DAILY MONSTER 85 (of 100)

Good morning. Will you look at that! Where did this weekend come from? The week was a sleepless blur, and here it’s Saturday again! Crazy! I hope you had a good week and that the weekend will bring you some quality R&R. If you can, please take the time to read yesterday’s monster stories. We got some great ones from our regular correspondents and some fine magic from a few first-time contributors:

Storiesabout84_2

Monster 85 has something to hide. Someone, actually. You’ll have to take a look. What do you think is going on here? Who is this mystery passenger? Why would 85 carry somebody around like that? And why would he scram so quickly once that person disembarked? What is going on here? If you have a theory—and I know you do—I’d love to hear it:

Postyourstoryhere

As you can see, we have only 15 more monsters left, so I hope you’ll seize your chance to put your stories into the mix as we build to a monster crescendo on Sunday, February 25th. Until then (and even after) you can be damn sure that 344 LOVES YOU

17 Comments

  • 10 February 2007 5:02 am

    After more than thousand years of vegetating in a cave beneath the ruins of Camelot, Sir Gawain finally purchased the tank-style armor-of-the-day-wheelchair from the Merlin’s magical lab winter sales and started the search for the holy grail again. Therefore he had to spit out litte black knight, who slept in Gawains throat since 947 years, 6 months, 2 weeks, 4 days and 21 hours.

  • 10 February 2007 5:08 am

    Feeling the full weight of the responsibility of only 14 more Monsters to follow him, Philbert sends out his spawn in search of reinforcements.

  • 10 February 2007 5:10 am

    Philbert adds that he never could count and now we all now what Stefan is giving up for Lent…Monsters!

  • 10 February 2007 5:28 am

    I must have missed some explanation, but I recall early on the attempt to go 365, now I see we have just a 100. Please point me to the post that explains why the change occurred. Thanks for the great work, you are a big hit with my kids.

  • Thibaut
    10 February 2007 10:54 am

    Bryghtle just finished a long day at the office. the carpool was full and because of the soaring costs of fuel, he actually became the office. Phyllis wanted to stop off at Wermshod’s House of Crepes so Bryghtle allowed her out.

  • Thibaut
    10 February 2007 10:55 am

    a hundred? Say it ain’t so.
    _Thi

  • 10 February 2007 10:56 am

    Dave, I think he’s shifting from the Daily Monster to the Weekly Monster after number 100.

  • DHaynes
    10 February 2007 11:01 am

    LOVE these daily monsters! I tried a couple myself, and wow, it’s actually fun!
    Just curious though, what kind of paper do you use? I was having trouble getting the ink to spread in such fine detail as you have managed. Mine ended up being more like rivers of ink on paper. What’s your secret?

  • 10 February 2007 11:04 am

    We just found your monster site today…it couldn’t have come at a better time. I have 4 kids home sick, but they are all now happily making monsters at the kitchen table after having been inspired by you! Thanks so much for your creative work.
    (we can’t get our ink to make such wild lines like yours…what’s the secret??)

  • 10 February 2007 3:21 pm

    Hi Dave—Sam B. is correct: After 100 the Daily Monster will become the Weekly Monster. I made the original announcement on Monster 60: http://344design.typepad.com/344_loves_you/2007/01/daily_monster_6.html
    I love doing the monsters, and I love making them more and more elaborate, but I spend easily four hours on monster related activity every day on top of my regular work. Add to that that I’m going back out on the road to lecture and judge contests in March and April and something had to give.
    But as I said, there’ll be a Weekly Monster, and I am, of course, working on two books now—the original UPSTAIRS NEIGHBORS and 100 DAILY MONSTERS, which will chronicle this blog and a selection of your great stories.
    Beyond that, I’m very close to getting my e-commerce on. You’ll be able to get prints of all the 100 original monsters—and I’m sure some new monsters will surface as the print series gets rolling. So the monsters are definitely going to keep coming. They’ll just come in a slightly different way.
    Along those lines, I just finished an exclusive full-color monster for the “Color On Call” column in the next issue of Dynamic Graphics magazine:
    http://dynamicgraphics.com/ I blew the ink right after Monster 80 and it’s another mad scientist monster.
    DHaynes & Wendi—The paper is HP Multipurpose paper (500 sheets for $4.99 at the discount office supply store.) As for the fine lines, I’ll say this: If you’re gonna blow, blow hard—and use very little ink to start with. If you use to much you have to move too much substance and you’ll end up with fat rivulets. That’s why I use that tiny eye-dropper bottle, because I can put down a very small amount of ink.
    Wendi—I hope your kids get well soon! (Though a low-grade fever probably lets them see the monsters more easily. :^)

  • 10 February 2007 3:59 pm

    Going of to battle was never easy and I knew this way of traveling was new and not tested.
    The day of our departure I studied the manuals and performed the maneuvers for hours …I was prepared physically ,however mentally I was shaken.That evening I dreamed of pirates and waves,I suppose jumping of a titanium plank into the sea at the edge of the mountain would do that to the mind.
    As I jumped fearlessly of the plank I now knew the future was at hand.

  • 10 February 2007 5:47 pm

    on suggestion from stefan, i did today’s monster as an audio clip. This is my interpretation of the monster as it pulls into it’s docking station to leave it’s passengers off. The station is a futuristic train station. This monster is actually a human being that has been highly genetically modified many years in the future. In this future time all humans are modified to fill a particular job position, this is the ‘conductor’ of the times to come.
    and here is it’s sound
    http://www.noisyvagabond.com/transient-monster_85.mp3

  • 10 February 2007 9:52 pm

    Johnny Weltlich hated taking the Botbus. Public transportation really took a dive after Malcolm Bricklin was elected principal engineer of the Botbus program. Bricky must’ve been sippin’ on some good tea, and I don’t mean Lipton, to come up with this one. It spits you out when you get to your stop? Come on, seriously? Well at least it doesn’t blow up when rear-ended. But I wouldn’t want to be sitting in one if that ever happened. You never know.

  • kristen
    10 February 2007 9:53 pm

    The monster knew he wasn’t the coolest in the bunch, but he was still hopeful of getting a part in the new toy story movie. He was nervously rolling back n’ forth in the steamy waiting room, rehearsing his lines, when he started to choke, thinking that he was just anxious he kept reading…

  • 10 February 2007 11:08 pm

    In a world where there are no small roles in life, Gilbert filled a very insignificant position. And let’s not kid ourselves. This station really wasn’t all that. He was, in fact, the 3rd Wheelman of a SCBTT-7280 in the 702nd Heavy Armory Division. The monstrous vehicles in use by the 702nd – actually a set of altered life forms genetically restructured for combat – were the pride of the Western Federation. Their motto: “You can hide, but we’ll just not know when we kill you.”
    At any rate, Gilbert served a lowly position in the dank confines of the track housings. As 3rd Wheelman, it was his duty to ensure there was enough oil on tread rotaries 8, 11 and 14. Why he wasn’t responsible for all the rotaries was beyond him. To make matters worse, the WF was now employing the use of a new synthetic that had the half-life of Plutonium-244 (researchers are still in the labs to get something closer to that of SE-82). What this means, of course, is that Gilbert didn’t have to do anything. You might think it a glamorous life to be paid to do nothing but sit in a cramped quarter located in the nether regions of a SCBTT-7280. You would be wrong. Mostly because the WF’s military personnel were drafted, unpaid members of society that would spend a minimum of 15 years in service. Not surprisingly, this sort of recruiting was the cause (and effect) for such an incredibly low re-enlistment percentage. Less than one-one-millionth.
    Gilbert stared at the perfectly lubricated rotaries. For a long time. 127 hours straight. Without sleep. You know what happens to a person after almost 6 days of no sleep, staring at mechanical parts that make no sound due to an incredible lack of friction? They go crazy. Crazy enough to travel up the wrong access tunnel to the gullet of an SCBTT-7280. Crazy enough to stand on the tongue of an SCBTT-7280 as it opens its mouth trying to examine what just uncomfortably scampered up from its throat. And then crazy enough to leap into the air and fall some 30 feet onto the rough, scorched earth of a Fire Planet. That’s pretty crazy. That was the 12th soldier this particular SCBTT-7280 lost this month.

  • 11 February 2007 12:32 am

    Three words:
    A Scanner Darkly
    ***
    really digging that animation – the springboard effect is truly delicious, the eyeball, the splash…yum.

  • Sue Bebie
    7 May 2008 2:30 am

    Als Alt-68er hat er das ganze “Make Love not War” sehr ernst genommen. Er ist das weltweit einzige Kriegswaffenfressmonster das es gibt, leider. All das viele Metallzeug in sich reinzustopfen ist eine wahre Qual für ihn, denn immer schwerer drückt sein Körper auf die empfindsame Seele. Make Love, kann er schon lange nicht mehr… wen wundert’s bei dieser Körpermasse.
    Schon selbst beinahe zum Panzer mutiert, rollt er tief betrübt seinem nächsten Waffenarsenal entgegen.

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