Monsters 101 by M. Rasheed

Monsters 101 is a high adventure graphic novel series by creator M. Rasheed. Starring the former school bully turned super-strong monster Pugroff, and his former favorite nerd victim Mort, the two protagonists act as the newest superheroes in a world full of child-eating monsters and other supernatural beings.

The "Monsters 101" in the graphic novel series title, references the fact that the new monster Pugroff has to now learn HOW to be a monster. Starting with Book Four, class is now officially in session.

Each book in the series is black & white with a full color cover, consisting of six chapters of twenty-two pages each. The series is scheduled to end at Book Ten sometime in 2012.

The series begins showing a typical day at Tanglewood Middle School where the notorious bully Willy Pugg is stalking the halls and terrorizing his fellow schoolmates. Through his one-man extortion racket, he keeps himself supplied in Hero chocolate bars by taking the children's milk money (usually by force). Everything changes once Pugg notices a giant, monstrous face looking at him and seemingly following him throughout the day. Three monsters are eager to make his acquaintance, offering the extremely anti-social Willy Pugg the deal of a lifetime: Feed them his fellow students and as a reward they will turn him into a monster! After meeting a young girl who believes he can be a better person, Pugg is torn between these new alien dynamics pulling at his life. After becoming more successful than he had any right to be while working the monstrous deal, the bully Willy Pugg becomes the super powerful monster PUGROFF!

But not without a painful price.

Mort, the favorite victim of the former Willy Pugg watched with a mixture of amazement and terror at the horrible events that created the creature Pugroff. Now dedicated to using his new might for good, Pugroff is no longer a threat to the studious nerd who takes it upon himself to be the creature's partner. Mort has longed to be a magician in the truest sense of the word, and the existence of the monster race proves to him that it is a dream that he can reach.. as long as he's around where all the action is.  But to both of the boys' surprise a trinket found within the monster cave is a magick doorway into another world. 

Meanwhile the father of one of the children killed during the infamous Tanglewood Massacre happens to be one of the most powerful superheroes in the world Red Shield ... and he's pretty sure Pugroff is responsible for the death of his son!  After a horrendous battle, the boys escape the best way they know how:  By using the magick trinket to explore the alien world of Dharokalee...

While exploring Dharokalee the world of devils, Mort and Pugroff meet the lethally annoying Kyslo and Kymbir his beautiful sister. Charmed by Mort's studiousness and his high capacity for absorbing magick (a fact that both shocks and pleases Mort to no end!)  Kymbir takes it upon herself to help him along the road of the Wondrous Arts.  But inbetween his studies, keeping Pugroff out of trouble, and finding something to eat that isn't a deadly poison to an earth boy, Mort finds that learning magick isn't as fun as he imagined it would be... especially when he discovers that in order to progress to the next level he must fight a death duel with a devil mage who's been studying magick longer than all of earth's recorded history!

Home sweet home!  Mort and Pugroff finally return home from their interplanetary adventures only to discover the adventures have only just begun.  Maescus the leader of the monstrous trio who vowed vengeance against the treacherous Pugroff has quested long and hard to win the most powerful weapon on earth... the magick axe Dragon's Fang belonging to an ancient warrior hero that made him all but invincible.  With his new found might not even Mort's spells are a match for the angry monster, but now that he has unlimited power, will simple revenge be enough for the ambitious Maescus?

Willy Pugg is the most successful bully Tanglewood Middle School ever had. Over-sized for his age and unusually strong, "The Pugg" has been striking terror into kids smaller than him for years. Very sad and prone to low, low bouts of depression, a peek into the bully's home life revealed an abusive father and zero support. The offer to belong to a group that appreciates him for HIM is way too appealing, despite the fact that the group in question eats human kids for breakfast.

 When he was very young Mort's grandmother broke his heart when she told him that there was no such thing as "real magic."  Instinctually recognizing that this wasn't true, he through himself into his math classes and structuring his mind around this universes interger-based language capable of decoding and manipulating our reality.  As the partner of the new monster Pugroff, Mort was delighted to discover that magick was very real and his studies into mathematics had set him brilliantly ahead on the road to masterying the Wondrous Arts.

 The big, blue monster called Maescus (mis*kis) is the leader of the original trio that made the horrible deal with the school bully Willy Pugg.  Maescus is very ambitious and is always working a plan designed to make him and his two cronies live in monster-style and comfort.  A third generation monster (meaning he is a hybrid monster x3 with bear, bat and bull ancestry) Maescus is somewhat of a bully himself and doesn't mind running over people that he thinks is weaker than he is.  He is loyal to his friends and is famous for always keeping his word no matter what the cost.

 The first and only monster magician, Benkom was the gopher/slave of a sorceror for many centuries.  But because the monster race is notorious for being very, very, very bad at learning magick, Benkom only came away from the experience with a couple of spells in his head.  Be that as it may, the second generation tiger/shark monster is one of the most powerful of his people and of course he had great ambitions... until his former partner Maescus stranded him on the alien world of Dharokalee and left him for dead.

One of Maescus' flunkies, this first generation pig monster is strong, but lazy and argumentative. He's a sucker for a good plan, especially if it promises to get him more to eat.  The old dangling carrot routine will get him everytime... that plus a slap upside the head.

Lodeth is a first generation lizard monster, and was recruited onto Maescus' team because of his phenomenal talent: He is the proud owner of the single most potent venom on earth. As impressive as that is, Lodeth is also valuable for his hard work and unflinching loyalty. 

On the con side, Lodeth isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer and will often find himself in tricky situations because he just "went with it."

 The ferocious-looking, shiney new monster called Pugroff isn't as bad as his bullying previous incarnation, despite the fact that he can tear a bus in half.  Taking his new "hero" role seriously, his only real roadblock is the fact that he's not used to being a good guy and old habits die hard.  He's had to work very hard to be a friend to Mort, but he's relieved to find that practice makes perfect... he only wants to punch a nerd MOST of the time as opposed to ALL of the time now-a-days.

Kymbir is one of the most powerful magicians on Dharokalee, but because her tribe's culture is every bit as sexist as any in Earth's history it means very little. The menfolk give her a begrudging respect fearing her power, but she will never be included within any major decision making processes. Even her younger brother is held with more honor than she. As she is still young for one of her race, Kymbir rarely thinks about these things. The time may come however when her own ambitions may significantly outgrow her peoples' petty foolishness.

Despite the cartoonist's friendly-looking drawing style, Monsters 101 is by no means a "children's book." The series is very much like a European comic where both demographic and genre lines are often blurred or nonexistent. Although it lacks gratuitous sexual images it is a mature book despite the superhero/horror/fantasy background. Abuse, complex relationships, and theft are some of the heavy issues found inbetween Monsters 101's pages.