All Hail Zettwoch!
Dan Zettwoch is one of my very favorite artists. His work, especially his recent comic strips, are marvels of both form and content, a chicken walk yuk-yuk tone that belies a truly complex and layered world of emotions and character (a world that equally conjures up Wilford Brimley and early Black Flag all at once). Funny and smart and wonderfully specific in way you dont see often in comics. I have never been to Kentucky or to church or on a submarine, but Zettwoch's work makes you feel you know a place in all its minute Nicholson Baker-esque details.
His blog is full of great stuff. Comics, prints, halloween costumes, paintings, how-to's, birth anouncements, history, travel diaries, urinal doors, mad fold-ins, and on and on. All excellent. Whenever I need inspiration his blog is a constant place to go for a gentle hand on the shoulder pep talk and lesson on How It Is Done. I even go through the archives regularly, searching for a sketchbook diagram or painting or hot rod design that'll just stick in my mind for weeks and weeks that I just need to revisit.
The Raddest.
I know this is not much of a post, and really I should try to write a proper essay on Zettwoch, as the work deserves it and I think I would learn a lot, but not today. Posting here is getting more and more difficult as I have a general rule not to talk about my own work, which is fine. Except for those weeks and or months that I am not engaging with 'art' in any way critically except for my own work (like now). Also, I try only to write about stuff I like-no shit talking. so yeah, its a bit limiting.
This quick post is just to lead you somewhere you may not already know about.
you owe me, bitches.
posted by sammy at 5:03 AM
4 comments
Dan Zettwoch is one of my very favorite artists. His work, especially his recent comic strips, are marvels of both form and content, a chicken walk yuk-yuk tone that belies a truly complex and layered world of emotions and character (a world that equally conjures up Wilford Brimley and early Black Flag all at once). Funny and smart and wonderfully specific in way you dont see often in comics. I have never been to Kentucky or to church or on a submarine, but Zettwoch's work makes you feel you know a place in all its minute Nicholson Baker-esque details.
His blog is full of great stuff. Comics, prints, halloween costumes, paintings, how-to's, birth anouncements, history, travel diaries, urinal doors, mad fold-ins, and on and on. All excellent. Whenever I need inspiration his blog is a constant place to go for a gentle hand on the shoulder pep talk and lesson on How It Is Done. I even go through the archives regularly, searching for a sketchbook diagram or painting or hot rod design that'll just stick in my mind for weeks and weeks that I just need to revisit.
The Raddest.
I know this is not much of a post, and really I should try to write a proper essay on Zettwoch, as the work deserves it and I think I would learn a lot, but not today. Posting here is getting more and more difficult as I have a general rule not to talk about my own work, which is fine. Except for those weeks and or months that I am not engaging with 'art' in any way critically except for my own work (like now). Also, I try only to write about stuff I like-no shit talking. so yeah, its a bit limiting.
This quick post is just to lead you somewhere you may not already know about.
you owe me, bitches.
posted by sammy at 5:03 AM
4 comments
"a world that equally conjures up Wilford Brimley and early Black Flag all at once"
nice....
Hail Him!!!
Great blog Sammy. My blog - to change the subject - is about Graffiti in New York fuckin' City. A very recent posting explored, in detail, the debates between 'street art' and graffiti. Check it out people.
oh yeah, zettwoch is great, grew on me over the last works. reminds me somehow of spain rodriguez, in style a bit, and especially all the details documented in the drawings. it's organized quite differently, of course.
zettwoch seems still a bit underrated next to the equally great huizenga, whereas, from that generation/crew, i think hornschemeier's best works ly still ahead of him. so far, he's interesting, though maybe a little over-ambitious, smells a bit of creative writing, sometimes. and while zettwoch grows, jeff brown is starting to get on my nerves quickly, after an initiate great fondness. still love "unlikely", but the following "girlfriend" stuff was too much, and now a cat book? very much looking forward to heatleys next stuff, especially after the fascinating "overpeck", also megan kelso's.
but maybe you should change that rule about not covering your own work, think about the loss if zettwoch had the same rule ...
I think zettwoch has proven that as time passes he continues to push and grow in huge leaps and bounds as cartoonist. if you sit down with everything he has done, one of the most striking thing, besides the intense improvement from year to year, is the clarifying of a solid vision, distinct point of view, what have you. I am feeling that he will be one of the best cartoonists around in a couple years. so many cartoonists show promise early on, but few really deliver on that early promise. sometimes that's due to a lack of ambition or getting too much attention too early and start doing things for the wrong reasons, etc. zettwoch is inspiring to me because he is clearly not a careerist-he puts as much passion into a zine piece as he does for a drawn & quarterly book. it seems clear he is entirely focused on making art and engaging himself in process, refining a real idiosyncratic vision above all else.
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