It’s like a party in my monster and everyone’s invited!

Posted by Krepta on October 3rd, 2008 filed in Picture Books

It’s A Monster Party!, not to be confused with Monster Party, is a cute little story from England about monsters… kind of. It’s never made very clear whether the title refers to the size of the party or its guests, who are only referred to as ‘creatures’ in collective. Let’s look at some of the beasts who were invited to this party and see if we can classify them taxonomically…

Jloop: An intelligent species that seems to have sprung from an ancestral species filling the niche of Earth’s elephants, even featuring the same versatile trunk adaption to the nose. Their only really monstrous characteristic is the bright purple fur, which may indicate that they are toxic and should not be eaten.

Vrink: These seemingly mammalian creatures have found a niche very similar to that of the Emperor penguins of Earth. Their broad, flat feet and flippery, Bubs-like manipulatory appendages suggest they may have started out as pinnipeds. One unique feature is the swollen bulb-like proboscis; this may be a secondary sex characteristic, or perhaps this blood-filled appendage could used to melt through ice, like the Hothead of biology folklore.

Twisum: These delightfully cuddly-looking creatures resemble nothing so much as an anthropomorphic pit bull, with a thin coat of white down that their pink skin shines through. Their short and stocky appearance belies a world with high gravity, and yet they are obviously aerial creatures with fantastically small wings. This suggests a complex evolutionary chain wherein the Twisums migrated between several environments before finding one where their near-vestigial wings could find purchase in the atmosphere.

Grollig: A fascinating example of alternate paths to sapience, Grolligs are arboreal beings that resemble a constricting snake in their shape, but their vestigial fur patterns and skull structure actually indicate a feline ancestry, a race of big cats that gave up their legs for a lower-metabolism existence. The jaunty Stan Marsh hats they wear indicate that they can still use tools, so perhaps the antennalike whiskers on their brows have become articulated manipulators.

And then there’s our main characters, who are not quite as remarkable in their setup. Blot (the yellow one) seems to be a relative of the Giant Purple Snorklewacker, but with rectangular Jhonen Vasquez eyes and a rather self-pitying attitude. His little blue friend Og, who could have auditioned for a Sega game called “Sonic The Rhinoceros”, is much more positive and upbeat, so there’s already a cute sort of Ernie & Bert character dynamic between the two. Blot and Og are the only two residents of their town, so it’s called Blogsville. Why wasn’t Wordpress called Blogsville?

For a complete lack of anything to do, Blot and Og start daydreaming about a throwing a fantastic party:

The sky will be pink! And filled with guitars!
Streamers and hooplas will loop over the stars!
Whojammacallits and Widjammifoos
will zoom round on clouds playing koogabazoos.

The thought so delights them that they start writing invitations with this description and releasing them via helium balloon. It’s just a way to kill an afternoon, there’s no chance that anyone will show up, is there? (Here’s a hint, go back and look at the different monsters’ profile pictures again.)

Oops. Apparently their bleak little planet was more accessible than they’d thought, and dozens of species they’ve never seen before show up at their address, intent on enjoying pink skies, flying guitars, yellow moons, green clovers and the like. They are understandably a bit put out at having been promised a smorgasbord and arriving instead to find plates of famine.

Oh boy! Now the monsters are going to FIGHT! Right?

Well, no. You can guess from the title of the story that the party goes on after all– it would be kind of a downer to have everyone go home sad. Wise little Og is so dazzled by the many shapes and colors of the monsters who’ve arrived, that he exclaims that seeing them all is more amazing than any of the things they promised in the invitation; the monsters look at each other and go, “hey, yeah!” Luckily, quite a few of them brought potluck dishes and musical instruments of their own, so partying commences!

Also, my copy was apparently once owned by kids named Eva and Aa.

You know what month it is? It’s October! And you know what THAT means!

…You don’t?

Oh wait, this is the first year, isn’t it. Well, we’ll start the tradition now.

The Hungry Reader Presents: OctOGREfest!

By borrowing and slightly modifying a Piers Anthony pun, we’re kicking off a new tradition. Because October is the month of the supernatural, this month we are doing fantasy, much like Sci-Fi July. Unlike Sci-Fi July, however, non-fantasy books will also be featured. What element will they have in common? Well, what book did I just review today? What’s the one thing I love even more than robots?

MONSTERS!

OctOgrefest is all about monsters! This means there’ll be a healthy dollop of Tolkienesque ‘hard fantasy’, but also spooky Halloween stuff, and maybe even some more Sesame Street. Stick around and we’ll have our own Monster Party!