Much of what I loved about living in Southern California was the history. Not just the stories of old Hollywood or the music scene of the '60s, but the weird stuff... things like Originals by Monté.
From what I've read, which isn't much, it seems that Don "Monté" Monteverde was designing and producing these monster decals from a part of Southern California that I'm very familiar with. The Artesia, California address on his catalog put him only a few miles from where I lived, in an area that spawned a number of similar artists like Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, and Von Dutch.
These mad geniuses produced all kinds of iconic imagery that has seeped and sizzled its way into our collective consciousness over the decades. Monsters, flying eyeballs, pinstripes, and whatever else might look great stuck on a bicycle, skateboard, or surfboard. Guys like Don Monteverde seemed to instinctively understand what the average ten year old boy might think is cool, and decals by Monté are for sure the coolest of them all.
I'd seen these graphics time and time again over the years, but it was at a now extinct hobby shop in Bellflower, California where I stumbled across a pile of them, and finally recognized that they were something brilliant.
Earle's Hobby & Crafts was one of those classic hobby shops that had been located on the main drag in Bellflower for as long as most people could remember. I'd been going there for the odd jar of paint, or the occasional model kit since some time in the '80s, and was well aware that they'd been there for at least twenty years before that.
Earl's ended up closing, with the story being that the building was to be knocked down to make way for condos, but before they did, they cleared the place out--digging through the attic and letting loose all kinds of things. I regret that I wasn't around when the big sell-off happened, but even more so, I regret that the place had to close at all.
It was amazing, with a huge selection of old jumbo sized slot car parts, as well as model train bits and pieces, and an awesome spread of educational and scientific model kits. Aside from the set of ancient (and long dried) Ed Roth model paints that I'd bought there, they always had the coolest selection of weird metallic or pearlescent paints... the kind that you'd just assumed were full of toxic chemicals long since declared too dangerous to use.
And that's what I loved about that place--about Earles, about Bellflower, Artesia, Compton and all of the other places that spawned the whole custom car, or monster art phenomenon. Sure, other people in other towns own a part of that history, but just as a fan of the Universal Monsters can't help but get a little excited when they visit Universal Studios, I admit that during the nearly twenty years that I lived in and around the Long Beach area, I'd spent quite a lot of time driving around and wondering who might have owned what car shop, or what kooky artist might have had his studio just down the street from me.
Rumor has it that at some point Last Gasp Publishing is putting out a book about Don Monteverde and his decals. I'll be on the lookout for it, but in the mean time, it's more than enough fun for me to pull out my little stack of decals and remember how I found them--covered with dust in an old hobby shop display case, just waiting for me to be shocked and amused.
Posts
