Intricate, even exquisite - but never immaculate, Theo Ellsworth's Capacity is a mind turned inside out. Ellsworth's careful line gives shape to profound and profoundly silly thoughts alike, bringing a visionary, startling new life to the doubts and hopes that are so familiar to everyone. This is the 2010 reprint of Theo Ellsworth's debut graphic novel. Capacity.

Capacity

Comics & Graphic Novels

Ellsworth, Theo

Graphic Novels

Secret Acres

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.

The Understanding Monster - Book One

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.

The Understanding Monster - Book Two

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.

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

"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.

The Understanding Monster - Book Three

Product Description 
An uncanny and eye-opening journey into a mysterious building, adapted from a short story by Jeff VanderMeerTo the west: trees. To the east: a mall. North: fast food. South: darkness. And at the centre 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. 
 Review 
"This is a vision of office life gone very surreal, with warring tribes who develop their own language and mice who learn to speak English."―New York Times"The incendiary collision of two singular talents… Ellsworth adapts VanderMeer’s tale of a mysterious building where 'office culture' connotes secret languages and unspoken rituals, and a cherished desk plant with a tantalizing fragrance grows to menacing proportions."―Poets and Writers Magazine"It’s impossible to look away."―Alex Dueben, Orion Magazine"Secret Life captures the dark pulsing horror of office life with a bizarre honesty found only in bad dreams and good nightmares. An engrossing, unsettling, beautiful work."―Patrick McHale, Over the Garden Wall"This bizarre, fantastical vision will charm art comics and surrealist lit fans alike."―Publishers Weekly"Unique, striking, and surreal... Corporate culture, capitalism/consumption, social hierarchies, and domination notwithstanding, only a vine flourishes here."―Booklist"An allegory about work life like no other."―NOW Magazine 
 About the Author 
Jeff VanderMeer is the author of 
Dead Astronauts, 
Borne, and 
The Southern Reach Trilogy, the first volume of which, 
Annihilation, won the Nebula Award and the Shirley Jackson Award and was adapted into a movie by Alex Garland starring Natalie Portman. VanderMeer speaks and writes frequently about issues relating to climate change. He grew up in the Fiji Islands and now lives in Tallahassee, Florida, with his wife, Ann VanderMeer, and their cats, plants, and bird feeders.

Secret Life

VanderMeer, Jeff

VanderMeer, Theo Ellsworth Jeff

Drawn and Quarterly

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Ellsworth, Theo. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Ellsworth, Theo

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Ellsworth, Theo. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Capacity

The Understanding Monster - Book One

The Understanding Monster - Book Two

Capacity

The Understanding Monster - Book Three

Secret Life