Conor's Bad First Grade Books - "The Monster That Ate Chicago" (Patreon)

Well, after the thorough roasting Mike gave my adaptation of "King Kong", I had to take a long break to do some self-reflection. Do I really have any right to criticize others when I myself have once written DSOTWs such as "He was a fuz!"? Of course I do. I was seven. I was scared of Bob from Sesame Street and thought Twinkies were too spicy. I was an idiot and should be made fun of by wise, rational elders such as present day me, who last week sent an email saying "Cow looks great, I bet some people will be really into the hobbit feet."

That said, let's dive into "The Monster That Ate Chicago".

If you've been following this series, Monsters appear to be the main genre I was working in, much like when Monet spent all his time painting water lilies. I believe this all stems from these orange Crestwood House monster books that they had in our school library. If I were James Halladay I'd probaly shart my first gunt inside a copy of The Deadly Mantis. But on to The Monster That Ate Chicago!!

The first thing you'll notice is that I had some assistance with the text. Clearly the teacher got fed up with correcting spelling errors like "Sonpy". 

The monster was headed for Chicago. On its way there it stopped in New York City to shake the Empire State Building. That is clearly what happened here, it's not just a kid who had heard of only one building and one city and assumed that was where everything monster related happened. How dare you. Also, a hearty "Well Done!" to the teacher for getting all "House Of Leaves" on the word layout here. 

I love a good "flexing your body up into the air scene", almost as much as I love abysmal utilization of white space by the teacher taking dictation! Why not write in that left center space, Mrs. Boehly?? I don't think I had discovered Calvin and Hobbes at this point, but it's always nice to see that our tastes in destruction of major metropolitan areas, as well as our art talents, were on the same page.

Far be it from me to hold the reader's hand, but sometimes you just can't take it for granted that the mouth-breathing sheep who pick up your book at an airport Hudson News are going to pick up on all the subtleties. Did you notice that the monster is turning human? YOU DIDN'T!? It's right there in the... Uh... Well he's got a snorkeling flipper... Looks to be a toothbrush on the left there... Sort of muscular Trogdor arms? Ah-ha! There! That long black tube sticking out of the monster's neck. That's a leg with a foot! What's more human than a neck-leg!

That car by the way? It had been driving on the, uh... "major roads that go through chicago" Dan Ryan Expressway! Oops, somehow pasted the the google query in there. How did that get in there, but not "who was the guy who painted the water flowers" earlier?? Oh well. 

Now a teacher who wasn't just punching the clock would have asked me to expand on the concept of "monster thoughts" here, and I'm so curious what I might have said. Are monster thoughts like "Rawwrrrggh!!!" or maybe "Why do people call me Frankenstein, that's my creator's name?" or "Why is the Empire State building in Chicago, did I take a wrong turn?"  Maybe all monster thoughts are in Esperanto?

Who's to say!

That is a human. That is no longer a monster. I looked at that completed drawing and thought "That is representative of the species I am a member of." NO FURTHER QUESTIONS!!!

First grade me sticks the landing ONCE AGAIN! Maybe a couple years later there would have been a post credits coda with the porcelain wrecking aftermath of that multi-colored stomach ache, or perhaps the sentencing of the now-a-person for all the murders he committed. But for now, we've reached the end of another volume. Thank you for joining me to make fun of a seven year old.