Zettwoch's Suitcase

Redbird #7 "Around the Fish"

Happy Fat Tuesday!

Hot off the press: 3rd edition of Redbird #7 Beach Swamp Travel-Log, released last year, available now. 40-page 4.5" x 5.5" mini-comic about a roadtrip I took with my wife and kid to Jackson, Mississippi, Gulf Shores, Alabama and New Orleans, Louisiana. Play the game "Shark or Decorated Souvenir Shed," traipse around the world's largest hydrological model, learn how to make cocktail sauce, and enjoy a big centerfold map with laffs along the way. Screenprinted covers, xeroxed interiors.

There's some good New Orleans / Mardi Gras / Fried Fish content in here.

Dan Zettwoch, Redbird #7 Back Cover, 2-color screenprint on French "fuse green" construction stock.
I also really got into Paul Klee while working on this issue, particular his notebooks and this painting, "Around the Fish", which I covered on the back of my comic.

Paul Klee, Around the Fish, 1926. Oil + Tempera on canvas mounted on cardboard.
Of course in St. Louis Mardi Gras means: Fish Fry Season!

More greasy goodness coming on Zettwoch's Suitcase blog soon!

You See It When It Sees You!

I love this exercise from Lynda Barry's great book MAKING COMICS called "You See It When It Sees You".

I do it along with my students in MFA IVC every Spring. Here are the last few:

It's a fun way of combining concrete writing, still-life drawing, imaginative writing and self-portraiture, all on one sketchbook page.

Lynda's "X-Page" diary method makes for an interesting page layout, forcing us to write and draw in non-linear triangular wedges instead of the usual top-down journal method.

Toys, action figures and little tchotchkes with personality for make for good subjects, but I find that I enjoy drawing and inhabiting strange 'boring' objects better. It was fun writing from the POV of a KILZ can.

Try it yourself with an object around your house! (I have also stolen Lynda's preference for cheap composition books for my classroom planning and sketching).

Between the Pages Sketchbook Show

I'm honored to be a part of this show happening now at the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg, Missouri.

It's a show of artist and illustrator's sketchbooks, some behind-the-scenes glimpses into the nitty and gritty of our process/processing.

About 15 years ago I settled in a nice sketchbook practice, mostly thanks to the lo-fi ritual of making my own super-cheap / semi-disposable booklets out of copy paper and silkscreening scraps.

They end up being a mix of notes, lists, doodles, preparatory sketches for client work, bird drawings, DIY diagrams, collaged trash,

and the occasional 'nice' on-site illustration.

I've got more to say/write about "sketchbooking." And I'm currently working on a publishing project compiling some of the more finished drawings and comics from these tattered booklets, trying to capture the feel and work out the private vs. public aspects. But yeah, more soon!

In the meantime, if you're in Central Missouri check it out!

Special thanks to Cydney Cherepak for including me in the show!

Year of the Snake

Styrofoam Relief Printing

Did you know that can make lo-fi relief prints using old styrofoam plates? A wonderful student of mine Jillian Ohl hipped me to this. Wipe off that baked-bean residue, trim it down to a flat section, and grab a sharp-ish tool of your choice. Roll up with ink like you would a lino-cut.

(This method is good for things other than skulls, too.)

DIY Sleds of the 1950s

We've been sleddin' a lot lately here in the midwest and I got my Dad and Uncle Doug to reminiscing about the preferred downhill modes of transport in Louisville, Kentucky's West End, c. 1955-65.

Top sketchbook spread by me, these sketches by Don "Toots" Zettwoch. Jan. 2025.

Below is my Xmas Card from 2006 (2-color screenprint), remembering my generation's favorite "sled": the gigantic monster truck inner-tube to pile on. I'm not sure where my Dad procured these giant donuts -- i'll have to ask him to do another sketch.