Next Needs Up: The Origins

(Some needs must be met, as some origins must be known...)

This post has been coming for a long, LONG time. Not only that, it's been a while since my last post. I've actually been sitting here and reading back through some of them in an effort to get myself back into the groove of it, so please bear with me.

This is a tale of a creature  that was born in the depths of my subconscious. How it got there is somewhat mysterious. But even more mysterious than that, is why it got its name. That is something that in all honesty, I am still unaware of to this day, and I am almost certain that it is a question that I will never be able to answer. Its name is "Next Needs Up"...

Click image for larger version

I cannot say exactly when it came into being, since I do remember there being prior instances of me drawing it which I do not have on hand, but the drawing on the cover of this notebook, which I began to use for a "Contemporary Ethics" class in early October of 2009, is the earliest recorded instance of its appearance that I have available. This "face" came from a smiley that I began using regularly around that time. Some of the girls in school and I would text back and forth a whole lot back then, and we'd always invent these crazy looking smileys. The one that this creature came from is ":E". As you can see, it's got the beady eyes, and the distinctive three fangs.

The next known instance is found as a doodle on a loose sheet of paper with all sorts of scribblings on it. The presence of a doodle labeled "duodenum" on this page leads me to believe that it was all done during "Intro to Human Anatomy", which I was taking during the same quarter as the aforementioned ethics class. Those doodles and scribbles are how Cindy and I communicated (don't ask) during many of our classes, hers being in pencil and mine in ink in this example. As you can see (as if I hadn't make it plainly obvious), the creature is present again, and with a whole body this time. The changes that it has gone through up to its final iteration are not many. It is basically more rectangular now, as seen in this instance (whose original file I cannot find) found on my Facebook, dated November 22, 2010.

Now that Next Needs Up's (Adlyn and I began calling him "Next" for short.) physical origins have been explained a little, I'd like to get to the subject of its name. The mystery surrounding this is something that interests me greatly, since my curiosity for it will never end, and it has probably given Next a lot of appeal for me. Just the origin of its name is something that has pushed it into being a character that I will continue to proliferate, maybe in hopes of growing to understand it. Anywho, on to the name...

Click image for larger version

It was a chilly night, and I was having many, many drinks with friends. The occasion: My friend Adlyn had lots of left over alcohol, and she enlisted my help to try and get rid of it...properly. In the morning, while we were all sitting around eating breakfast and laughing about the previous night, she showed me something that I had doodled the night before, and she was laughing at how strange it was. It was on a page on the very back of one of her school books, and it is the image you see to the right.

This...confused me. A lot.

(I'd like to note that I just took a break from typing to stare at the drawing, laugh a whole lot, and to yell "What does it mean? What does it MEAN!?" It is truly baffling...)

So I just looked at her as if to say "What the fuck is this?!" From top to bottom, you have some crazy monster thing (as I named it) with the words "basic needs" in parenthesis. Next down the line, you have my recurring character, which I labeled as "next needs up" in parenthesis. But what does that mean? If it is the next needs up from the previous...thing, which I labeled basic needs, then why is it below it in line? Was I referring to Maslow's hierarchy of needs? And if so, does that mean that I meant for it to be a physical manifestation of the "safety needs"? But why would it look like some monster/demon thing? UUGGGHHH!... Next down the line, is some...really stupid looking thing, which I labeled as "wut?" in parenthesis. Yeah...exactly. (Interesting to note is that these three, if looked at from top to bottom, have progressively less fangs showing from one to the next. Wonder what that could mean...)

I was positively blacked out while I drew this so, of course, I have no idea why I drew any of it, and lack any recollection of what was going on in my head, or around me, during this time. So, after a moment of inspecting it some more, I began to ask her questions. "Why did I draw this?" She didn't know. "Well, what were we talking about?", "Nothing. You were just laying down the moment before." "Well...was I saying anything?!", "No. You just dragged the book over to you, pulled out your pen, and started drawing without saying anything..."


Fucking. BAFFLED! It's, like, the perfect mystery! I could try to attribute some kind of meaning to this, but it would just be a lie. I have no freaking clue! So, that day I just decided, "Well, I guess that's his name! Next Needs Up!" and Adlyn and I have just run with it ever since. I kind of love it now! Hell, I feel safe in stating that I am as obsessed with Next Needs Up as I am with spiders and my own arachnophobia. (And hilariously enough, here is a merging of both!)

Since this post has run a bit longer than I anticipated (really now?), I will be turning it into its own post, and linking posts which contain Next Needs Up related designs back to it, for anyone who cares to read about its messy origins. Thanks for reading this far. I know it's a lot of craziness to read through. Until the next time, take care of yourselves, and carry on!

J, out...