Project Description

INKTOBER 2025 Day #24: ROWDY.

“This is actually another ‘Calvin and Hobbes’ reference. Calvin was a pretty rambunctious kid with a huge imagination, but some of the funniest strips to me were of his random acts of chaos (especially now that I’ve raised three kids). There’s one strip where he’s pounding nails into the coffee table, with the predictable response from his mom along the lines of ‘What the heck are you doing?!’. After a beat, Calvin simply asks ‘Is this some sort of trick question?’ There’s another strip, which is the one I had in mind when I came up with this idea, where Calvin is marching around the house banging a spoon on a pot, which again gets an expected response from his mom: ‘Will you stop that awful racket?! You’re driving me crazy!’. The last panel is of Calvin happily checking off another day on his calendar. I don’t recall ever being as rowdy as Calvin, but I definitely related to his imagination and admired his free, though often random, spirit.”

Do you enjoy these silly pen and ink illustrations starring Plunger Monkey? Wish you had a whole book full of them to gaze at lovingly whenever you wanted? You’re in luck! Get a copy of Inklings to satisfy that need: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1733734716/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1AO28074KOTGC&keywords=inklings+by+toby+gray&qid=1689026488&s=books&sprefix=inklings+by+toby+gray%2Cstripbooks%2C103&sr=1-1