June 14, 2018

Meet Daniel and Dawna Davis of Steam Crow, Monster Rangers in North Peoria

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Daniel and Dawna Davis.

Daniel and Dawna, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
We are misfits who design, illustrate and create odd monster goods. Established in 2005 by artists Daniel and Dawna Davis, we’re dedicated to making amazing and odd goods with our unique old-time cartoon aesthetic.

We come from bands.

We were both in bands when we met in the Inland Northwest city of Spokane, Washington. Dawna was the singer in “PlugUgly” a grungy powerhouse trio who made Cheney, Washington, proud. Daniel played bass in the “RV Thieves”, a pop-punk trio who played way too loud and fast.

When we met we quickly discovered that we had more than a love for making music in common; both dug making art and shared the DIY (Do it yourself) work ethic. After the bands faded we tired of the smokey bar scene and drummer drama, and focused back on making art. We got married (1998), had a kid (the “Goblin Boy” in 2002) and ended up in Arizona (2004.)

We were looking for our next big challenge (after allowing the Goblin Boy to grow a bit larger) and we ended up attending the 2005 San Diego Comic-Con for a much needed vacation. A couple of days into the convention, (hip-deep in the pop-culture, art, and comics) we had a vision to come back next year and show off a book of our own.

The Monster Rangers.

We love monsters, so we started the Monster Rangers, an old-timey community dedicated to “Believing, Studying, and Protecting our Monster Friends.”

It’s sort of like our club of misfits who love monsters, and making stuff. The “Monster Rangers” is what Steam Crow has been in search of, all along – a community of fantastic folks who support a lot of our crazy ideas.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It’s been a series of struggles, but our Arizona supporters has really helped keep us alive.

At first, we were both working full-time while we also worked more than full-time on Steam Crow, along with having a 2-3 hour daily commute. That was hard.

The next real struggle for us was discovering the Monster Rangers. (http://www.monsterrangers.com)

We knew that Steam Crow was vaguely about “monsters” but it took us making the collaborative leap with our audience/community to discover that this Monster Rangers thing was what we were supposed to be.

It was the first big idea that we had that our patrons pointed to and said “this is it!”

Steam Crow, Monster Rangers – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
We design, lead, and illustrate an alt-scouting community centered on an imaginary world of 1903 monsters. (Yeah, it’s as weird as it is great.)

We used to sell cartoon monster artwork; now we make cartoon monster art and stories WITH our members.

We create Badges that can be earned by going on Missions. We host campouts across the Western United States, where we have secret ceremonies, we do crafts projects, and we play games, and talk monsters.

While adult campouts are a new trend out there, ours is different because it’s more about imagination and creativity, rather than nostalgically remembering the 80’s or getting drunk and hooking up.

Really the magic of our community is that we have really high-quality people; our thing is too nerdy for jerky people to invest in.

What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
Having folks willing to invest their time and money into our crazy Rangers lifestyle. They sew and create their own uniforms, character stories, and connections to one another.

I thought that we were just creating patches at first; we were very wrong.

Pricing:

Monstro Camp Tucson/Phoenix/Portland/Seattle/etc – $89 for a carload of folks.

Contact Info:

Website: http://monsterrangers.com
Email: dawna@steamcrow.com
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/steamcrow
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/MonsterRangers/
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/steamcrow
Other: http://steamcrow.com

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