Zettwoch's Suitcase: October 2009

Apple Souls

New Amazing Facts & Beyond explores the origins of apple-based Halloween festivities and myths. Be careful out there, kids!

Read the entire strip here!

Hot Rods & Eyeballs & Comics

I'm honored to have some strips in this year's Best American Comics book published by Houghton Mifflin, edited by the esteemed Charles Burns.

Included is my strip SPIRIT DUPLICATOR, which was originally published in Comic Art #9.

In addition to those strips I also had the honor of illustrating the books' endpapers, so I drew this long crazy highway scene filled with people reading comics. It allowed me to indulge my twin obsessions of Ed 'Big Daddy' Roth style hot rods and bulging eyeballs, taking them to their logical endpoints.

Ink & watercolor, 30" x 10". Click for a larger view!

I designed the drawing to have the explosion bleed of the edges of the endpapers, containing the wreckage within the book.

Speaking of hot rods, I found perhaps my earliest work on a drawing of a dragster, framed and hanging in my parents' basement. It looks like by brother Jake (age 5) drew it, and I (age 3) colored it. I remember making this exact drawing all the time. That blue thing is the driver's head a in a helmet sticking out.

And speaking of eyeballs, here's a picture of me at St. Louis' Laumeier Sculpture Park next to Eye by Tony Tasset.

Autumn Oddities

It's that time of year... new Amazing Facts & Beyond! And while we're on the subject of amazing facts and obscure local legends, Leon wanted to give shout-outs to this awesome new book just published by the St. Louis Post Dispatch:

Our Own Oddities was a weekly comic drawn by Ralph Graczak published in the paper every Sunday for 51 years. It could be described as a more folksy, homespun version of Ripley's Believe It or Not! (another of Leon's favorites) - lots of vegetables that look like faces, local bowling lore, weird pets, etc. My pal Tom, who edited and designed the book, sent me along this serendipitous snippet from one of the 80's strips:

More information and ordering info here.

Halloween Heads of Don Zettwoch

Drawn from memory. More detailed view of the Jam Box head here. I hope these are still to be found somewhere in my parents' basement!

Where the Wild Things Are

I did a one page illustration/comic/infographic inspired by the book Where the Wild Things Are for the VICE magazine booklet & blog released in conjunction with the new movie. Check out my whole drawing here.