Theo Ellsworth

To the west: trees. To the east: a mall. North: fast food. South: darkness. And at the center is The Building, an office building wherein several factions vie for dominance. Inside, the walls are infiltrated with vines, a mischief of mice learn to speak English, and something eerie happens once a month on the fifth floor. In Secret Life, Theo Ellsworth uses a deep-layered style to interpret Nebula Award winning author Jeff VanderMeer s short story. What emerges is a mind-bending narrative that defamiliarizes the mundanity of office work and makes the arcane rituals of The Building home. When his manager borrows his pen for a presentation, a man is driven to unspeakable acts as he questions the role the pen has played in his workplace success. The despised denizens of the second floor develop their own tongue, incomprehensible to everyone else in The Building. A woman plants a seed of insurgency that quickly permeates every corner of the building with its sweet, nostalgic perfume. With deft insight, Secret Life observes the sinister individualism of bureaucratic settings in contrast with an unconcerned natural world. As the narrative progresses, you may begin to suspect that the world Ellsworth has brought to life with hypnotic visuals is not so secret after all; in fact, it s uncannily similar to our own.

"An urgent (and often very funny) attempt to explain a coocoo-rococo cosmology made up of garbled fragments of role-playing games, "Transformers "episodes, relaxation exercises and horror movies."--"The New York Times"The final chapter of this epic trilogy finds our hero, Izadore, awoken with his mind, body and soul reunited. The last Monks of the Imaginary Man lead him beyond Toy Mountain to discover the true nature of the relationship between imagination and reality.Not simply concluding the relentless, psychedelic plot, "The Understanding Monster--Book Three "explains how our creativity re-shapes our world, how we can overcome doubt through self-actualization.

"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.

"The Understanding Monster Book Two "follows Pharoah Tellitome, Inspector Gimble, and Master Sponko on their quest to awaken Izadore. Constructed with the same intricate, lush visuals as the first volume, the story returns to the world of time crystals, afterlife quests, thought projection resurrection and the ever-majestic Toy Mountain."

In a mutating house full of growing toys, a multi-dimensional robot, a Werewolf Exorcist and a reanimated mummy attempt to rescue a complicated being named Izadore. A Lynd Ward Prize Honor Book, "The Understanding Monster Book One "is an exquisite exploration into the inner workings of an imaginary world."