A little window into a different world, made on office supplies.
John Kenn Mortensen (known online as Don Kenn) is a Danish writer and director of children's shows. It's what he does in his spare time, though, that brought him online fame: drawing wonderfully detailed and darkly whimsical scenes of monsters and children... on sticky notes.
Most of his art is sepia-colored, and features various people, usually children, interacting with otherworldly monsters, sometimes in a friendly way, sometimes less so.
His art can be found on his blog
, and on his Tumblr. He also has a Twitter account and a Facebook fan page.
Tropes in his art:
- Ambiguous Situation: What are these monsters? What is their relation to these kids? What's the story here? If anybody knows, it's Don Kenn, and he's not telling.
- Ambiguous Time Period: Most of the drawings, characters and machines have an old-fashioned look to them, but an explicit time period is never given.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Many of the monsters are huge.
- Badass Adorable: This little kid◊ apparently killed a monster.
- The Big Bad Wolf: A vicious-looking example is shown.◊
- Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti: A few of the monsters appear to be this.
- Body Horror: Shows up now and then, such as the people with multiple stacked-on heads in this drawing◊, the two contorted beings in this one◊, or the twisted mutant Body of Bodies emerging from the tree here◊.
- Collector of the Strange: Someone is collecting tiny monsters.◊
- Creepy Good: While there are plenty of actually evil monsters, quite a few of them appear to be friendly. For example this strange creature.◊
- Deliberately Monochrome: Almost all his art is sepia-toned. Justified, as its usually done on a sticky note.
- Eldritch Abomination: Many of the monsters appear to be this.
- Flying Face: A◊ lot◊ of◊ the◊ monsters◊ resemble◊ disembodied◊ heads.◊
- Grimmification: Some of his drawings seem to be dark twists on fairy tales, such as a Little Red Riding Hood with a VERY scary Big Bad Wolf◊ and this creature, which appears to be a strange, twisted version of a Fairy Godmother◊.
- Humanoid Abomination: Some of the monsters look somewhat human, even when they're obviously not.
- Interspecies Friendship: Heartwarmingly enough, this seems to be the case between some◊ of◊ the◊ kids and◊ monsters◊.
- Lovecraft Country: Many of the scenes appear to take place in rural areas like this.
- Man-Eating Plant: In one drawing◊, giant menacing plants overtake a bridge.
- Monster Clown: They occasionally appear, such as in these◊ drawings.
- More Teeth than the Osmond Family: Several monsters.
- Multiple Head Case: A monster◊ has two heads.
- Our Fairies Are Different: There is a creature that appears to be a strange, twisted version of a Fairy Godmother◊.
- Our Ghosts Are Different: There are some drawings that show floating◊, white◊, ghost-like◊ creatures◊, but what they actually are is ambiguous.
- Our Monsters Are Weird: A fair amount of them.
- Our Zombies Are Different: Two contorted, drooling, decayed zombies appear.◊
- Parasol Parachute: Interestingly, aside from children and monsters, a frequent focus of his art is on people◊ flying◊ with◊ umbrellas◊.
- Perverse Puppet: One shows up here◊.
- Shout-Out: One drawing◊ features Slender Man and another has Cthulhu.
- Signature Style: Sepia-toned drawings on sticky-notes featuring children and bizarre creatures in old-fashioned-looking settings. The majority of his online art is pretty distinctive that way.
- That's No Moon: One many-headed monster is so big it has been mistaken by a camper for an island. Meanwhile a picture of two people on a hill observing a pair of monsters is in fact a picture of three monsters.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Usually, the children don't seem to react to the bizarre creatures around them with much surprise or fear. Most of them look, at worst, slightly annoyed.
- Would Hurt a Child: The less friendly monsters do this, like this spider-legged killer◊ and these child-stealers◊.
