Monsters in Hats

        I know I'm a little late for Hallowe'en, but this seems as good a time as any to share a theme D, my brother, and I were bandying about a while ago.  We were observing that werewolves seem to look quite natural and appropriate wearing top hats, and I had this idea that every sort of iconic monster must have its own favorite style of headgear.  Some of the matchings that pleased us the most were

           zombies wear boaters

           skeletons wear long nightcaps

           space aliens wear granny bonnets

           velociraptors wear backwards baseball caps

        I thought that twelve of these pairings, depicted in a campy vintage poster style, would make an amusing and enjoyable calendar.  (If anyone wants to put such a thing together, you're
welcome to my genius idea.  Just be sure to send me a copy!)  But I'm far too lazy to do that myself, so I've decided to make this post an interactive activity to get you started in the rich topic of monster millinery.

   1.  Print out the following lists and draw lines to connect them according to your own sense of what's appropriate.

   2.  Add more monsters and more headgear as desired.

   3.  Imagine how much more pleasantly and knowledgeably you'll be able to converse with the next well-dressed monster you meet.

   4.  Have fun!

     bigfoot                                              balaclava

     blob                                                    baseball cap

     chupacabra                                      beret

     ghost                                                  bishop mitre

     giant squid                                       boater

     mermaid                                           bonnet

     minotaur                                          coonskin cap

     mummy                                            cowboy hat

     Nessie                                                deerstalker

     skeleton                                             fez

     space alien                                        lamp shade

     swamp monster                               pith helmet

     Tyrannosaurus rex                          propeller beanie

     vampire                                             Robin Hood cap

     werewolf                                            sombrero

     yeti                                                      swim cap with plastic flowers

     zombie                                                top hat

        

[Pictures: Vampire in a Mae West hat, photoshop adaptation from movie posters;

Giant squid in a mitre, photoshop adaptation from an illustration by Alphonse de Neuville, wood engraving by Hildibrand, for Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne, 1871 ;

Ghost in a sombrero, photoshop adaptation from an illustration by Richard Westall, copperplate engraving by E. Scriven, from Julius Caesar by Shakespeare, 1802;

Monsters in hats and assorted spare hats, pen sketch on paper by AEGN and TPGrundy (TPG did the spare hats and the skull, I did the ghost, alien, and mummy, and we both think we did the velociraptor!), 2011.]