More about Monster

Monster was not your average monster. At least that is what he thought. Ever since Monster was little, he felt he was special in some way; not like all the other monsters. Monster grew up in a special place - Monster Island - the secret ancestral home of the scariest Monsters on Earth. Monster Island is actually a ring of volcanoes shrouded from human observation by a permanent curtain of radioactive volcanic ash. It's quite hot and stinky. A perfect monster habitat.

And his family was not your average monster family. Monster's Father was the Chief Monster on the Island. He was in charge of making all the rules that governed the various Monster clans that lived on the Island. He was the most fearsome and ferocious monster on the whole island. His mother was a kindergarten teacher. And all his siblings were rather accomplished in the specialties that Monsters practice.

But it's not easy being special. Particularly when people expect so much of you. Every monster, once they become of age, leaves home to become an Apprentice. Monsters are in high demand all over the world and have no trouble finding interesting things to do. Mostly, a monster's life's ambition is to scare people. But to do this and do it right, takes practice and training. Most young monsters start out under beds or in closets. Some actually work in the attics of houses, usually with a team of ghosts. Others work in Hollywood as special effects experts (those monsters are unionized). But Monster, our monster, wasn't interested in that kind of stuff. He wanted to do something more. But he didn't quite know what that was.

His father got very angry with him when he heard that Monster, his youngest child, was not interested in the very nice closet Apprenticeship that he had obtained for him due to his important connections. He thought that Monster was wasting all his monstrous talents and he didn't care about the important Monster traditions of his clan. One day they had a terrible fight. Monster told his father that he didn't want to scare people. He wanted to do something more. He told him that he wanted to become an artist. Monster's father got very upset about this and so he ordered Monster off the island forever.

And that is how Monster got to the big city. He didn't know the first thing about becoming an artist. So, he tried to go to nursing school. But he was rejected since he was unable to hold a thermometer in his claws. Then he tried becoming a teacher like his mom. But the sound of chalk squeaking on a blackboard drove him crazy and he couldn't do it. Poor Monster. He had no money, no place to live and the bright warm summer was quickly fading into a bleak and chilly autumn. He was on the verge of going back home and accepting the closet Apprenticeship when luckily, one of his childhood friends from the Island knew someone at the Dream Factory and got him a job. He had to start out very low, emptying the trash. He was actually a janitor for a while, sorting recycled dreams from the hopelessly unusable daydreams and having to wear thick rubber gloves and safety glasses to handle the nightmares.

Monster got his big break when one of the scary dream designers got sick and the Dream Team Leader was on vacation. That is when he designed his first bad dream. It was pretty bad. The supervisor noticed his talent right away and that week he got his dream job.