The Wah Tung Match Company’s Chinese Mythology Art is Awesome

Over at Monster Brains, Aeron Alfrey has unearthed a collection of Chinese mythological art created for matchbooks by the Wah Tung Company, and they are awesome. Full of lurid colors and monsters with swords, they're cool enough to make me want to travel back in time and take up a hobby that would require me to light as many fires as I could, just to see them all.

Unfortunately, while I've been able to pick out a few of my favorites, the pictures didn't come with names or descriptions for any of the monsters. And that's why I've had to make up my own.

After being exposed to mutagenic ooze, a lowly rat learned to walk among men by imitating their freshest breakdance moves. Now, he travels from town to town in disguise, entering dance contests and rewarding good and righteous citizens with his Windmills, while punishing the wicked by busting out a devastating Worm.

Lo-Top's love of vintage kicks has led his wings to atrophy, as he prefers to skank it up to some old-school ska farther than fly. His furious skanking soon wears out even the toughest Chucks, so he is always on the lookout for weary trombone players, whose feet he slices off with his broadsword before resuming his dance.

Half crocodile, half party animal, Party Croc travels the roads between frat houses on moonless nights, luring drunken bros to take his hellish kegstand challenge. If you succeed, you are rewarded with the fiery ale of the nine hells themselves, but if you should fail, he will eat you. Just straight up eat you.

A mighty and terrible warrior, Bugly only fears one thing: Public Speaking. Its protruding eyes seek out inattentive soldiers and he steals their weapons so that he has something to do with his hands while delivering speeches, but two hands remain unfilled. Will the next sword he takes be yours?

Dinosword is a dinosaur with a sword. Pretty self-explanatory here.

Smokeleaf blocks roads that travel through forests, lazily accosting travelers unless they can answer his riddle, which is usually "have you ever looked at your hand? I mean... like... REALLY looked at your hand?"

Despite his fearsome appearance, the Skull Collector isn't much of a warrior, and acquires most of his skulls through online auctions. Still, people must take great pains to avoid him, because if engaged in conversation, he will drone on and on and on about how he totally scored this sweet skull last night but he's seriously going to send some negative feedback because it was listed as Very Fine but it's Fine Plus at best and are you going to SkullCon next month because there's this hilarious filk he wants you to hear, you'll love it.

This Guy Is A Broom. And he is sick of cleaning up after you. His legends are spread by moms everywhere.

The spirit world's two most fearsome warriors, Barechest and El Pescado were separated during their greatest triumph, when they conquered the forces of the Green Leopards. Now, totally stoked but unable to find each other, they wander eternally, searching for the high five that will never come.

There are more of these awesome monsters at Monster Brains, and even more in a massive Flickr set, just the thing to start off a monstrous month of October!