This series is a departure for reader and author alike. While maintaining the intimate nature of his debut Capacity, Ellsworth has taken his personal experience to an entirely new reality, exploding with color and energy. Presented in an oversized, full color, hardcover edition that captures the beauty of his hand painted artwork at nearly full size, The Understanding Monster Book One is a wonder to behold.
"imagination turned up to fire hose intensity" -- Douglas Wolk, The New York Times Book Review
"Printed in large format, THE UNDERSTANDING MONSTER is a deliciously rendered journey exploring the essence of the mind’s creativity. The pages alone could definitely stand on their own, as everything is so detailed that it’s entirely possible to get lost in them."-- Heidi MacDonald, The Beat
"One of the profoundly immersive comics of 2012, a demanding work of psychotropic whimsy best experienced by those piqued at the implication of Pixar fusing with Fort Thunder in a happy quantum storm." -- Joe McCulloch, The Comics Journal
Cartoonist Theo Ellsworth reads from "The Understanding Monster." from maria sputnik on Vimeo.
Theo Ellsworth became interested in hand-drawn alternate realities at an early age. He remembers once as a kid, racing home on his bike with a bag full of super hero comics swinging from his handle bars. He wiped out in an ally, one block from home, comics everywhere. A man watering tomatoes looked over his fence and voiced concern but Theo claimed to be fine. He quickly gathered up his pamphlets filled with hand rendered power fantasy scenarios and rode the last block home as fast as he could. He looked at them for hours. Now, years later, after many strange experiences and awkward phases, he has taken hold of the mighty pen himself and sworn his drawing hand to the depiction of characters and events in parallel dimensions. He lives in Montana with his witch doctor Wife, and their Son, who is currently in baby form.
In Theo Ellsworth's celebrated debut, Capacity, the author embarked on a hand drawn quest to gain complete access to his own subconscious without going insane. With the reader as his witness, the author successfully smuggled an imaginary version of his own brain into his subconscious. Such quests, it turns out, are not to be taken lightly. Four years later, the author's brain is nowhere to be found. Inside of a house full of mutating rooms and growing toys, a multi-dimensional robot, a Werewolf Exorcist, a ghost dragon, a fly, a green cloud, and a recently reanimated mummy are attempting to rescue a complicated being named Izadore. He faces psychological terror, mind-bending confusion, and physical danger as he undergoes a dream logic medical treatment that pulls him back through time and memory. The Understanding Monster - Book One is an exquisitely rendered exploration into the inner workings of an imaginary world.
72 page full color hardcover book
Secret Acres, 2012
