THE DAILY MONSTER

MONSTER SKATEBOARDS

Good morning. Another of the item I've been working on lately just got released, and I'm excited that I can finally tell you about it: Zazzle just started offering custom skateboards today. To mark the occasion they invited a whole group of artists to populate their inaugural line-up of decks, including... you know... me. And so, without further ado, please meet the Monster Skateboards!

As with all the Zazzle stuff you can customize. There are about a dozen different deck sizes to choose from, and -- very nifty -- the vintage 70s style to unleash your inner Z-Boy:

I hope you like the new creatures. And if you're getting one of these decks, do please send me a photo of yourself in monstrous action, so I can post it on the blog. Why? Because I bet it'd look rad, and because 344 LOVES YOU

OH... ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER COVER

Good afternoon. How are you? Please forgive me for another long lapse between posts. I'm working on a whole bunch of new things for you -- aren't I always? -- and it's kept me from writing to you here on the blog. I'll mend my ways soon. (I promise: I can change!)

As it happens, one of the items I've been working on has just hit the newsstands. Next time you're browsing the magazine racks, please keep an eye out for the new issue of STEP inside design, featuring a cover design by yours truly. As you can see, the creative team at Sterling-Cooper already got their issue:

My thanks to STEP editor Tom Biederbeck, and art director Michael Ulrich for inviting me to return to the magazine -- home of my ink & circumstance column for two years -- for pushing me on the design, and then pushing for the design. I love it when a plan comes together.

In Monster news, I received a whole sheaf of brilliant new drawings from Mr. Joey Bruce, and I'm happy to share them with you below. More monstrous things are on the way. Why? Because 344 LOVES YOU

HOLD'EM OR FOLD'EM: NEW MONSTERS

Good evening. How are you? I hope you had a good week. I apologize for not posting more this week. When the L.A. Weekly cover hit the streets things suddenly got extra busy. In fact, I've been making more Monsters than ever, but I can't show them all to you just yet. Stay tuned for more Daily Monsters here on the site in the very near future. For now, I hope you'll enjoy two new group show projects.

The first is Metal For Monsters, a charity jewelry project started by graphic designer Eric Jean-Louis and industrial designer Vivian Cheng of Blend Creations. They invited nine artists to design laser-engraved stainless steel Monster pendants to benefit Unicef. Happily, two of the Monsters agreed to help:

Each pendant is limited to 100 pieces, signed and numbered on the back, and sells for $81. $16 of that goes straight to Unicef. Please check it out.

Back in the Old Country, German publisher Zeixs and Christian Schaarschmidt's design firm Illunatic invited me to contribute the Three of Hearts to a designer deck of cards called "52 Aces." Who am I to say No? Here is my contribution:

Much more is to come, but right now I must get back to it. I've said it before, and I'll probably say it again: This ink ain't gonna blow itself. I hope you'll have a lovely Friday, and a great weekend. For now, why not put on some good music and reflect on the fact that 344 LOVES YOU

LA WEEKLY MONSTER

Good morning. Thank you for coming to visit the Monsters, and a special welcome to those of you who just found out about this site from the L.A. Weekly. The Weekly is very kindly featuring one of the Daily Monsters on its cover this week, advertising an article on Making Fiends creator Amy Winfrey, and one on... ahem... well, they have one on me, too. Great thanks to La Vida writer Gendy Alimurung for giving a massive shout-out to our little Monster community, and to Joshua Bearman for making the initial introduction back in December.

I only found out that the article would be in this week's issue last Thursday night, and I've been working on this pretty much non-stop since Saturday. I handed in the cover itself on Tuesday. Since then I've been working on the "Making of" video:

If you're reading this on Amazon, please click here to watch the clip.

You may notice that the color scheme is a bit different than the final cover. I thought I'd show you the various iterations I went through before the Weekly's art director Ryan Ward stepped in and laid down the chromatic law. Click on the image for a closer look:

When I draw the Monsters for you, I have a little code of honor: I won't alter the drawing after I turn off the camera. I won't fix mistakes in Photoshop. And I won't change the colors I used on paper. In this case the Monster came through with a blue tongue and blue shoes. So I based the whole color scheme around that, which put me into a day-long orgy of miniscule adjustments that I haven't had since art school days. 5% cyan? 7% cyan? Who will help me make these momentous decisions?! Oh, the pressure!!! My thanks to Ryan for discreetly taking the reigns while I was in the fever-grip of hue-mania.

Now, to celebrate the cover, I've finally got myself in gear to give you something you've been requesting for ages: Monster T-shirts! Thanks to the good people at Zazzle, you can order the L.A. Weekly Monster on a whole line of shirts and assorted goodies. Check it out at this link here, or by clicking on the store window in the sidebar on the right. (Special thanks to Robert at Zazzle for helping me set up the store in a matter of hours.)

So there you have it. As 200,000 Daily Monsters are being delivered to newspaper dispensers all over Los Angeles, I have to get cracking on a Monster Three of Hearts, which will be my contribution to an artist-powered deck of cards in Germany. I'll post it for you here as soon as I get it done.

Also, please check back in during the week. I held a little monster casting call for the Weekly cover, and I'll post a few of the audition tapes in the coming days.
For now, I hope you'll have a lovely, mellow rest of the week.
I do hope you realize that 344 LOVES YOU

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Postscript: Here are a few photos of the actual paper!
Exciting stuff! (Oh come on! Be with me here!)

MIMOZINE MONSTER

Good afternoon. How are you? I hope your week has been good so far, and mostly earthquake free. (I don't get out of bed for anything less than a 6.0 myself, and certainly didn't on Tuesday. 5.4... Pff!)

Now that all my pictures are hanging straight again, and the Mr. Burns Nosferatu action figure has been un-toppled, I thought I'd show you a new little item. Are you familiar with Mimobots? They're Flash drives hidden in limited edition designer toys. To get to the drive, you have to literally take their head off.

The really cool thing about the bots is that they come preloaded with content, specifically a video magazine called MimoZine. Scott Seraydarian interviewed me for the latest issue. Yes, it's more of me talking about the monsters -- something you might be getting sick of at this point. But the segment also features an exclusive new Monster. Shot from TWO camera angles! Please take a look:

Courtesy of Mimoco. If you're reading this on Amazon, please click here to view.

Gary Baseman is the main guest in the new episode, as he also designed the MODman Flash drive that contains it. You can click here to order it.

I hope life is treating you well, and that you're having
a mellow summer. More monsters to come soon.
For now, please remember that 344 LOVES YOU

THE MONSTERS AT COMIC-CON (DAY 3)

Good afternoon. Every day at Comic-Con seems to get a bit more crowded and nuts than the day before. Who knows what will happen tomorrow? Yes, I walked past Matt Groening's signing, fighting the urge to stand in line for a benediction, and shook hands with Doug Chiang at the Impact booth after my signing, but the real action is among the costumed people. Check out today's celebrity endorsements for the Monster Book below. You can see the complete album for today at this link. And above all, please remember that 344 LOVES YOU

THE MONSTERS AT COMIC-CON (DAY 2)

Good afternoon. Before I rush of to the book signing at Subtext, I wanted to post a few Comic-Con photos for you. I hope you'll enjoy them. You can see the whole album by clicking here. Greetings from San Diego! 344 LOVES YOU

THE MONSTERS AT COMIC-CON (DAY 1)

Good evening. How are you? I'm not going to attempt to give any in-depth account of my first day at Comic-Con as my brain is still reeling from the sheer volume of the crowd. But at the very least I wanted to show you a picture of the Impact both, in case you're at the Con and want to visit. It's #1415 and it looks like this:

The yellow arrow indicates the position of the Monster Book. Below is the nook where I'll be signing books tomorrow from 11:30AM until 1PM, Friday at the same time, and Saturday from 12:30 until 2PM. (I just found out about tomorrow's signing, so it's an extra. And of course, there's the Subtext signing tomorrow (Thursday night), which isn't part of Comic-Con, so you can check it out sans badge.

I hope we'll get a chance to say Hi between now and Saturday.
Greetings from deepest San Diego! 344 LOVES YOU

CANVAS MONSTERS 01 02 03 (COMPLETED)

Good evening. One of the things I'm taking with me to San Diego are the first three canvas monsters, so that they can become part of Subtext's Indelible show next month. This is the first time I've painted on canvas (with the exception of one mercifully private experiment in high school), so these are quite special to me. I really had a good time with these and already have plans for more large format monsters, but these will always be the first:

Click here for a closer look.

At any rate, they're going on the freeway with me in the morning, so I took the opportunity today to take good pictures of them in the afternoon sunlight. I hope you like the way they turned out. And I hope I'll get to see some of you in San Diego.

Come say Hello at Subtext on Thursday night, or at booth 1415
at Comic-Con on Friday (11:30 to 2) and Saturday (12:30 to 2).
Until then, please remember that 344 LOVES YOU

42 LBS. OF BUTTONS

Good afternoon. Jermaine at ELB went into overdrive, and 42 lbs. of Monster buttons just arrived here in record time. See you at Comic-Con! In the meantime, please remember that 344 LOVES YOU

Click on the photo for a closer look.