Theo Ellsworth is a self-taught artist and storyteller living in the mountains of Montana with a witch doctor and their two sons. He is a co-founder of the Pony Club Gallery in Portland, Oregon, and has served on the jury of the Small Press Expo's Ignatz Awards. His art, which Pitchfork describes as "a combination of Where the Wild Things Are, a fever dream, a pagan woodland ceremony, and a notebook doodle," has shown at galleries across the country, including Giant Robot in New York and Los Angeles, and has graced the covers of several popular musicians' albums, including Ramona Falls and Flying Lotus. Most recently, he has collaborated with Viscosity Theatre on the stage production of Mystery Mark, incorporating his artwork into the stage design and costumes.
"Ellsworth fills every bit of every page with grotesque patterns
and textures and doodles, and his writing is similarly wild-eyed.
Nominally an adventure story involving a mouse, "phantom skeletons"
and "toy growth formations," the book is mostly an urgent (and
often very funny) attempt to explain a coocoo-rococo cosmology made
up of garbled fragments of role--playing games, "Transformers"
episodes, relaxation exercises and horror movies. " - The New York
Times
"If you missed Book One, it might not be a problem, because despite
the artist's excessively explanatory dialogue, I'm baffled by the
narrative and subtext of this eerie fairy tale (mostly taking place
in the mind of an immobilized mummy and involving ghosts, a
laughing demon and a three-eyed house gnome). But despite my
confusion, I unequivocally enjoyed the bewildering experience of
navigating this visual feast." - The Chicago Tribune"Ellsworth's
weird little tales sometimes read like acid trips of the future,
complete with lonely robots and unknown creatures. But there's also
a nice personal story threading through this. I have no idea why
this guy isn't considered a comics God yet. Maybe someday he
rightfully will be." - The Huffington Post"Ellsworth conjures up a
dizzying array of beautiful, intricately patterned, labyrinthine
drawings, perfectly capturing the spiraling sprawl of the narrative
within a narrative within a narrative. What keeps this soufflé from
collapsing is this: no matter how bizarre the proceedings,
Izadore's odyssey always maintains its internal (il)logic. Somehow,
Ellsworth manages to make a perfect sort of sense, and we root for
Izadore to escape the forces aligned against him and complete his
quest." - The Comics Journal"In Ellsworth's intricately crafted
trilogy, a group of toys in a shapeshifting house save and revive
Izadore, a being destined to transcend "Toy Mountain" and regain
his corporeality. Along the way, a bevy of bizarre incidents and
obstacles attempt to block Izadore. The story reflects Ellsworth's
own mentality and ideas on creativity and personality." -
Publishers Weekly
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