Forty-Seven Creatures You've Probably Never Heard Of
August 14, 2015 4:39 AM   Subscribe

Gold Key Comics once put out the call to young aspiring artists to submit drawings of monsters, some of which were featured in issues of the publisher's various comics. Here's two example pages (and a Monster Museum page), and here's 47 monsters' worth of submissions: 1 2 3 4 5 pages, another two pages, nine more monsters and one duplicate. And here's some big duplicates of eight of them, and a hi-res duplicate page at the end of Lancelot Link Secret Chimp #6. If you can find any others, please post them in the comments.

A note from the Progressive Ruin link: "…A while back, after one of my previous postings, I had someone opine on another site that these drawings obviously weren’t actual submissions from children, since the line thickness on the drawings was more-or-less uniform and thus the monsters looked like they all came from the same hand. I suspect the answer to this is simple: that all the submitted drawings had to be traced or redrawn for the sake of reproduction. I’m sure many of the images arrived as light pencil drawings on lined paper, or crayon on construction paper, despite the instructions to readers to “draw in black ink on white paper.” And even if they did follow instructions, that probably didn’t mean the pictures were ready for reproduction straight out of the envelope."
posted by BiggerJ (11 comments total) 14 users marked this as a favorite
 
Slobapus intrigued me:

Never looks right, makes terrible noises when it eats.

The second clause is relatively easy to parse, and seems consistent with the picture, but that first clause -- does not physically look to the right (despite its flexible eyestalks) or does it fail to live up to the most basic demands of hygiene and decorum. Or, is it so alien that, in the words of Vance, it is not convenient to describe?

So much to ponder....
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:52 AM on August 14, 2015 [4 favorites]


Also, the Nutty Tutu Monster in the last link looks like it might enjoy reciting Hugo Ball poetry.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:55 AM on August 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


2000AD (home of Judge Dredd) did a similar thing in the late seventies and eighties, crediting the readers whose drawings were published and giving a small cash prize for every one used. In their case, the task was to design an alien.

I wish someone would do a big online round-up of these someday, as I'm pretty sure you'd find contributions from some British kids who went on to make a name for themselves as professional writers and artists at either Marvel of DC.
posted by Paul Slade at 5:05 AM on August 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


There is some "For Sale: Baby Shoes, Never Used" level storytelling in The Big Boy: Can whip any monster on Earth (he says).
posted by Rock Steady at 5:09 AM on August 14, 2015 [5 favorites]


Colleen McCullough, you've got some questions to answer.
posted by Rock Steady at 5:12 AM on August 14, 2015 [3 favorites]


I love these! I especially like Asteroid Eater: "needs no air," Steven Vasquez knows about leaving something to the imagination.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 5:25 AM on August 14, 2015


Colleen McCullough, you've got some questions to answer.

I love it: "Can't be chewed or swallowed", as if your immediate thought after putting that thing in your mouth and not being able to chew it would be, "Screw it, let's see if it will go down whole!"
posted by yerfatma at 5:33 AM on August 14, 2015 [2 favorites]


I'd like to know what all these children of 1967 are doing now.
posted by Flashman at 5:36 AM on August 14, 2015 [3 favorites]


I'd like to know what all these children of 1967 are doing now.

Posting endless pictures of their grandchildren to Facebook.
posted by aught at 7:05 AM on August 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


Posting endless pictures of their grandchildren to Facebook.

...with each picture captioned "Can whip any monster on Earth (he says)"
posted by GenjiandProust at 7:54 AM on August 14, 2015 [3 favorites]


I'd like to know what all these children of 1967 are doing now.

Reading Metafilter threads?
posted by Thorzdad at 8:17 AM on August 14, 2015


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