The Number 73304-23-4153-6-96-8 by Thomas Ott

To be sure, many of the tropes and themes here have been done before and with more nuance. In The Number 753-6-96-8 the narrative is structured through cyclic events, as randomness and significance become tangled, along with causal questions of will and determinism.

In Cinema Panopticum, a girl finds a machine inside a fairground tent which serves as the entry point for four morbid, ironic stories.

Twist endings, play with scale and perspective, and ghoulish humor are among the visual and narrative hallmarks of Ott’s work. The Number 753-6-96-8 is a longer, stand-alone piece which likewise deals in dark and gory themes. Expressive faces and gestures, along with striking compositions, propel the viewer quickly through the pages, but they also invite second and third examinations. The results are alternately luminous and ominous, with an obsessive quality due to the density of marks. Ott’s beautifully textured art stands out from many other comics, as he uses black and white marks to carve out figures and spaces rather than describe them with line. His stories are articulated solely through image, without dialogue or exposition. Twisted, visually compelling, sometimes-nightmarish picture books. The Incredible Adventures of Dog Mendonca and Pizz.Thomas Ott creates picture books for grown-ups.The multi-talented Thomas Ott makes animations, was the lead singer of a band called The Playboys, and on top of this, he makes political satires, comics and caricatures for various newspapers and magazines.

Among his other books are 'Cinema Panopticum', 'Greetings from Hellville' and 'The Number 753-6-96-8'. Since 1995, he is a regular contributor to Lapin, the publication of the French publisher L'Association (he has lived in Paris since 1990). The titles of his books, like 'Tales of Error' and 'Hellville, Tales from the Edge', already suggest that he is fond of the darker sides of life, which he depicts in his books with painstaking clarity. His work was published in various European magazines, including Ahai, Hochparterre, Okay Erotik Magazin, Strapazin, Tagesanzeiger-Magazin and Weltwoche in Switzerland, Boxer, Geo-Spezial, Süddeutsche Zeitung and Tempo in Germany, as well as El Vibora in Spain and Bulles Dingues, Culte, L'Écho des Savanes, Libération, Stronx and Vogue in France. Born in Berne, Ott studied at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Zurich and began working in the independent comics scene in the second half of the 1980s. Luckily, the Swiss artist Thomas Ott makes wordless scratchboard comix, which helps in making his work known in the rest of the world. There aren't many comix artists from German-speaking countries whose work has been translated into other languages.

The Number 73304-23-4153-6-96-8 by Thomas Ott