WEEKLY MONSTER 113 (for Doyald)

Good morning! How are you? First off, today is the beginning of Rosh Hashanah, so Happy 5768! (I really like the Jewish calendar. I wish it was 5768 on the Gregorian calendar, too. I’m sure I wouldn’t have a problem booking passage on a space ship in 5768… Sigh… Of course, I’d be 3795 years old… but I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I exercise, and I eat right. Surely my skin would still look good, no?)

I have to apologize for being a bad blogger, by the way. It’s been almost a week since my last post. After the first draft of the book was done, a whole bunch of non-monster work came crashing in on me.

That, and I put together a little video message from me to you that will be in the extras section of the monster DVD—featuring seven minutes of me jabbering away and drawing a brand new DVD-only monster—with all different angles of the desk and close-ups and cutaways and everything. So you see, I was still working for you, just in a way that won’t be visible until February.

I also took Friday and Sunday night off, which was really, really nice. I went to see the glorious return of one of my all-time favorite bands—Underworld—at the Hollywood Bowl. If you get a chance to see them on their current tour, I definitely recommend it! It was staggering!

Now, on to today’s business: I have a new Weekly Monster for you. Number 113 is dedicated to my brilliant and altogether wonderful friend Doyald Young, who is 81 today. Doyald is an amazing font and letterform designer, who also happens to make gorgeous books. If you’re not familiar with his work, please check out his website, listen to his Design Matters interview with Debbie Millman, or read this interview I did with him in the pages of STEP about a year ago. He’s led a pretty amazing life so far, and he’s my hero. If I make it to the year 2054 in one piece, and if by then I’m half as cool as Doyald is today, I’ll have done something right. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DOYALD! I hope you have an amazing New Year!

So, this is obviously a task specific monster, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have a story. Lots of interesting characters have day jobs that hide fascinating after hours activity. What do you think 113 does after a good day’s work? I can’t wait to hear your thoughts on the matter:

Postyourstoryhere

Oh… and did I mention? 344 LOVES YOU

9 Comments

  • 12 September 2007 9:20 am

    Oh, the calligraphic swirls are very Doyald! Very nicely done. I hope he has a happy 81st!

  • 12 September 2007 9:57 am

    despite her monthly PMS bloat, marsha was having a fine hair day. so fine, in fact, that she shelved her daily Flit-a-Float workout in exchange for a birthday soiree for her friend Doyald.

  • 12 September 2007 2:04 pm

    Melvin’s job was simply
    To sign the card and run.
    His curvy wings flapped quickly
    In the setting sun.
    The note was late…
    He had to state…
    Happy Birthday Doyald Young
    __________
    Definitely Dangerous Curves over Comp Logos btw.

  • Danielle
    15 September 2007 8:34 pm

    Really love the swirly feathers and how excited the monster is to send the birthday card. :]
    I hope Doyald had a good birthday, he seems like a super fantastic man. :]

  • Nikol
    17 September 2007 3:08 pm

    That’s all fine. What, however, do you think about Obadiah Shoher’s criticism pf Rosh Hashanah as aholiday that has nothing to do with New Year? Here, for example http://samsonblinded.org/blog/petty-paganism.htm

  • 17 September 2007 3:39 pm

    Hello Nikol, I’m an agnostic, so I see all religious holidays primarily as an opportunity for a community to come together peacefully. As long as enough people agree that the date is important to them, the theoretical relevance of the date is secondary.

  • 23 September 2007 9:44 pm

    Once upon a recent Tuesday,
    As I skimmed that morning’s Newsday
    Looking for reports of monsters from some place called “3-4-4”
    As I sat there, nearly slumping,
    Suddenly there came a bumping
    As of someone gently thumping, thumping at my ‘partment door
    “It’s like six a.m.,” I muttered, “Who is at my ‘partment door?”
    Hence, I crossed the hardwoord floor.
    Setting down my glass of orange
    Juice I then creaked wide the doorhinge.
    Inside flapped a creature with two legs, two wings, and eyeballs four.
    Then my orange juice it sipp’d.
    “Condensed,” it sniffed, “Like Home Run Script.”
    The swirls and spikes upon its wings familiar to me. What is more,
    His underbite was like a late night talkshow host I’d seen before.
    Whose name reminds me of “Leno-re”.
    Feelings of a life foregone stirred
    In me, “Be you bird or monster,”
    Said I, “What is it you want, sir, what is it you’re looking for?”
    With éclat, it fluttered backward.
    In its toes it grasped a placard
    Of some cardstock, lightly lacquered with some greetings underscored.
    Quoth it: “Happy Birthday, Doyald” — birthday greetings, it implored.
    Only this, and nothing more.
    And that monster (one-thirteen)
    Is sitting (still!) where first ’twas seen,
    And it’s not even Halloween. It trammels one’s esprit de corps.
    Its flight pattern makes spiral strokes,
    Much like the ‘C’ in Young Baroque
    Reminding one of that old joke: “If not baroque, then don’t restore.”
    That is, when you see Young’s (or Bucher’s) work, your own’s shoved in a drawer.
    No hard feelings. Je t’adore.

  • 24 September 2007 5:54 pm

    Wow, that’s great Patrick!

  • Sue Bebie
    30 May 2008 1:38 am

    Keine dunklen Gefühlswolken mehr. Joe der depressive Hosendesigner hat eine gewaltige Wandlung hinter sich. Das Rundumstyling ist mehr als gelungen. Das Hosendesign hat er an den einzigen, in seiner Behausung gefundenen, rostigen Nagel gehängt. Alles ist nun wieder hell und klar um ihn, denn aufgrund seiner neuen Mehräugigkeit hat er den totalen Durchblick. Er ist glücklich über seine neue Tätigkeit als Chefüberbringer von Glückwünschen der besonderen Art.

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