Clay Hickson takes us through his ideas that never panned out within his book, In A Nutshell

The illustration-producing machine Clay Hickson has released a new book In A Nutshell, a collection of “undeveloped tales” available from his publishing house Tan & Loose Press.

With its monkey nut cover, inside the publication displays Clay’s steps towards creating more narratively-driven work. “I’ve been reading more comics lately and working (mostly unsuccessfully) on making more narrative work,” he tells It’s Nice That. “I like illustrating words or phrases that sound evocative, but are actually fairly generic. It’s something I started doing in my sketchbook as a warm up exercise.” Phrases such as “Widows Kiss” and “Mountain Visitor” are interpreted by Clay in a brilliantly warped illustrated reality, making even a penis-shaped cut out appear transcendent.

Clay continues his signature psychedelic typographic style within In A Nutshell adapting and extending fonts that may be very of a time, but still making them his own.

“This zine is a collection of ideas that never panned out or weren’t worth taking any further. If that description doesn’t sell you on it, then I give up!”

You can find more of Clay and the Tan & Loose team’s work in their monthly newspaper, The Smudge.