Project Description

INKTOBER 2025 Day #7: STARFISH.

“In all the years I’ve been doing Plunger Monkey Inktober (six now, if I count right), I think this is the first time I’ve made a ‘Spongebob Squarepants’ reference. I can’t say it’s been a huge influence on me; it debuted well after my formative years. My kids enjoyed it, and I would watch along with them, but I can’t say they had a crazy affinity for it the way I did for the cartoons of my youth. It certainly is wacky and similar to my sense of humor, though. It’s also a worldwide phenomenon and has been for decades now, so I respect that.
I spend a lot of time envisioning what it would be like to have Plunger Monkey become so famous. I already make shirts, but I keep a growing list of other product and merchandising ideas. I think about comics, mostly, but also getting PMD into other mediums like video games and cartoons. The latter two have big barriers to get through, though. I don’t know how to make a video game, but one of my kids loves coding and wants to make games, so someday I may be able to have him help me. I have a better sense of how to animate things, but it’s extremely time-consuming and there’s so much I would need to learn in order to create something I would deem acceptable. I could gather a team of people who know how to do that stuff, but that gets into turning myself into an actual business with employees and more complicated tax stuff and all kinds of things that aren’t making art. I’d also feel weird not being the sole person doing the creating. Still, I continue to dream of PMD games and cartoons.”

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