Monster Boy Development Blog

Toby Bennet, a middle-schooler who avoids socializing in favour of maintaining his online blog, tries to hide his ability to see invisible, misery-eating monsters from his fellow students. But when he’s discovered by two other kids with the same ability, he will realise he doesn't have to suffer alone. Monster Boy is about three kids with mental illness. It's about bullying, loss, and the importance of friendship and self-care. It's about a kid who will fail to endure.

[midnightglances]

please ignore anything I’ve ever said, I’d like to be mysterious again

[telltaletypist]

i think eventually we're all just gonna have to come to terms with the fact that it's impossible to tell a story with any degree of subtlety or nuance without risking a portion of the audience taking the "wrong message", and that's ok. art isn't meant to be strictly a teaching tool, and if you're goal is just to convince people or critique an idea, just write an essay or a polemic

[telltaletypist]

people taking the "wrong message" from a story isn't a failure of that story, it's a function of art itself

[catcrumb]

[sirobvious]

“Appeal to a wider audience” is corporate lingo for “strip more themes from a piece of media so it’s safer and more sanitized for investors”

[sirobvious]

I struck a nerve in the billionaire fandom with this one

[wiseabsol]

Okay but this is actually one of the most useful things you learn in creative writing workshops! Namely: Not all of the feedback you get is going to be useful! In fact, most of it isn’t! What you’re looking for are the people who vibe with your work and understand what you’re going for. Those are the people who can help you make your work better! But if you try to please everyone? Then you’re stripping out what makes your story uniquely yours. You’re stripping out what’s going to challenge and resonate with your audience. So don’t ever try to appeal to a wider audience! If you want those diehard fans who are going to follow your catalogue, let your work be weird. Lean into what you love about it. That’s what’s going to stick with your audience at the end of the day.

[farfetchedshow]

Freaks, YOU DID IT! You funded the Far-Fetched pilot in UNDER 9 HOURS! From the bottom of our cold, decrepit hearts: Thank you all for supporting our project! Stay tuned for our upcoming stretch goals and updates!

Far-Fetched: The Animated Pilot That Wouldn't Die

An animated horror comedy about a rock band of misfits filming a music video that’s so lame, monsters try to kill them.

[castoff-comic]

April Mail Club: Castoff's 10th Anniversary!

Happy April, folks! This month is Castoff's 10th anniversary, and I did a mail club theme to celebrate! Stickers w/ Vector and Arianna's original designs, and a new print featuring the ENTIRE main cast!! Wowza~ Want this month's goodies? Check this post for details!

"Who are these characters??" Great news friend, there is a webcomic that is 10 years old and free to read and you wanna read it so bad oooooo-

[objectheadzine]

Object Head Zine 2025, Fantasy and Magic Preorders are now Open! Preorders will last until April 22nd, 11:59pm PST.

Thank you all for your patience, I hope you're as excited as I am for the 2025 Object Head Zine preorders! Click on the link in this paragraph to go to the Kofi where this is hosted. We got:

A book that's 164 pages long filled with comics, illustrations, and work-in-progress sketches. Features a painted edge and embossed cover!

3 vinyl stickers (1 glow in the dark, 2 holo) [1000 Dead Draculas, CHRISQI, and Bunnii]

A 25-piece bag of wax seal stickers (5 different designs) [Dr. Jingles, Solaire, Izu/Potentialforart, nauma, and Juliette GMM López]

A metal bookmark featuring the zine mascots with a gold tassel [Izu/Potentialforart]

2 lenticular bookmarks [Blacklimes and Guillermo Saavedra]

3 acrylic charms (1 gold flake, 2 holo) [Jeong/dunesand, planetsandmagic, and Tien]

3 heat sensitive prints (use a hairdryer or a hot surface for best effect!) [Yulia "Mikh-na" Abdulkhakova, cowsaresushi, and R-GIE]

5 Holographic prints [Kai_QS, koloquials, siins, Corruptimles, and SkyShard]

A cute 1.5" purple chrome enamel pin! [hello*today]

Our wonderful artists are:

Izu/Potentialforart, Kimberly Wang, Louise Kay Uy | Kalkie, Jeong/dunesand, theholeyness, Blacklimes, Autumn Haynes, hello*today, Juliette GMM López, Betney, Hal (Cacoethic) + Len (Critterature), KIDSID, Vetiverfox, Caitlin Ono, Inktrashing, nauma, Pastachyan, Kosse, CORVIDAY, krispy, JOU, PigDemonArt, CHRISQI, R-GIE, Kai_QS, SkyShard, Feefal, Bunnii, 1000 Dead Draculas, Nisnow, Derek Hetrick, Madame RinRin, Rainboopz, koloquials, Kaz Fantone, Andrea C./punkoz, Iris, Andrhomeda, Skylar Valencia, Den_Ai_D, TK Pinkerton, Guillermo Saavedra, Nighto, June Flores, Sarah Skrutskie, bluequills, april, Nikru, corruptimles, Jara Draws, ZOOT, siins, Nullcasting, Dr.Jingles, Solaire, arcadechan, planetsandmagic, Poofylion, cowsaresushi, AKIRATA, Tien, Mangozic, Mina Martinez, Lemonjuiceday, Jackarais, K_Duffles, Yulia "Mikh-na" Abdulkhakova, Winiberto J. Garcia + Tango, Jenny Park, cosmicloak

[monsterboycomic]

MONSTER BOY HAS UPDATED and CHAPTER SIX IS COMPLETE

✨ Read the full 5-page update here on Tapas✨

[kaijuno]

[prophetic-writer]

Becoming a writer is great because now you have a hobby that haunts you whenever you don’t have time to do it

[monsterboycomic]

Read Monster Boy | Tapas Web Community

Your home for the world’s most exciting and diverse web comics and novels. Discover stories you’ll love from all genres, only on Tapas!

❄️Monster Boy has updated!❄️

Merry Crisis, here's some nerds.

[transistor-rhythm-909]

Yet more Xmas Gift Art, this time for one of the most hardworking artists I know, @paranoart ; its Toby Bennett, the protagonist of her webcomic Monster Boy, whom they rEALLY NEED TO CUT A BREAK (I say as if I didn't just draw him encountering an offscreen monster that presumably has a bone to pick with him).

You can- and should!- read Monster Boy on tapas:

Read Monster Boy | Tapas Web Community

Your home for the world’s most exciting and diverse web comics and novels. Discover stories you’ll love from all genres, only on Tapas!

[monsterboyblog]

DECOOOOOOOOON I'm super late but you da bes and I love this thank youuuu ;;;;n;;;;; <333

[orcboxer]

movies will be like "THIS is the most bullied outcast unpopular girl in school... the Thin White Heterosexual Brunette"

[canethatssecretlyasword-deactiv]

i actually kinda like it when a character getting better includes them becoming weirder and less polite and more confusing and strange. no more "domestication" i wanna see the weird guy be weird!!!

[spider-artdump]

[beautifulterriblequeen]

[maaarine]

Why are British teenage girls so unhappy? Here’s the answer (Caitlin Moran, The Times, Sep 13 2024)

"The report, by the Children’s Society, found that British 15-year-old girls are the most unhappy in Europe.

British girls aged 10-15 are “significantly less happy” with their life, appearance, family and school than the average boy — and their happiness is still declining.

Boys’ life satisfaction, meanwhile, remains broadly stable. (…)

But I still didn’t have an “aha!” moment about why this so disproportionately affects girls until… I talked to some teenage girls.

It was at a party, and I went to vape with them on the patio. Because I take my nicotine like children do.

“Duh — it’s the boys,” one said when I brought it up, as all the others agreed.

“The boys?” I asked.

My last book, What About Men?, had been all about how much boys struggle these days: their loneliness; their suicide rates. I’d spent the past year feeling very sympathetic towards boys.

“Yeah, well, who do you think they’re taking out their unhappiness on? It’s us,” another girl said.

“One boy at school used to draw a picture every day of how ugly I was,” a third girl said. “Every day for two years.”

“They’ve all got ‘Rate The Girls’ polls on their WhatsApps,” the first said. “They mark you down for weight gain, haircuts, what you say.”

“But then, if you’re hot, it’s just as bad, in a different way, because they’ll be talking about how they want to f*** you.”

The girls discussed coping techniques. Bad news: none of them worked.

“The only way you can stop them is if you become ‘one of the boys’ and hang out with them. But then,” the second girl said with a sigh, “all the other girls call you a slut. Because you’ve gone over to the boys’ side.”

“Surely it’s not all the boys?” I said. “There must be some nice boys?”

“Oh, yeah,” one girl said. “But they keep their heads down. Because… well, look.”

She showed me the Instagram account of her friend. Under every picture she posted of herself — smiling in a new dress; with her dog — dozens of anonymous accounts had replied with the most rank abuse.

“Fat.” “Slut.” “You gonna try and kill yourself again, for attention?”

“They’re all boys from her school,” she said. “And look, this one boy tried to defend her.”

I saw a series of messages from a brave teenage boy, posting things like, “You’re all big men, leaving these replies under anonymous accounts.”

As I could see, this boy immediately became a target too. Mainly accusations that he was “white knighting” this girl: “You wanna f*** her, bro?”

“So,” I asked, “you don’t think it’s social media pressure to be beautiful, or the economy, that’s making girls so sad?”

“Well, yeah, them too,” the first girl said. “But, Monday-Friday, 9-3, I’m not on social media. I’m not… in the economy. I’m just with these boys. And no one talks about how horrible they are.”

I thought about another recent report, showing a 30 per cent ideological gap between Gen Z men, who are increasingly conservative, and Gen Z women, who are increasingly progressive.

I thought about Andrew Tate, who has nine million mostly young male followers — and faces human trafficking charges, which he denies.

And I thought: maybe these girls are on to something. Maybe more people need to vape with teenage girls and ask them for the school gossip."

[infectiouspiss]

little miss awful body temperature regulation is taking his hoodie off again

[infectiouspiss]

little miss awful body temperature regulation has put his hoodie back on