Sad Monsters by Frank Lesser
Gawker Book Club is back! Today, we bring you an excerpt from Sad Monsters—an illustrated book of "humorous stories about the undead ... and the unloved"—written by Colbert Report staff writer Frank Lesser, and illustrated by Willie Real.
Frank Lesser will personally be answering your questions in the comments for the next 30 minutes! Post all questions in the comment section now!
The following excerpt is "Godzilla's Existential Crisis."
Questioning Godzilla's Existence
September 3:
Woke up after twenty-year hibernation. Hate when I oversleep-meant to hibernate fifteen years, sixteen tops. Terrible crick in neck-must have slept on my tail wrong.
March 8
Wound up hitting snooze for six more months. Barely had enough energy to rampage to the bathroom, let alone through a city, but finally rolled out of bed and destroyed Tokyo. Again. Starting to wonder, what's the point? They're just going to rebuild.
March 12
Couldn't sleep, so woke up early and went for a jog through Osaka. Kept wondering what happens to people after I stomp on them. Do they have souls that live on, that I can also stomp on? Or is the human soul unstompable? Maybe I'm just going through a midlife thing. Never had these worries during the Mesozoic era. When I was younger, each screaming villager felt like a triumph, like I was really doing something with my life. Now I just wish they'd shut up and accept it, or at least quit it with the antiaircraft missiles. Those things really irritate my eczema.
March 16
Having doubts about my place in the universe. Evolutionarily speaking, why should I feel the need to seek out populated cities and destroy them? I'm not eating the people for sustenance, and I'm not protecting my mating grounds. God, it's been millennia since I even thought about mating. I used to see so much as an alligator and I'd at least think about asking it back to my lair. But now, it feels like more trouble than it's worth. I'd probably run out of atomic breath before anything really got going, anyway.
March 23
Son of Godzilla never calls anymore. Was I a bad parent? I guess I could have spent more time with him tossing around the old football stadium. Maybe I'm depressed. I tired to talk to Rodan about my feelings, but he just screeched and batted his wings at me. Sometimes he can be fun, but most of the time he's not just a huge pterodactyl, he's a huge asshole.
March 27
Had plans to destroy Kyoto with Mothra, but ended up staying in and watching M*A*S*H reruns. Tried to self-medicate by eating a pharmaceutical factory. Efficacy of drugs may have been limited by the fact that they were on fire.
April 1
For April Fool's, I figured I would help rebuild Tokyo, really surprise inhabitants. It worked-they threw a parade in my honor. But the whole time, all I could think was, "Does God exist?" Man, I wish I could focus on something else. It's been ages since I've had to fight a robot version of myself from space.
April 3
Tried a change of scenery. Swam to California. Met a friendly giant squid along the way, but ran out of things to talk about once we covered tentacles and swimming underwater.
April 6
LA was a mistake. Everyone here is so flaky; you can barely rely on them to scream in terror. Staying at the former site of the Beverly Hills Hotel, currently the Beverly Hills smoking crater. Decided to try a different change of scenery: stacked all the buildings in Los Angeles on top of each other to form one giant skyscraper, but before I could destroy it, I was filled with overwhelming ennui. Maybe destroying life has no meaning?
April 11
Back in Japan. Hate how messy cave gets when I'm away on vacation. Rodan stopped by to see if I wanted to play life-sized Monopoly, but I pretended I wasn't home. Mothra called, invited me to come out with her. Didn't feel like it, but she insisted, and I wound up having more fun than I've had in eons. Turns out, we have a lot in common. Sure, I'm a giant prehistoric lizard and she's a giant moth, but we've decided to focus on the giant part. The other stuff's just details. Of course, if things don't work out, I could lose not only a friend but also an ally in my battles with the three-headed monster King Ghidorah. Anyway, we're getting dinner next week. Probably Japanese.
Frank Lesser will be responding to questions in the comments. Get in there!
