Dustin Parker's Monster Mania

Many of my Monster Mania drawings begin as doodles on post-it notes. This drawing of an angry fish is one such drawing. I don’t keep a sketchbook, but I often draw quick sketches on post-it notes or scraps of paper whenever inspiration strikes. This divine inspiration usually happens when I’m trying to go to sleep. The image of a monster will pop into my head, and I have to leap out of bed to capture the creature on paper. I don’t draw sketches to get better at drawing. I draw sketches to remember ideas for drawings. I’ve found that drawing doodles and writing notes help reinforce my memory. 

This is my version of the eggplant emoji. 

All of my monsters have skin problems. They are all covered with warts and pimples and skin tags and necrotizing fasciitis. I often hide little smiley faces amongst the constellations of pimples and cysts. A small reward for the people that take the time to closely examine my drawings. It is my version of Where's Waldo. Many of the drawings don’t have a hidden smiley face. Sometimes I forget to draw one. And many of the drawings predate the tradition.  With this drawing. I wanted the focus to be the Smiley Face. This drawing is a zoom-in view of one of those little Smiley faces growing on the skin of another monster. This little guy is just another skin growth in a sea of warts and pimples. The green goo is a reference to The Watchmen by Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons and John Higgins. And Yes. There is a little Smiley Face hidden in the drawing. I hope this drawing put a smile on your face.

When I was a child, I loved to play with insects and draw insects and study insects. My next door neighbor’s house was surrounded by a beautiful flower garden that attracted swarms of bumble bees, grasshoppers, praying mantises and butterflies. It was insect heaven. But that was the 80s, I rarely see a grasshopper or a monarch butterfly these days. I imagine this Monarch Butterfly has mutated in order to survive climate change and deforestation and droughts and pesticides and herbicides and angry birds and hungry spiders. This Monarch Butterfly’s nectar is human blood. It has seen things and it has done things. Terrible. Horrible. Things. But it is still a beautiful butterfly. 

This drawing was inspired by an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation called “Genesis.” In the episode, Dr. Crusher accidentally creates a virus that infects the crew of the Enterprise and causes them to de-evolve into primitive forms of life. Lieutenant Barclay transforms into a spider creature. The Barclay spider design is asymmetrical. He is half spider and half human. It is a very striking visual.  I went with a more symmetrical design. More spider than man. I gave my man spider human-like eyes rather than black soulless spider eyes. I think the human-like eyes are more terrifying and more expressive. And big googly eyes are a trademark of my Monster Mania drawings. 

I love watching splatter films. I love over-the-top blood and gore. I love splatstick. I love gruesome kills. I love buckets of blood. That being said. In real life, the sight of blood makes me queasy. I love blood and gore in my entertainment. And I love to draw gross and disgusting things. But I want all of the blood and gore to stay in the world of make believe.  Anyway… This is a drawing of an anthropomorphic T-bone steak in a pool of blood. I’m super happy with how the pool of blood turned out.  I keep seeing these videos of people eating high meat, rotten meat that is allowed to decompose for several days, weeks or years. I think it might be fun to draw a zombie version of this T-bone steak monster. What would this little hunk of meat look like after a few weeks of decomposition. I think it would be fun to draw some green meat covered with mold, maggots and slime.  Drawing rotten meat is fun but I have zero interest in eating it. 

My obsession with warts and tumors and conjoined twins continues with another self portrait. Part of growing older is discovering new things growing on your body. It might be a harmless skin tag. It might be Melanoma. Or it might be your conjoined twin emerging from your back fat. All of these body horror self portraits help me cope with my health anxiety. Being trapped inside a slowly dying flesh sack is really terrifying. But creating these weird drawings of my body going amok is both fun and therapeutic. 

Several of the drawings in the Monster Mania series fall into the category of body horror and a few of the drawings are self portraits. This one happens to be both.  The pandemic super charged my hypochondriac tendencies and I started imagining all of the fun and interesting ways my body could betray me. I started drawing self portraits depicting tumors and pimples and other gross things growing on my body. I’m also obsessed with the idea of conjoined twins and tumors with creepy little faces. I blame David Cronenberg and John Carpenter.  This drawing was really fun to draw. I always aim for creepy and gross and a little bit cartoonish. I think the more successful drawings are the ones that hit that trifecta. 

Most of my Monster Mania drawings follow a similar format. I draw a full body view or a mugshot view of the monster against a brightly colored abstract background. I like to use simple backgrounds that don’t distract from the monster character. Sometimes I like to experiment and break away from this format.  In the case of this drawing, I wanted to play around with the idea of a blob monster that is stuck to the paper. If the drawing is presented in a book, the blob is smashed between the pages. If it is presented as a print displayed on a wall, the blob is splattered on the wall.  I’ve found that I really enjoy drawing snot and ooze and vomit and other gelatinous forms. I much prefer drawing boogers and tumors over drawing buildings and cars. I’ve found my special purpose. 

I'm a serious artist that draws silly things. I draw vomit and snot and warts and pimples and poo. I’m amused by the idea of spending untold hours painstakingly drawing anthropomorphic turd creatures and other ridiculous things. I could drip paint like Jackson Pollock or cut paper like Kara Walker or paint portraits like Alice Neel, but instead of doing any of those things, I choose to draw an angry turd monster fighting a horde of vicious corn kernels. I draw silly things because it is fun to draw silly things. Creating art should be a joyous experience.