Cupcake with Cthulhu and Godzilla

Belated Birthday Napkin:

Assessing my kids’ tastes grows ever more challenging. The day when I was sure that drawing Batman and Lightning McQueen on a napkin would be satisfying to someone have definitely passed...(which is not to say that the four year old recipient of that napkin would not have given me extensive notes on how I could have done a better job)

Selecting gifts for the recent 17th birthday definitely presented a challenge as well. I picked out a couple of t-shirts, though I was concerned that they would be deemed hopelessly uncool. 

But one of the two, featuring a fight poster proclaiming a match between Godzilla and Cthulhu was deemed “actually sort of fire” by the recipient, and he even wore it for his birthday party.  The other one hasn’t been worn and will go unmentioned here.

To go with the T-shirt, here is the napkin.

Will they fight over the cupcake? I made 96 mini cupcakes for the party and we still have an appalling number left a week later...so maybe not.

Kaiju Baby Shark Challenge

God-zil-la, doo doo doo, doo doo doo doo

Ok, so I did have to ask my kids to explain the “Baby Shark Challenge” phenomena to me. I had somehow missed out on the international, egregious ear-worm that is the Baby Shark song.

You are now either shocked by my amazing ignorance, or don’t know what the hell I am talking about (hi Grandma!).

I suspect most who are still reading (besides my aforementioned, endlessly indulgent mother) can’t stand to slog through my explanation of the Baby Shark juggernaut. 

But the bare facts according to Wikipedia:

(Everyone else just skip past the bullet points if you haven’t already stopped reading)

* The point of origin was maybe a campfire song with no particular author, but the song usually had colorful verses including dismemberment by shark, attempted CPR, death and the meeting of Jesus.

* Pink Fong released a child friendly version on @YouTube kids on November 25, 2015 and, “as of May 2019 this version has garnered over 2.8 billion views on YouTube, while all videos related to Pinkfong's song approach 5 billion views, making it the most-viewed educational video phenomenon of all time” (“educational”?)

* "Baby Shark" broke into the Billboard Top 100 at #32 during the week of January 7, 2019

* “Due to its popularity, this version of the song has spurred an online dance craze (sometimes referred to as Baby Shark Challenge) cited as ‘the next big thing after the domination of Gangnam Style’”

When debating which characters to draw making the Baby Shark Challenge dance moves, it seemed inevitable to me that it had to be giant monsters.  The most popular giant monsters of the moment are of course those in the recent Godzilla: King of the Monsters movie.

My son, Kaiju fan that he is, told me this drawing was ok... but that if I revealed the Baby Shark theme, we would immediately lose a lot of followers.

But I am afraid, that almost 10,000 departed Instagram followers later, (yes, we were once at 29,000 plus on that platform) it’s too late for me to start strategizing about social media popularity now.

Rancor and Godzilla for May The Fourth

Lovable Monsters:

The Rancor has his fans, though perhaps not as many as Godzilla. 

There are certainly other creatures in the Star Wars universe who are closer in size to the ever enlarging Kaiju....and I considered drawing them... 

But maybe I just wanted to draw a Rancor holding claws with Godzilla.

Attack of the Shaggy Meme

Stoner vs Kaiju and Saiyan

As I may have mentioned more than once in past posts, the Cerberus at the gates to my personal hell probably has three Scooby Doo heads. While I disliked the entire show during my own childhood, I was particularly unfond of the talking dog and his scraggly chinned, BFF-in-binge eating, Shaggy.

And during the last 15 or so years of parenting, I have felt like there is always a new Scooby Doo movie or TV show sneaking up on me while my back is turned. I wouldn’t say that our kids are major Scooby and Shaggy fans, but their appreciation for the pair has tested my patience on many occasions.

But until recently, I had no idea how Shaggy had been proliferating out of control in the world of online memes. In these memes, the joke is that he is amazingly powerful.

The genesis of online memes can often be random or mysterious, but All Powerful Shaggy has a couple precursors that are easy to spot.

I’ll assume we all know that Shaggy is usually a wimpy, fearful whiner, frequently manipulated into acting as ghoul-bait by promises of food...often dog food. 

But in “Scooby Doo!: Legend of the Phantosaur,” the 16th direct to video movie in the franchise (you read that right: 16th and it was only 2011) Shaggy is hypnotized to become a motorcycle-riding, bar-brawl-winning badass whenever he hears the word “bad.” 

In the earlier 2004 live action “Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed,” there was a memorable scene where Shaggy and Scooby consumed a fridge full of transformative potions, culminating in a ridiculously “buff” super muscly version of Shaggy. (This came immediately after the Shaggy with breasts and a crop top. But the less said about that, the better.)

Perhaps the availability of these source materials made it possible for Shaggy to become the new version of the “Chuck Norris facts” meme.  Chuck Norris facts, as helpfully explained on knowyourmeme.com are, “a series of satirical factoids and hyperbolic claims that characterize the American celebrity martial artist and actor as an extremely tough, virile and alpha-male archetype.” The meme originated in 2005, and lasted a long while. 

For instance: “When Chuck Norris goes to donate blood, he declines the syringe, and instead requests a hand gun and a bucket.”

The Shaggy memes are usually more extreme than even the Chuck Norris facts.

In early 2019, it was popular to declare that Shaggy was actually an all powerful god who could end entire universes using only a small percentage of his powers- i.e. “Shaggy was responsible for the Big Bang while using only 14% of his power.”

Shaggy’s memed all-powerfulness also has anime/ manga inflection to it. He has recently appeared as a modded- in character in the game “Jump Force.” 

Previously some 270,000 people had signed an online petition to have Shaggy added in to the latest version of Mortal Kombat, so clearly the desire to see Shaggy fight is shared by more than just a handful of gamers. 

On this napkin, Shaggy is knocking down Goku, one of the superhuman fighters from Dragon Ball, having already trounced Godzilla. 

I would have liked to include a few more antagonists: Thanos? Darkseid? King Ghidora?

But let’s face it, just Goku and Godzilla were challenge enough.

Sentimental Monster Selfie

Valentine’s Day is arriving far behind schedule here at Daily Napkins. 

Sadly, my staying up late to finish a drawing privileges have been revoked, probably permanently. Once I miss the deadline of the actual holiday, I look at the thing and say something like, “why can’t I even manage to indicate clearly which monster is in front of the other monster?” Then the motivation to display my awkward drawing declines further. Clearly, I was fooling myself about how fun it was going to be to draw all those heads with horns jutting out of them.

But my kids are looking forward to the next Godzilla movie. (Featuring King Ghidora, the three headed gold dragon creature, just in case that needs to be said)

And I am always happy to attempt a peaceful-resolution-between-kaiju sort of image as we could use more of that sort of friendliness between our resident monsters.

(You can see some of our long napkin history of Godzilla posing with other large monsters at the Godzilla section.)

Chthulu and Godzilla

I Welcome Our Alien Overlord Cthulhu 

In any substantial conversation about giant monsters (that one has with adolescent boys) there is always the consideration of size. 

Whose monster is bigger?

A while back, (I am far behind in my napkin posts) our older son was on a bit of a Cthulhu kick. Now, I cannot recall what prompted it. Unfortunately, by the time I had drawn the napkin, he was mostly over it.

But, Cthulhu is claimed to be a whole lot larger than King Kong or assorted Kaiju- even the greatly enlarged Godzilla from the 2014 film.

Perhaps Godzilla will be like a mere action figure in comparison to our alien overlord.

Not that there is anything "mere" about Godzilla action figures.

Gipsy Danger, Godzilla, Kong & Megazord

What do giant characters do when they hang out?

My sons are anticipating more movies and more team-ups between #megafauna #megazord and #megamech

Godzilla in the Kitchen

Sometimes I Scare Myself

We have a rubber Godzilla mask left over from last Halloween. It sees a bit of use now and then.
Our younger son was creeping around in the kitchen while wearing it, and there was something...well...quite creepy about the performance. I would not care to go to the kitchen in the middle of the night and spot that sort of thing peeking around the cabinets. He creeped himself out also, so to speak.

My son tells me that the reason that the Daily Napkins Instagram account loses dozens of followers a day is that, in addition to the napkins themselves, I don't post pictures of us just doing stuff. (I have other theories, but I will pass on them for now)

He makes this assessment based on his careful study of various YouTubers and their Instagram accounts. I don't follow these folks on either platform myself, but based on what I overhear during the videos, I gather there are a lot of "here we are at Walmart goofing off with the massage chairs" sort of images.

These Youtubers are celebrities (of a sort), and apparently people want to see pictures of their lunches or of them at Duane Reade, filling a prescription for Grandma. I am pretty certain this not the case for us. But my son hypothesizes that it might be otherwise.

So here is one of us is goofing off in the kitchen....on a napkin, wearing a mask.

I don't think it will solve our Instagram attrition problem. Not that maintaining our Instagram following should be a priority. Our previous popularity on Instagram was mostly accidental, and no doubt, undeserved.

But fun, nonetheless.

And below is an image of my son inserting himself while I was trying to photograph the napkin with my phone, providing another Instagram worthy image. Sort of. I prefer not to post too many pictures of my kids' faces here on the blog, so he is obligingly covering himself up.

Ready for Instagram?

King Kong 2017 and Godzilla 2014

Mega-Fauna Meet-up:

Would King Kong and Godzilla be able to see eye to eye?
After watching "Skull Island," we want to know.

There's clearly been a good bit of inflation since the first Kong movie in 1933 and the first Godzilla outing in 1954. According to Wikipedia, Kong started out somewhere in the 18-24 foot range, although director Merian C. Cooper originally envisioned him at 40-50 feet. His latest incarnation in "Skull Island" which, yes of course, we had to see, seems to be somewhere in the neighborhood of  80-100 feet.

The first Godzilla was around 160 feet tall, so he could just peer over the 1950's Tokyo skyline. The 2014 version was closer to 350 feet so as to compete with contemporary skyscrapers.

There is Internet chatter about the two meeting up in a movie sometime in the future....if their size disparity could be reconciled.

As you can see, I did not worry overmuch about the relative size question. I was too busy trying to handle the "which of the many versions of each am I drawing?

A previous Kong/Godzilla encounter
where they seem to be equally, if awkwardly, matched:

The Nerdist has a good overview of the relative Godzilla at this link

Neuroplastic Metabiosis with Opportunistic Organism

Meditation does not always produce a tranquil mind.

#inktober2016

#MaybeYouShouldSeeADoctorAboutThat

In my continuing, and arguably neurotic, quest to not again be covered in a revolting skin disorder, and to generally be more healthy, I have tried to pick up the habit of meditation. 

This is not because I particularly enjoy the activity. According to my former internist, research has shown that a regular meditation practice is "more effective than topical steroids!" A low bar, perhaps, but still relevant.

Trying to find time to just think about breathing is of course a challenge. I wake up 15 minutes early at 5:45, and try to work on the breathing in and out thing while still in bed. (Ha! I know. It barely counts if one is still in bed)

My "practice" is often interrupted by the sounds of video gameplay coming from the living room. Sounds of explosions...mayhem...giant lizards...

Metabiosis is a process in which one organism prepares an environment for another. This term usually refers a "parasitoid relationship," and perhaps it might also describe procreation and parenting...

There was a period during my first pregnancy where my son's father and I cheerfully referred to our future child as "the parasite." 

Now that he and his brother are in the world, sitting on our couch, waiting impatiently to be served a tasty afterschool snack, perhaps metabiosis might still come to mind. 

There is definitely no question that they have infected my mind as well as my body.

Boba Fett Squares off with a Predator, with Godzillas

Who's ready to take on the Sarlacc?

Boba Fett is suddenly a very popular character at our house.  Of course all things Star Wars are being whipped up into froth in anticipation of the new movie opening next week. I am pretty sure that Mr. Fett, is not going to appear in the film.  Theoretically, he is still in the midst of being digested over a thousand years in the Sarlacc pit that he fell into during "Return of the Jedi."

But Boba Fett is a playable character in the Star Wars Battlefront game, and he has become our younger son's new favorite.  He chose Boba as his lead combatant when the kids staged a large action figure battle over the weekend.

His older brother chose a Predator figure as his lead. When he looked at the image on this napkin, he told me there was no way Boba was going to win the contest, even if he shot the Predator in the knee first.  I suggested that maybe they were just posing, and not actually fighting each other.

At least we know that Godzilla could deal with the Sarlacc just by stepping on it.

Happy Halloween from Pumpzilla

Or maybe it's a Kaiju O Lantern?

Since the younger child starred on the last pumpkin-themed napkin, we had to give the other, Godzilla costumed, one equal time.

My younger son did look at this napkin wistfully and said, "I wish pumpkins could actually do that."


The Doctor and the Terrible Lizard pose after trick or treating.

Godzilla and the Prom Queen: A Halloween Team-up

A close female friend of my older son describes her Halloween costume as a "Goth Prom Queen turned Demon."  As the parent of two sons, I must admit to being grateful that I have been able to remain blissfully ignorant of the complexities of female preteen Halloween costume choices.

I did not get to see my inflatable Godzilla son interact with the ironic prom queen at their Middle School Halloween dance last weekend, so I had to resort to imagining them together... sort of.

My depiction of her is not a particularly good likeness, but it is definitely more realistic than my drawing of my son's Godzilla costume.  For various reasons, we ended up with an adult sized costume.  Despite containing a slight 12 year old, it still inflated to its maximum volume, so the resulting height to width ratio was perhaps a bit peculiar... And not like that drawn on the napkin.

The photo below is of the 8 year old brother wearing the costume, so the height to width ratio is even more un Godzilla-like, but I am so amused by the tiny human toes peaking out of the feet, that I could not resist including it.

The 11th Doctor Who and Godzilla

Time Lord sits on a Kaiju:

Our kids are preparing their costumes for Halloween: the 11th Doctor Who for the younger brother and an inflatable Godzilla for the older.  My older son warns us that the Doctor is very sensitive to radiation, and probably should not hang out with Godzilla.  More to the point, the inflated lizard costume is very sensitive to puncturing and deflation, so perhaps Godzilla should not hang out with an antagonistic 8 year old who is armed with a Sonic Screwdriver.

They will probably be trick or treating in different neighborhoods anyway, but I am hoping for at least one picture of the two of them together.

The relative scale, however,  will be quite different than it is pictured on this napkin.

Gamera, Godzilla and Ultraman Cakewalk

Hello My Giant Baby:

My sons have matured quite a bit since last Halloween: They have done much less obsessing months in advance about their potential costumes and less frantic changing of costume plans than in past years.  Nonetheless, if I had gone ahead with all of the costumes that they swore they were definitely completely positive that that they were going to want to wear for this upcoming Halloween....well, we would have a lot of extra costumes.

At the moment, that is, today on September 25th, with slightly more than a month left before Halloween, we seem to have settled on Godzilla for the older brother and the 11th Doctor Who for the younger.  Will these choices stick until October 31st? Past experience tells me no.

Historically, the costume choice always changes again as soon as the costume chooser's mother has made significant efforts to purchase or fabricate the components.

But I remain optimistic.  Maybe this year will be different. The older child says he has made some sort of arrangement with two friends: They are going to dress as Gamera and Ultraman to go with his Godzilla. Perhaps this group effort will keep him from changing his mind at the last minute.  (But I am concerned that the challenge of making a Gamera do not bode well for the group effort.)

When I suggested that maybe there should be a Halloween costume team-up napkin, my son told me what he really wanted was the three of them doing the "Hello My Baby" dance.  I tackled this dance issue, with little success, on the Alien/Raptor/Unicorn napkin shown below. At least I managed to get all the hats and canes on the napkin that time. Select the napkin if you want to read about the song and the frog who sings it.

Alien, Raptor & Unicorn do the Michigan Rag

The Unicorn Takes on "Zilla"

Kaiju Killer:

(But only the less popular Kaiju)

Our older son can provide chapter and verse about the differences and relative merits of the various iterations of Godzilla. Unsurprisingly, his information and opinions come mostly second hand. He hasn't actually watched all those obscure-to-western-viewers 1960's Toho monster movies. I suggested to him that he probably wouldn't have the patience to sit through, say, "Mothra vs. Godzilla" from 1964, or even the 1992 version, "Godzilla vs Mothra." He replied, "Oh God, mom, of course not! That's what Youtube is for!"

Through watching YouTube, he managed to pick up the near universal fanboy condemnation of the 1998 American Godzilla movie. (the one with Matthew Broderick) That monster is known among the kaiju cognoscenti as "Zilla" because "they took the God out of Godzilla." If you want to know more about what that sentence means, I recommend the Wikipedia entry...or spending an ungodly amount of time watching YouTube commentary.

When my son asked me to draw him riding a Unicorn "Kaiju Killer" like the one pictured in 101 Ways to Use a Unicorn by Robb Perlman and Dave Urban, I knew it had to be "Zilla."

Mechagodzilla and Ultraman from "Ready Player One"

We've been working our way through Ernest Cline's "Ready Player One" at bedtime over the last couple of weeks.

The story of a teenager who spends all his time playing video games in a virtual universe and eventually triumphs in both the game and the real world is hugely appealing to my gaming obsessed sons. It is definitely not a book written for children, although it might well be most gratifying for people who are still enjoying their 1980's childhood.

I've had to do a bit of editing during the reading, with varying success. We listened to some of the novel during a car trip, playing Wil Wheaton's reading for Audible because I cannot read in the car without projectile vomiting. Unfortunately, we listened to the section where the protagonist encounters another character whose avatar is named "HotCock007."  Needless to say, this and some other instances where I have neglected to filter out all profanity have only made my sons love the book more.

And, one of the last scenes features an epic battle between Mechagodzilla, "Godzilla's robotic doppelganger"  and Ultraman, another colossus from a 1966 Japanese television show.

Inappropriate language and Mechagodzilla: what could be better than that?

Baby Godzilla Blocks the Brooklyn Bridge's Pedestrian Walkway

A larger walkway obstacle than oblivious tourists with selfie sticks.

Since we had Godzilla and the bridge on the napkin yesterday, Baby Godzilla seemed like the only logical follow-up...well, other than Mothra...or Mechagodzilla. It appears to be a little unclear in the Kaiju universe just how large the infant is supposed to be. In at least one of the movies, he is conveniently person-in-a-lizard-suit sized. But I thought it would be appropriate if he were larger than that, but just small enough to fit on the walkway between the cables.

I used to bike the kids over the Brooklyn Bridge to an occupational therapy appointment in Manhattan on Friday afternoons. The bridge passage was invariably jammed with sightseers photographing themselves while standing  in the bike lane. Mercifully, this was a couple of years ago and before the invention of the selfie stick. I hear things have gotten even more complicated on the bridge since.

Godzilla Views the Brooklyn Bridge From a Respectful Distance

My son's second grade class is studying the Brooklyn Bridge from now until the end of the school year. It's rare that I can convince my sons of the goodness of a napkin image that is related to school materials, so I couldn't just draw the bridge or any of its historical characters. While adding Godzilla to the image made it more palatable, I also could not depict the usual destructive relationship between the giant radioactive lizard and urban infrastructure.  Let's say that Godzilla is just admiring the bridge's construction.

My older son was definitely disappointed in my portrayal of Godzilla. On the way to school this morning, he reprimanded me for not drawing the cooler 2014 version, and pointed out that the lizard's size in relation to the bridge was not right.... And, "Mom, it's green! Really! What Godzilla is green??!!"

As you might be able to guess, it was very late last night when I drew this and I did foolishly hope that I could leave it a bit indeterminate as to which version I was aiming for. No such luck.

Fat Cat with Mechagodzilla

Size still matters:

Cats & Robots #10

Yesterday Archer and I were debating which cat would be the best companion for Mechagodzilla. (These are the kind of compelling questions that I discuss with my sons.) I did consider Mercury, the two legged "T-Rex" cat, because of his similar-to-giant-reptiles upright stance. But the primary problem seemed to be one of scale: how would a domestic cat be visible in relation to a giant robot monster?  It seemed like the cat needed to be as large as possible.

There must be a significant online audience for oversized house cats as there are a good many images circulating around the web of purportedly huge, or just hugely fat, felines. Most of them seem to have been liberally photoshopped, and perhaps that is the better part of their charm. There are some documentedly large cats out there, but I picked an image of a fat cat who has definitely been rendered more obese through the magic of digital intervention. His (or her) image comes up in a couple of sizes when one Googles "fat cat." The actual cat IRL does seem to be rather overweight and is pictured on the very appropriately named "fattest cat in the world" blog,

While I did have to enlarge the cat to make him show up on the napkin, I used the less rotund image of this cat for the napkin today because I did not want it to be too... unrealistic. (Yes, my tone is facetious, Archer, in case you are wondering)

The images that come up when one Googles "fat cat" follow below: