Capacity

(Paperback, Special Edition)

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Description

Capacity tells the fantastically true and truly fantastic personal history of the artist as a young man. Theo Ellsworth's astonishing drawings, which Pitchfork describes as "a combination of Where the Wild Things Are, a fever dream, a pagan woodland ceremony, and a notebook doodle," give shape to thoughts profound and silly, bringing familiar doubts and hopes to visionary, new life. Just try to remember, this all really happened. Counted among the best books of its original publication year by the Chicago Tribune, the Village Voice, the Huffington Post and dozens of others, Capacity is returning in a deluxe, special edition.

Reviews

"Rather than outward experience, Ellsworth's subject is his innermost imagination. "Since I was very young, I have known that I was meant to tell the stories of the characters that I see inside my head," he writes. "Climbing back there and visually recording my findings has always been a weirdly natural process." Indeed the striking accompanying illustration, typical of the book, shows a roller coasterlike road system traversing living forests, creature-rich rivers, wise-eyed mountains and on into space, from which waves a friendly paw. Yet, as Ellsworth describes it, investigating this world is almost impossible without losing a coherent sense of self and story. If waking existence unspools far faster than our ability to gather it, after all, imagine the even-more-difficult task of fully possessing everything we dream." - The Chicago Tribune

"Theo Ellsworth's imaginary cities are densely populated with funny monsters, hybrid animals, Mazatec gods, visiting aliens, and other members of his seemingly infinite bestiary. And yet they're a little lonely, too, and their creator seems to want company. Perhaps that's why, over the course of Capacity- which sandwiches all seven issues of the Portland, Oregon, artist's eponymous self-published comic between a hundred pages of semiautobiographical hide-and-seek-Ellsworth seeks, again and again, to transform the reader into his silent witness and co-conspirator." - The Village Voice

"Theo Ellsworth's Capacity is an idiosyncratic masterpiece. Beneath its surface level of animistic surrealism it is essentially a creative coming-of-age story which narrates the story of its own creation along with its creator's struggles to learn how to channel his unusually direct connection to his dreamworld and fantasy life onto the page. It's constantly surprising and full of charm. It's not an easy or straightforward read, so be prepared to spend some time with this one, it's worth your time." - Matt Madden, author of Drawing Words & Writing Pictures

"Just when I've cynically decided that the whole "graphic novels" bit has been hopelessly overrun by huge publishers looking to cash in on the next hip thing with the umpteen-millionth graphic novel memoir about disease/identity politics, etc., I find something like Theo Ellsworth's Capacity to renew my faith in the art form." - Ben Towle

"Capacity does not just show you magic, but embodies magic itself. In a year where self-reflexivity seemed either overshadowed by the drum machine or hampered by the wry, snarky smile of the silver screen, Capacity manages to avoid being gimmicky in its look inward and instead enchant and endear." - Pop Matters

"With scaled and feathered monsters and boundary-blurring odysseys, Theo Ellsworth's dense black-and-white work evokes Sendak's Where The Wild Things Are. It might take some time to interpret some of the bizarre images in this hefty hardbound tome." - Portland Monthly

Author Bio

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. A tour of Mystery Mark is forthcoming.