Written by Jonathan Wojcik
NIGHTMARE BEINGS 2016: Part VIII
With Artwork by Badslime!
Monsters and villains from your creepiest dreams!BUMP PEOPLE
This comically disturbing pair were actually dreamt by one of Badslime's friends, and their dream goes as follows:
"It was 1950's suburbia, everyone was minding their own business. But then they landed. The bumpy people emerged from the ship. They were well dressed smiling creatures with bumps all over their skin, they wore big black sunglasses. A man from the town approached them and stood in front of one, demanding to know what they were doing. The taller bump man said nothing. So the man persists again, angrily. When he is greeted with silence, the man snaps angrily, and the bump man touches him. In a flash, the man is covered in bumps, and a wide, black smile appears on his face. And from the back of the back of the crowd, a small child watches with horror."
So, another of those brief, juicy dreams with a distinct "story arc" and open ending. I always love these. You can tell this kind of snippet of a dream is a common inspiration for music videos and short cartoons, both of which would suit the story of the bump men.
THE EGGIPEDE
Our first look at this monster had a fun, stylized look that wouldn't feel too out of place as a Pokemon, but I mused that the same monster had potential to look fairly haunting. Badslime takes a pretty good shot at it, the murky embryos looking purposeful and menacing within their mobile eggs. What's an eggipede eat, anyway? Its own yolk? If it eventually "hatches," does it continue to live in basically a conga line?
...Of what???
SASQUATCH
An alternate take on this TERRIFYING bogeyman opts for a sleeker and more murderous look with a particularly ape-like skull. I like them both, and I see a bit more "chupacabra" in this interpretation.
GAKONA
Our last two monsters this round are both from one of the artist's own dreams, described thusly:
"I can't recall much from this dream other than an older version of myself was showing me some of their own drawings so they could inspire me. I'm also fairly sure they were in Indiana Jones styled clothing for some reason. The book they showed me was old, but the drawings of the creatures inside looked clear and new. I didn't get a good look at all the creatures, but the ones that i most remember are the Gakona and the Vak. The Gakona was a huge metal snake-like creature with one giant red eye for a head. The eye was like a flashlight, sending out a cone of red light from its eye-head. It had segments all on its huge body, each with two small spikes at the sides. The tail was the only part of it uncovered and it was in the shape of a teardrop. I forget the exact pattern but I'd like to believe its different for each Gakona. I only know that it was a red tail with black markings and smaller yellow markings. Dream logic also told me that this creature was very different on the inside, being made solely out of dark tentacles and the metal around its body was armour."
..."The second creature, the Vak, was on the next page. This creature was actually an infectious fungus that took over the bodies of animals. Once it finds a host, It slowly takes over the brain and works its way throughout the body from there. While this process takes place, the hosts body begins to morph to suit the reproduction of the fungus. It takes on an orange pigment and becomes mostly featureless save for the legs and the various anthill-esque flesh tubes pointed vertically all over its body. The hosts are all surprisingly able to move after this, and the fungus used this fact to travel long distances in order to spread itself."
While not a frightening dream, these are definitely formidable monsters, and it's hard to pick a favorite. I definitely enjoy parasitic fungi, but a mass of tentacles in a worm-shaped suit of armor is also pretty killer. I'm glad Badslime's imaginary future dream self could share these with us...though considering they come from both a dream and a future timeline, it's hard to say whether they actually invented these or simply took a couple of "field sketches."
The more I read other people's dreams, the more my mind tries to piece them together into a universe with its own sort of logic...
Also, congrats on Badslime's "Vak" for being the ONE HUNDREDTH unique monster illustrated in the Nightmare Beings feature! That's as many as some entire Pokemon Generations!
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