming Lips.
Love the new technique by the way!
came across this site thru cartoon brew. magical work
you rock man. Really nice work.
Congrats on the views Stefan. I’m sure those numbers will continue to skyrocket. Virtual Champaign for everyone!
Our friend Petunia here is suffering from a rare fungal infection called staticalis occipitalis. This is a very painful condition where a small fungal tentacle develops in the vitreous humour and slowly pushes the eye outward. When the fungus has reached its final growth stage, it attracts small levels of static charge from the air and stores it up for a period of six minutes. Every six minutes the core of the fungal tentacle discharges the electricity in an awesome, but painful, display of fireworks. Petunia needs to get this checked out as soon as possible, as it is highly contagious. With proper care and medication, Petunia should be back to normal in about three hundred forty-four days.
When Amy was just a little girl,
she accidently swallowed a giant pearl.
Why she did it, nobody knows,
but it filled her life with so many woes.
“Call the doctor!” Her mother cried,
“I’m going to faint,” Her father sighed.
But little Amy just sat there, gurgling away,
but it still affects her to this very day.
You see, when someone swallows a gem,
be it quartz, topaz or any like them,
for some weird reason, and to many a surprise,
it causes harm to come to the swallowers eyes.
… And/or body, hands and feet, as you can see.
Anyway, little Amy ended up with such a greatly morphed face,
to her family, she was nothing but a disgrace.
She even contemplated suicide, she felt so low,
what’s the point in living without a torso?
But then, she realized, there was a plan!
She knew a big circus director man!
So she signed up with him, and now you can see,
Bug Eye-A works with Q-Ball Sally.
Yawn. Remember her? Well, even if you don’t… Yeah. It’s nod-land time now.
Hey Stefan,
today’s monster reminds me of a parasite called the “leucochloridium paradoxum”. His host are pulps of slugs. As the infected pulps begin to pulsate in many colours and to swell, birds become attentive and eat the slugs (the pulps are similar to worms). Finally the parasite can be excreted by the bird for searching a new host.
Here is a link for you to imagine the whole thing:
http://www.vu-wien.ac.at/i116/i116parasiten/Leucochloridium/leuco.htm
I just remembered a biology lesson 😉 At that time we used to call these slugs “disco-slugs” because of the pulsing and the colourful pulp.
Greetings
Hey Stefan,
I enjoy these monsters a lot! Great work. I especially like the way you draw things upside down faster en more precise than I could draw them regularly.
I should be listening on the theacher right now, but I´m only watching monsters. I love it!
Nr 30 is my favorit so far.
Happy Cristmas from Sweden…
oh my god! I’m working my way backwards through the archival annals…this is superb! I have to do the happy monster dance now!!
I need to write stories for some of these that I missed. Why, oh why, did I lurk for so long without posting?!
Immer, wenn Froschkopf abends auf Brautschau zum Quaken ansetzt, bläht sich anstatt der Schallblase sein Auge auf.
Vom hohen Augendruck halbseitig erblindet und deshalb ohne Tiefensehen, schafft er es trotz seines weltmeisterlich schnellen Zungenschleuderns nicht mehr, seiner Angebeteten genügend Fliegen zu präsentieren.
IV-Rente zu beziehen, und der Gang zum Kühlregal des städtischen Feinkostladens wären vielleicht eine Lösung. In Zeiten monsterlicher Emanzipazion könnte natürlich die Fröschin auch selber Fliegen fangen oder als tierfreundliche Variante zur Vegetarierin konvertieren.
Big Eye was an outcast. Nobody liked him and nobody cared for him. He always was alone and he lived in a hollow empty cave. One day he stumbled upon a human. The human had a red eye and he thought since the human looked so weird he must be an outcast like him, but a little part in Big Eye sensed fear. The human swung his hand and looked like he was going to hit Big Eye, but Big Eye didn’t think that he was going to hit him.He was very wrong, the human hit him in his big eye. Big Eye was hurt so he ran to his cave. A few days later he had a red eye. Then, he was known as Big Red Eye.