Vote for a Bookmobile!

I had the honor of working with a bunch of cool kids to design one of the new bookmobiles for the Saint Louis County Library. If you'd like to vote for one of their designs you can fill out a paper ballot at any county Library or do it online on the Library's Instagram Page. Here are full versions of the 3 final designs (click for a larger view):

The process was pretty similar to how clients work with illustrators in the 'real' world. I told the kids about the mission of the bookmobile and how it works. I handed out sheets of paper with templates of an empty bookmobile vehicle, along with lots of pens, markers and crayons.  I also helped them think about "design goals" : big, bold concepts that would work well if you saw the Bookmobile cruising down the street from a distance along with details that would be fun to see up-close if it was parked in front of your school. It was really fun seeing what the kids came up with! 

Common themes started to emerge: books and reading (of course), dragons and fantasy realms, nature and animals, sports, etc. The only theme I started to discourage was "food". We all got a laugh out of people thinking the bookmobile was a food truck and disappointed there would be no hot dogs on board.

I was very impressed at the range of ideas from very detailed compositions to more abstract, colorful designs. And I was surprised at how well kids started to build on their peers' concepts from previous workshops, making the designs more collaborative and inclusive of many different contributors. I'll be excited to work on final art for  any of the concepts up for voting, and I'll do my best to fulfill the visions of all the kids who attended the workshops!

Birds of Puerto Vallerta

Some sketchbook pages from a recent Spring Break Trip! Add these birds to the ones I saw in 2019:

Lunar Eclipse 3/14/25

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