One Monster Book After Another!

I previously posted about one of my favorite childhood books, "One Monster After Another" (Mercer Mayer, 1974). Well it wasn't long after first discovering that book that I found my way to "Little Monster's You-Can-Make-It Book" (Mercer Mayer, 1978), a big (144 pages!) activity book centered around The Edge of Nowhere and its monstrous inhabitants.

Not only is it loaded with wonderful Mayer artwork (some pages are color, but most are black and white), the book itself stands as an artifact from a time when little kids could be amused for hours cutting out and coloring decks of cards, puppet parts, masks and board-game pieces.

My original copy was reduced to scraps by my having completed every page in the book. EVERY. PAGE. I recently received an untouched copy, scans of which I'll share below.

Faces of do-it-yourself Kerploppus Playing Cards:

The Stamp-Collecting Trollusk explains that his monster stamps are not valid postage:

Cut-Up appears on the back of pages left deliberately blank because of cutting requirements:
Monster Finger Puppets:

I always felt sorry for this little Useless Blob... (looks like a printing error truncated his name. He just can't catch a break.)

One of my absolute favorite pages: this picture simulates a window looking out onto the Edge of Nowhere. This hung up on a wall near my bed. The conceit that you are not merely decorating your room with a poster, but viewing an actual window to another world, creating a themed experience right in your own room, captivated my young mind.

Here's a series of details from a color board game that spreads across two pages:

Emilia Wingbat's Maze, featuring the fearsome Typhoonigator from One Monster After Another.

A flying Bombanat airplane template:

Another window-related page. You tape these cut-outs to your window to simulate monsters peeking in from outside.