Mailbox Monsters
When I was a child, there were certain cultural touchstones associated with Halloween that I considered sacrosanct; jack-o-lanterns, trick-or-treating, and halloween specials. Most people agree on those. But there’s one arcane practice that most folks have relegated to the past, one that I have always genuinely looked forward to at this time of year: sending and receiving Halloween cards in the mail.
“I’ve got the body of an athlete…the legs of a mill worker…the arms of a farmer…”
Of course, some Halloween traditions are best left to childhood. If I showed up on my neighbor’s porch in costume expecting candy, I’m pretty sure they’d throw rocks at me and alert the authorities. But Halloween cards? You can do that well past the point where you become the scary old man who lives in the spooky house down the street. And that’s my goal: Both continuing to send Halloween cards, and to become a terrifying octogenarian that all the children of the neighborhood are frightened of.
“You’re just my type. A-positive.”
Sending Halloween cards is a simple tradition to participate in. You can walk into almost any store this time of year, locate the display of greeting cards, pick one that approximates your personality, sign it, send it, and you make someone smile for about four bucks and the cost of a stamp. But if you’re not satisfied sending someone else’s art and sentiment to your closest friends, you can always do what we do and make the cards by hand.
“I’m a mummy, but you can call me daddy.”
This year, after a marathon week of screening classic Universal Monster movies (another treasured Halloween tradition) we decided to create 5x7 illustrations of some of the classic monsters of old Hollywood, and send them out to some of our friends and Patreon supporters.
“You bring out the animal in me.”
I used ink and wash to bring the cursed and the undead back to life. Just a very simple caricature of a monster, with some tonal work done in black and sepia inks. I thought that would give it a vintage look to match the age of those classic films.
“You can trust me. I’m a music lover.”
After I’d gotten a few done, while I figured getting a hand-drawn illustration in the mail would more than suffice for most of my friends, why not go a step further? I wanted to make these function like actual cards — you open the envelope, you open the card, there’s a greeting and a signature. So I made a wraparound frame themed to look like crumbling dungeon walls, or maybe the stones of an Egyptian tomb, or perhaps the collapsing structure of a forgotten laboratory. And when you slip the monster inside, he peers out from the fissure, lending a sense of fun and mystery to the process.
“Peek-a-boo, I curse you.”
If you’d like to see us work on these monsters and put the cards together, you can view this week’s process video below: