THE DAILY MONSTER

NO SPOILER: I HAVE SEEN THE SIMPSONS MOVIE AND IT IS GOOD

Good morning. Just to let you know, I went to see the Simpsons Movie at midnight. Considering the build-up, I'm happy to report that I liked it. I laughed a lot, and even got a little misty at one point. (Which happens to me a lot these days, but hey... ) Considering that they had to go up against the Greatest Highlight Reel of All Time, they did a remarkable job. Lots of really funny stuff in the movie. I'd happily watch it again.

One of the bigger challenges seems to have been how to scale up the line weight of the characters for the big screen. For my taste, the lines could have been a bit beefier, but it might have become too dense over 88 minutes.

Overall, I was entirely satisfied. My one complaint: I wish there had been more Apu. I'm still waiting for somebody to bring to the big screen Apu's story of an idealistic young Hindu, pushed too far by convenience store bandits "Take Your Hands Off My Jerky, Turkey!" Until that red carpet premiere you can always click on the following link to my all-time favorite Apu episode and know that 344 LOVES YOU

Incidentally, the Simpsons Movie website has a nifty feature that lets you Simpsonize yourself. Look for the "Create Avatar" tab on the top left.

MONSTER QUILT SOLD TO HIGHEST BIDDER

Good evening. A quick update with the result of the Monster Quilt Auction: Annie Nordmarks' fabulous Monster Quilt has found a new home with a friend of the Daily Monster who also happens to be a quilter and an active supporter of the Alzheimer's research effort. Talk about a perfect match. So... now... who'll come up with the next monstrous object d'art?

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Good morning. I hope you're well! I just wanted to post a quick reminder that the eBay auction for Inanna's amazing Monster Quilt is closing at noon (central time) on Thursday. Click here for the auction page. 10% of the proceeds are going to the Alzheimer's Association. If you're quilt-hunting, don't miss your chance to get your hands on this one!

SIGN OF LIFE

Good morning! Please forgive me for being incommunicado for the past week and a half. I've been press-checking the new David Hockney catalog for the past week and a half, which has kept my days a bit fragmented. In the chunks of time between runs, the approval process for the Monster Book spreads has been dragging on a bit, so I've been doggedly pursuing solutions to the various concerns. The UCLA Extension Cover needed a very skinny little monster for the spine. Lastly, I also had to fulfill the first orders coming in from STORE 344.

You sent in some cool new Open Source Monsters and Tallest Monster segments. I'll post them very soon. Along with a new Weekly Monster! Please stay tuned and please don't doubt that 344 LOVES YOU

TUNES FOR TREES

Good afternoon. Longtime friend of the Monsters Yi-Shun sent me an interesting thing recently and I thought that I'd pass it along to you: It's called Tunes For Trees

Here's some information from their press release:

Use Tunes For Trees to search iTunes for music from your favorite artists and for every 10 tracks purchased, a tree is planted.

Tunes For Trees is an initiative of Live It Green an Illinois-based environmentally conscious company focused on making it convenient and simple to be more sustainable in our daily lives. Live It Green has partnered with Trees for the Future through their Plant a Tree Partnership Program and has committed to 2,000 trees for the initial launch. Trees for the Future is an organization that has been the steward of planting trees throughout the world since the early 1970's and will plant our trees.

By utilizing iTunes, Tunes For Trees strives to make a difference through seamless integration of a service people already use everyday to plant more trees and reduce atmospheric greenhouse gas levels. Tunes for Trees™ offers a web browser plug-in for both Microsoft Internet Explorer and Firefox.

Considering all the music I buy on iTunes every week, I could have my own little forest by now. The interface leaves something to be desired, and some albums I know are on iTunes don't show up, but that's OK. I'll just buy those directly through iTunes. Maybe they still get a referral fee if I enter iTunes through their portal. Either way, this seems like a good thing to do, so I'm going to start doing it. It certainly isn't a sacrifice and does no harm. Check it out if you have a minute. And remember 344 LOVES YOU

TERRY T REVEALED

Good morning. One of the wonderful things about the Daily Monster Experience has been meeting all of you great writers through your excellent stories on the blog. Many of you have become not just friends of the monsters, but also friends of mine. With one or two exceptions of pre-monster friends contributing tales, I have never met any of you in person. Until this weekend, that is. One of the attendants of Design Ranch was our very own monster author Terry T.

I'm happy to report that Terry isn't just a great writer, but also a thoroughly nice guy. He sat in on two of my workshops and worked overtime to finish his 100 drawings. His chosen theme was 100 Ways To Die. It's a very funny compilation of mortal coil shuffling. At my special request he even included kitten-induced Toxoplasmosis.
(Needles to say, the kitten was fine!)

Rumor has it that Open Source Monster maven Emily Wong may make an appearance at the AIGA/NY Fresh Dialogues event in May! I hope so! I think meeting all of you in odd locales will be fun for years to come! Until then 344 LOVES YOU from afar!

DESIGN RANCH, TEXAS

Good afternoon. As you know, I taught three drawing workshops at AIGA Design Ranch in Texas this past weekend. The assignment was as follows:

Join designer/illustrator Stefan Bucher for two hours of zen drawing. We’ll give you a poster sized pad of paper and some really nice pens and ask you to show something that’s important to you by putting it on paper 100 times. Maybe it’s 100 different things that center around a single idea or feeling. Maybe it’s 100 iterations of the same thing. 100 coffee cups. 100 naked ladies. 100 delete keys. 100 things on your desk. 100 things on your mind. 100 words starting with un-. Please join us and bare a little piece of your soul on paper at this fun, relaxing workshop.

Please check out all the cool work people came up with in this photo gallery. The final piece in the gallery is mine... 38 new little monsters. I didn't finish my own assignment! But I will. Stay tuned for the full 100 in the fulness of time.

A big THANK YOU to everybody who came to the workshops. I had a great time! For now, even though I'm still incomplete, you can rest assured that 344 LOVES YOU

Greenpeace: GREEN MY APPLE

Good afternoon. A little while ago Greenpeace launched a site campaigning for Apple to make their products more environmentally sustainable. I think it's a very worthy effort. I'd love a Greener Apple, too! Take a look at the site: greenpeace.org/apple/ and write a letter to Steve. I've already sent mine.
Because 344 LOVES YOU (and the planet. :^)

THE Y CONFERENCE WORKSHOP

100 DRAWINGS IN 100 MINUTES. That was the theme of the workshop I led at the AIGA Y Conference in San Diego this weekend. I asked people to pick something that's important to them and either draw one item 100 times or to draw 100 things that relate to that item. Everybody did brilliant work! The results speak for themselves---Please check out the Workshop Photo Album. Here are a few images to whet your appetite:

From top left: 100 Eyeballs, 57 Parking Garage Tickets, 70 Chairs

FRESH DIALOGUE

Good morning. And a special welcome to everybody coming to visit from the Typepad feature on the Daily Monster. I hope you'll have fun poking around the site.

Thank you everybody for sending your cool monsters in response to the 4th Open Source Blot. A few more creatures from Maleen Schlüter follow at the end of this post. Here now is OPEN SOURCE BLOT 05. I hope you'll have fun with it. (The best way to submit your drawings is by e-mailing your file to me at opensource@344design.com
If you can, please make your document 480 pixels wide and name the file with your first and last name. That way I know how to set your credit properly.)

In other news, I got a very nice message today: AIGA/NY and Ze Frank, one of the inspirations for and a longtime supporter of the monsters, have invited me to be part of this year's FRESH DIALOGUE event. Each year AIGA/NY hosts a panel discussion with three young designers that are doing interesting things. This year, Ze is moderating and I'm very excited to be a part of the event. Here is part of the invitation e-mail:

This year's theme deals with how designers relate to their audience, specifically the control (or lack thereof) that the designer exerts over that audience in offline and online mediums. [...] We've invited you to join us because of the evolution of your dailymonster series. We see this project as encapsulating a unique hybrid of a traditional medium (illustration) gone digital. You have added interactivity by allowing your fan base to contribute work inspired by your drawings.

They have it almost right. I didn't allow you to do anything. You guys came out strong with all kinds of creativity and made such great stories and drawings that it's my honor and privilege to provide a space for them here. Also, you're not my fan base. You're friends of the monsters! And I like that about you!

The event is happening at FIT on the 29th of May, so I'll make sure we've got lots of new stuff to play with until then. For one thing, I'm starting our new game on Monday night, when I'm back from San Diego.

Until then, I hope you'll have a great weekend!
Please keep in mind that 344 LOVES YOU

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Now, here are Maleen's entries:

And here's my own version of OSM Number 4...

DAILY MONSTER 61

Good morning. Yesterday's monster brought out another great batch of stories from all your favorite writers, and from some new voices, too. Please take a look:

Monster 61 appears to be another upset office dweller. He also seems to be balding. Maybe it's all that stress? Or are environmental factors to blame? Too much Monstesterone? Why do you think 61 is so upset? Who's got him shouting? I hope you'll let us know. (If you haven't posted a story before, please don't be shy and join in the fun.)

In other news, I attended a star-studded fundraising event benefiting Dave Eggers' writing and tutoring center 826LA earlier tonight. The event was titled "An Evening of Best Intentions" and we were there to honor actor Seth Rogen "for the charity work he may one day do."

The 826 guys were nice enough to invite me and my girlfriend, because I'm doing the graphics for their new Time Travel Store. I'm glad they did, because I don't think I'd have paid for two $1000 tickets. Not that the kids aren't worth every penny, but my charity money went towards boring things like food and shelter again this month. Food and shelter for me, that is. At any rate, it was a fabulous and unusual evening and I would be remiss if I didn't give you a brief report from the Hollywood frontlines.

You know you're in for a star-spottin' good time if you're standing out in the cold, waiting in line for your wristband right behind Demetri Martin, Will Arnett, Andy Richter, and Christian Slater. Needless to say, we were good Angelenos and kept our cool, though my inner comedy geek was getting quite excited. How strangely exciting to see four comedy classics come together right before your eyes---the Daily Show, Arrested Development, Classic Conan, and The Name of the Rose. I should say right now that we kept to ourselves all night and didn't have any actual star contact, but it was fun to look around once we got to our table.

Ben Stiller dropped by our table, looking for his table. Clearly he didn't recognize that he had wandered into the freeloader section. Oddly enough, Christian Slater was right across the way from us. One hopes that he hasn't fallen on hard times. He looked good, either way. Very glamorous, if a bit shorter than you'd think.

Lots of celebs showed up in person (Ed Norton, Gary Shandling, Ted Danson, J.J. Abrams, Ron Meyer) and many more by video salute, including but not limited to Owen Wilson, Sam Rockwell, Chris Rock, Jim Carrey, Paul Rudd, and a surprisingly funny Brad Pitt. The evening was hosted by 40-Year-Old Virgin director Judd Apatow, who also produced the various video segments, all of which were pretty damn brilliant. YouTube as done by trained professionals.

We got some excellent live music courtesy of Aimee Mann and Loudon Wainwright III, as well as a finale by Ambrosia, but the musical highpoint was a buttery soft acoustic rendition of "Leather and Lace" as performed by Will Ferrell and Dave Grohl. I've always liked Grohl, but I was never big on Will Ferrell. Just not that into him on film. But in person he brought down the house and me with it. The excellent Michael Cera also did a funny bit, after already doing well with this funny YouTube moment. MC Apatow came through with flying colors, as did honoree Rogan.

Overall, the event raised some $200,000 for the 826LA tutoring program, which is fantastic. they'll be able to run the program for a year on that. If you're in a position to donate some time or money, this would be a good place for it.

The funniest moment may have been when they brought one of the actual kids on stage to read one of the pieces he had written with the help of an 826 tutor. "My Summer Vacation" turned out to be about his great new summer discovery: hand jobs. Based on the well-timed delivery, I'd say the kid was a ringer, but no matter. We had an excellent laugh and a great time. I never get to go to industry events, so this was a hoot. I hope you don't mind that I debriefed right here in front of you.

A shout out to you from way back here in the cheap seats: 344 LOVES YOU