For those who are intensely interested, here is the transciption of the article that ran in the West Side Sun News last week and will run (hopefully) in the Lakewood Sun Post this week. Thanks to Nora for the transcribing work! BTW, I hope to have a new show this week. I sound awful if I talk for any length of time, but we'll see how it goes.
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Artist’s fundraiser turns into monstrous businessBy Lisa Novatny What started as a fundraising effort for self-employed artist Len Peralta quickly evolved into a “monster of its own.”
Peralta, a Lakewood resident and the creator of monsterbymail.com, a Web site that delivers custom-designed monsters in the mail, erected the site after he and his wife found they were expecting their sixth child.
Envisioning pricey medical bills and multiple receipts for diapers and formula, Peralta made it his mission to raise some extra money.
Peralta got his idea to draw personalized monsters after witnessing a fellow artist successfully sell hobo drawings on the Internet. His love for drawing and his intrigue of beasts, superheroes and zombies, which stemmed from childhood, led him to his calling.
“I’ve always been a cartoonist,” said Peralta, who minored in art at Baldwin-Wallace College. “I’ve always enjoyed drawing and I always wanted to be an artist.”
With the help of web designer Dan Coulter, Peralta set up monsterbymail.com, opening it to the public on March 30.
The site allows monster lovers the opportunity to submit a name for their demon or brute then Peralta hand draws the 4-by-6-inch monstrosity.
Each drawing costs $20. For $30, you can purchase a drawing along with an art-in-progress video, and for $45 you can purchase a drawing, video and zombie T-shirt.
Peralta originally intended to create 150 monsters. Within a week though, he had sold out.
“I was flabbergasted, “ Peralta said. “I wasn’t sure if it was going to work. . . I’m an unknown artist. But people really took to it.”
In response to the site’s popularity, Peralta decided to create more monsters.
He again opened the site, this time promoting fictional monster movie drawings. Again, the illustrations sold like hotcakes.
“At one point, I was getting two to four orders per hour,” Peralta exclaimed. “It was ridiculous.”
The artists followed up a cryptozoology theme next. creating more than 100 drawings.
Currently, Peralta is working on zombie-themed drawings. From Vincent van Zombie to an undead Flaming Monkey Metal Guitarist, Peralta already has received more than 200 orders.
To meet demands, Peralta sometimes draws four to 12 monsters per day, from 8 a.m. to 2 a.m. the next morning, for two weeks at a time.
Each drawing is humorous and unique in its own way., Peralta advertised monsterbymail.com through his blog and his and his wife’s weekly podcast, Jawbone Radio, which was established in 2005.
Today, he receives orders from all over the world and even has created monsters for cryptozooligist Loren Coleman.
“The response to this has been so overwhelmingly positive that’s it’s been an inspiration to me to really keep going,” Peralta said. “I used to think sitting at home, drawing cartoons would be the best job ever. . . and you what—it is.”
Along with running monsterbymail.com and hosting his own podcast, Peralta illustrated a book titled ”Visual Things a Week: Art Inspired by the Music of Jonathan Coulton, “ created the Zombie Alphabet and runs his own advertising agency at home.
Tonight, Nora and I return after a short hiatus and talk being a local celebrity, being mismatched, The Summer Of The Undead continues and or weird sleepover dilemma. Enjoy the show folks!
I've been meaning to post this for a few weeks now. Erik was having a party for his brother in law, who happens to be a code monkey. He asked Jonathan Coulton if he could use the Code Monkey artwork from his site to make decorations. JoCo said "talk to Len". Len said yes and voila! This is what we get! All hail CC! Thanks to Erik for asking permission and putting my Nimoy monkey heads all over his bro-in-laws front lawn.
Well, the article that was previously transcribed here ran on the front page of our hometown paper today, the Lakewood Sun Post. It features some new art including the Flaming Monkey Metal Guitarist (pictured here). Incidentally, I got a really nice e-mail from Dave, the owner of said monkey zombie. Apparently, I have influenced him to unpack his pens and draw again. Woot! Here's to inspiration. If you want your own zombie, now would be the perfect time to order. Plus, I'd love to do some art for people in my hometown.
Hmmmm...
Got a good laugh from this little roundup. I'd actually want to watch some of these films. Link via ELR.
During a recent music festival, four DJs entered the mixing contest. Each wore a number, either 1, 2, 3 or 4 and their decks were different colours. DJ Skinf Lint came first, and only one DJ wore the same number as the position he finished in. DJ Slam Dunk wore number 1. The DJ who wore number 2 had a red deck and DJ Jam Jar didn't have a yellow deck. The DJ who came last had a blue deck. DJ Park'n Ride beat DJ Slam Dunk. The DJ who wore number 1 had a green deck and the DJ who came second wore number 3. Can you determine who came where, which number they wore and the colour of their deck?
Too cool! 
So last night, I took my two eldest and my niece to see none other than one of our faves, "Weird Al" Yankovic. It was a bit of a family affair as a few of my brothers-in-law were in attendance with their kids. It was a great show and fun was had by all. The funniest story of the night has to be this image of my brother in law, Aaron, having his brand new 8GB iPhone signed by Weird Al himself. I don't have the whole story, but I'm sure I'll talk about it on an upcoming show.
Things are getting weirder and weirder in the ocean. Case in point, the octosquid. Read more about this finding here. Thanks Mark!
So, to celebrate the fourth of July, a few of us went out to see Transformers last night. Yes, it was loud. (At one point, my eardrums were making that annoying tinny sound, and that was just in the first five minutes of the film.) Yes, it was obnoxious. Yes, it was big, dumb and quintessentially American. And yes, I loved the hell out of it. 
Yes, I have fallen into the trap and created my own Simpsons Avatar. You can too! Just go here. Thanks to Ben for the heads up.
