Capacity #7 by Theo Ellsworth
If you’re not familiar with Theo’s work, he strikes the perfect balance between children’s storybooks and comics. He's wildly imaginative and just a little bit silly. Reading issues of Capacity, or anything else of his, is always a lot of fun. Often the level of detail and obsessiveness is a bit startling, but this tendency keeps you engaged as you read. See what I mean. This 32-page comic has two longer stories ("Witch Medicine" and "Wizards Tale") and several one page pinups and gags. "Wizards Tale" features a man who comes face to face with every dream he had ever dreamt. Here's a page from that story.
An example of one of the gag pages.
For more of Theo's work visit his website. His stuff can be found at Chicago Comics and Quimby's. If you aren't near Chicago Comics or Quimby's, you can buy Theo's comics online at the excellent Secret Acres online shop. Capacity issue 7 can be yours for $5. Grab issue 6 whie you are there for $3.50. You won't be sorry.

Theo Ellsworth’s Web Site is Up
The artist of the current SIZE MATTERS logo has finally got his website together. It’s not complete, but there are some awesome pictures to look at, including this self portrait. It fits perfectly with the caption, “Any day now I shall tell you about myself but for now, I must remain a mystery.”

Yeah the title is all wonky.

I'm working on it. Theo Ellsworth was kind enough to send me a snazzy new image for the blog title, and I think it's perfection, but now I have to size it correctly. Be patient. And if you have any hints on how to format the title, please share them. I'd be ever so happy.

Well, I've got the spacing down, but can't get rid of that pesky title in the header. It's messing up the beautiful image.

UPDATE:Friday 9:30pm and the formatting of the title image is as good as it's going to get tonight. Big thanks again to Theo Ellsworth for a perfect logo for SIZE MATTERS. Words can't express how much I love that picture. And I'm proving just how cool I am by being home on a Friday night at 9:30pm working on a blog logo...

Wow, a week with no posts. Nice job, Shawn.

The SIZE MATTERS offices have just emerged from a serious renovation project. So, we’re back on schedule again. Over the last week, we’ve embarked on a house transformation and guess where everything was shoved in the meantime - the back bedroom, or as I like to call it the “SIZE MATTERS offices.” I can finally get to the computer and to the mini-comics that got shoved way over into the corner. Poor mini-comics…

So let’s get started with a mini-comic that makes me glow when I read it. One of the first posts here, oh so many months ago was a review of an unknown, to me at least, mini-comic called Capacity. I reviewed issue four then, and recently Theo Ellsworth sent the just completed issue six.

This last issue is even better than the fourth one. Ellsworth seems to be suffering from a surfeit of imagination in this comic. It’s like visual tricks and ideas are hammering on the inside of his mind desperate for a way out. In fact, he plays with this idea a bit in the story “Answering Machine.” He tells the reader that he had planned on being home to take their phone call, but his “ideas” forced him outside. “More often than not, once I’ve gotten started, I find it difficult to stop. But today my ideas refused to be cooperative, and then they kicked me right out of my house. They weren’t even gentle about it.”
That’s kind of a neat metaphor, but reading Ellsworth’s comic, you get the sense that he’s not kidding. It’s not often that I’m just stunned speechless by a comic, but reading Capacity issue six was one of those times. You know the feeling, you’re reading along and then the words and the pictures mesh together so perfectly that they send you reeling. Or when the visuals are so imaginative and startling that they make you pause just to appreciate them a few more times. Again, this happened several times reading Capacity. I almost don’t trust my reaction to this comic. Maybe, I’m over reacting or something. I mentioned in the first review of Ellsworth’s work how much I was reminded of Jennifer Daydreamer’s (who needs to get something else out soon!) work, but this time it was more than that. There’s some Theodor Geisel too, there’s a crazy burst of imagery that excites you viscerally.
Capacity issue six is twenty-four black and white pages of comics that will make you flat out love what comics can do better than anything else. This is comics mixed with the best of kid’s books and it makes me happier than comics should. It looks like Ellsworth has a website coming up soon. In the meantime, email him at theoellsworth@hotmail.com. Shower him with money and tell him that I sent you.

Capacity #4 by Theo Ellsworth



Inside the back cover of Capacity #4, Ellsworth writes:

Each of these pieces are proof that comics are, to me anyway, the most effective art therapy I could hope for…Thanks!

Capacity contains three stories. One deals with his struggle to work out feelings about an broken relationship, one is an exercise in handling anger, and another is a short collection of spontaneous drawings completed over a ten day period. Immediately, Ellsworth mini-comic, reminds me of Jennifer Daydreamer’s work. It has that similar magical feeling about it, even though it’s grounded more thoroughly in “the real world.”

“Catch Myself,” the first story in Capacity, finds the author adrift and alone. He wanders the streets thinking about the choices he has made and the patterns that have begun to form in his young life. Rather than presenting “Catch Myself” as a straight narrative with interior monologue, Ellsworth mixes things up with delightful imagery. In one panel, he’s just a guy walking down the street, and in the next he’s wearing a space suit and sending a telegram into space. One of my favorite panels has the words, “I don’t think I’m a very hard person to understand…I have all the same basic human needs as everybody else.” The words alone are unremarkable, but the image is of an oversized beast with huge elk antlers, sitting in a bassinette/convertible car. There are dazzling chain earrings hanging from each antler, and the beast is holding an elaborate scepter in one hand/paw.



These visual tricks make Ellworth’s story crackle with an energy often missing in a lot of autobiographical pieces. There are certainly more accomplished artists, but they might not have the same unique perspective that sets Ellsworth’s comics apart.

“My Thumbprint” is the series of spontaneous drawings that close the book. There are four per page for a total of thirty-six images. These drawings reflect different moods and settings, and some of them work better than others. An exercise like this will obviously result in a mixed bag of sketches, but some of these are wonderful.

This one for instance:



You can email Theo at theoellsworth@hotmail.com to inquire about Capacity #4. It’s a digest sized mini-comic of 24 pages.