![]() Ott employs a scratchboard process, a technique that uses sharp knives for etching into a thin layer of white china clay coated with black india ink (as opposed to the more labor-intensive woodcut method, where images are actually carved into a block of wood). ![]() Alas, all this fortune does not last, as the story veers off into surprisingly fantastical and creepy territory. Previously a poor, lonely man, he soon comes into money, romance, and happiness, perhaps for the first time. ![]() As he follows the seemingly random numbers, the guard's luck begins to change. ![]() The guard begins to see the numbers cropping up in his life (a clock, a phone number, cards, and even a dog's markings). Following an execution, a prison guard finds a piece of paper with a sequence of numbers (the title's 753-6-96-8) left behind by the dead prisoner. The creator of numerous short graphical stories, collected in Cinema Panopticum, Greetings From Hellville, and Dead End, Ott relates here a powerful, Twilight Zone-styled tale of a series of numbers that grants desires to those who decipher the pattern. The Swiss artist Thomas Ott employs a similar style in his first novel-length work, The Number 753-6-96-8. In the 1920s and 1930s, artists such as Frans Masereel ( The Idea) and Lynd Ward ( Gods' Man) used woodcuts to produce popular wordless novels which would go on to influence generations of illustrators. ![]()
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