Black alert
They only come out at night, apparently. But what is it that makes our monsters so shy to appear in daylight?
Perhaps they have sensitive eyes, and for that I’m grateful that they have yet to discover the technology of polarised sunglasses. There’s little scarier than a four-armed hell beast wearing a pair of Ray-Ban’s.
Similarly, they could be like the zombie things in I am Legend. For those of you yet to see the film, I don’t think I’m giving anything away when I tell you that like the traditional vampire, sunlight burns straight through them. Again, I beg most pharmacies not to sell factor 50 to such horrors.
It could be a social thing though. They might just prefer to be up and around when us humans are asleep. The streets are quieter, there’s little traffic and what could be better than finishing a hard night at work with a bit of daytime television.
Ty on 
Ben on
I don’t know, monsters of your gigantic city crushing variety seem equally inclined to go out in day or night. The smaller ones I think just find it easier to sneak around at night, which it certainly is.
Joe! You beat me to the punch, I was gunna say, “Godzilla comes out during the day, right?”
godzilla has no fashion sense.
face it, at night people dress better.
a poorly clad monster would get laughed
at and derided for being lame.
True, perhaps it’s a time zone issue with Tokyo?
Or have you thought that the reason Godzilla is so angry is that he’s just trying to get some sleep.
“The streets are quieter, there’s little traffic and what could be better than finishing a hard night at work with a bit of daytime television.”
Anything. I’m off school enough to have explored day-time television. While “Jeremy Kyle” is amusing for a while, it soon starts to grate you down (on a related note, why can’t the people on it ever wash their hair?) “Loose Women” is terrifying. While I love puns, anything involving antiques just has too many. “To Buy Or Not To Buy” is good, though.
I’m quite the connoisseur.
Jezza – He makes me feel like Dr Frankenstein… If only we hadn’t listened to him on the radio… there’s nothing like making your own monster.
I think they baptise the guests in fish oil before they enter the ring, err I mean stage… ah hell with it, it IS bear baiting.
Still very much unsure about ‘Loose Women’, if only because of the title. It makes it sound like they are about to drop off.
What would you rather have on the telley?
Oh, some good comedy wouldn’t go amiss. Definitely not.
Maybe a decent crime drama – daytime ones are all a tad tame, alas. I mean ‘Murder She Wrote’, ‘Rosemary and Thyme’ and ‘Diagnosis Murder’ can only satisfy for so long.
It is probably easier to pick us humans off in small, isolated groups which is easiest to do in homes. And people who aren’t insomniacs tend to sleep at night, making them easy prey.
That’s why, as The Great Joe Bivins said, the city-crushing monsters come out whenever they feel like it. They don’t need to have the element of surprise on their side.
This comic is topical for me, having seen Cloverfield for the first time last night.
“It is probably easier to pick us humans off in small, isolated groups”
You say that in a manner suggesting you have spent some time thinking about how best to exterminate humans… I suspect I have another evil genius reader… this keeps happening…
What did you think of Cloverfield?
“You say that in a manner suggesting you have spent some time thinking about how best to exterminate humans”
Eh, I planned on studying forensic psychology for awhile and thus know how pretty much every serial killer in history got their victims and what they did with them. Not great to carry around in your head. I changed disciplines but you can’t unlearn what you already know unfortunately.
As to Cloverfield, trying not to give anything away to those who haven’t seen it, but I thought the acting and writing were great but was disappointed by the thing that was making everything go boom. But I’m not sure what kind of boom maker I would’ve been happy with so a minor complaint.
There’s a coincidence, I wanted to be a forensic scientist… but bottled out when I realised quite how much of my time would be spent with the dead. The things I learned make it very difficult to watch crime dramas.
I might give Cloverfield a look. I was a bit wary of the camera work.
Crime dramas make my barrister-head explode. Legal comedies are worse. I spend the whole episode sputtering frustration: “but! no! you! evidence doesn’t work that way! objection!”
The degree I’m working towards now (Biochemistry) is still good towards forensic science if I add on a few criminal justice classes. If I had the discipline, I’d go on through graduate school so that I could be a medical examiner but I don’t. So I’ll probably just be a happy little lab rat somewhere.
The camera work in Cloverfield is bad. I learned after awhile when I should just close my eyes and listen (basically, anytime they’re running for a bit).
Cloverfield could have been sooo much more.
Instead, it was a cheap and nasty looking Blair Witch clone.
Dodgy camera work and no origin for the monster.
At first I thought it may have been some elder god like Cthulu, but I don’t think that Cthulu would have just sat around eating ppl.
The movie could have been so much more with a decent director and real cameras.
I understood what they were going for in thinking that seeing from the POV of one of the characters would put the audience in the action more. But they ran around entirely too much for it to be a wise logistical choice. The camera work in Blair Witch didn’t bother me at all but I had to close my eyes for stretches of Cloverfield.
I can relate to these monsters, ppl suck in the day.
At night they are much more fun, more crazy and generally nicer.
If you look at the vampires in the Blade series, you will see that the normal night variety of vampire are nicer, more social creatures, while Blade, the day walker, is a complete prick. He can’t even be nice to the guy who saved his life.
I blame this entirely on sunlight exposure.
*laughs*
I think that’s a definitive answer, it has proof and everything.
Well, proof is everything.
Anecdotes aren’t evidence, but the plural of anecdote is evidence. There are 3 Blade movies and I think that counts as evidence.
Incidentally, did I say that I really like the art today? It’s very striking; resonates with me, aside from the monster theme, though I”m not really sure why. A-plus work.
Often there is no why.
I’m glad you like it.
Oddly, I feel a pressure these days to draw slightly more complex and/or traditionally funnier comics… I did this to remind me that sometimes you can express an idea completely in 4 words, 3 cells, 2 patterns of ink and a sinlge colour.
Sagan talks about this in great detail in Demon-Haunted World. Me, I figure the dark is where we’re at our weakest: humans don’t see so well at night. Oh, sure, we pack flashlights and lanterns, glowsticks and flares… but bottom line is, once our pupils have dilated all they are going to, our predators always have those creepy cat- or owl-like reflective retinas and they pop out of nowhere and ROAR! and holy crap and run and ohgodIfell! and then it turns the corner and stalks closer and you lose sight of it and stand and thing you’re in the clear and then SNAP!
Monsters are scary.
St Sagan? I should spend more time with him.
As an aside, I work mostly alone on a derelict wing of a medical facility… it’s well lit (providing I turn on the lights). Perhaps it is because I can still hear the rest of the hospital making noises, but it doesn’t half give me the creeps… anyway, your description of being predated is exactly how I feel, sometimes.
“Perhaps it is because I can still hear the rest of the hospital making noises, but it doesn’t half give me the creeps…”
I think that’s a reason why people feel safer during the daytime. There are other people milling about. I guess we assume that if something bad starts to happen, we’ll have a chance to make it to other people or us to them in time for the bad to be counteracted. But that’s usually not the case.
But I’m sure you’re fine in you’re isolated corner of the hospital
How do you think I feel.
When I work alone, there is only the sounds of the creaking, settling earth above me, the drip of strata water falling from the roof and complete pitch blackness.
Plus, there is an aboriginal burial ground above the mine somewhere…..
It sounds to me like you *are* the monster….
Well, yeah, but in this case, this monster is creeped the f**k out.
Maybe that’s why movie monsters are running about so much. They’re just really freaked out.
daytime people are always in a hurry.
they’ll step over you, if you are lying in the street.
nighttime people are just more aware.
it’s a matter of connecting with kindred souls.
nobody goes unnoticed at night.
I can tell you’re a bit of a night person… both of your comments are rather astute.
“nighttime people are just more aware.”
In every sense.