Conor Stechschulte

44 pgs, 4 color Risograph with Screenprinted cover 5.25x7.75”

Xerox-damaged collages and drawings printed in oversaturated Risograph ink on newsprint. A book about trying to cross the land between two states of being.

From the Afterword:

In the summer of 2022, I’d just finished a book that I’d been working on for over a decade and had yet to start on whatever was to come next. While teaching a three-week course in Risography, I got jealous watching my students busy making things out of paper and ink and began making this book.

Under the influence of a project, the decision-line between signal and noise in my life is clarified. Once that project is removed, this line becomes negotiable--an exciting and disorienting state between systems of meaning that this book attempts to capture: a wood carving caught between native tradition and colonial imposition*, images caught between depiction and distortion, between revealing their content and revealing how they were made, between original and unrecognizable copy, the book itself and the body that made it caught between existence and inevitable decay.

12 x 12’, Graphite Wall Drawing, 2023.

Growing out of a sketchbook practice of generating characters for comics, “Casting Call” brings an overabundant parade of hallucinatory dramatis personae onto the wall at MANA: apparitions, eidolons, phantoms, chimeras, creeps, creatures, monsters, misremembered mascots, wraiths, sigils, shadows, ciphers, and shades to emerge, dance, prance, cower, caper, crawl, fall, flee, romp, retreat, scamper and stumble into and across the picture plane. Equal parts drawing, writing, and improvisational acting, this undulating grid of drawings engages with the associations of graphite as the material of the plan, sketch, outline and, most importantly, the cartoon.

11x 14”, 5-color Risograph print of 190 characters.

Available

Drawn in watercolor and ink and printed in fluorescent orange, medium blue, green, yellow and black on 80lb. cover-weight paper.

11x14”, 5-color risograph print of 132 imaginary trees.

Available

Drawn in watercolor and ink and printed in fluorescent pink, medium blue, green, yellow and black on 80lb. cover-weight paper.

Hardcover, 7.3 x 10.4” 280 pgs. 5-Spot-Color Offset Printed.

Available in English, Italian, Spanish, and French

Driving home from a wedding late one night during a heavy storm, out of cell range, Glen blows out his tires. He knocks on the door of the only house he sees and is greeted by an uncomfortably friendly middle-aged man, Arthur, and his attractive younger wife, Cyndi. The strange couple pours him a drink, and then more drinks, followed by odd confessions and an unexpected offer that Glen can't refuse. Where Ultrasound zigs and zags from there is into a dizzying plot involving mind control, government secrets, gaslighting, and political intrigue that is always one step ahead of the reader. Stechschulte's brilliant use of color and mastery of comics storytelling yields a breathtaking puzzlebox of a sci fi thriller — the moment you finish, you will want to go back and reread Ultrasound from the start.

Currently streaming on Hulu.

Directed by Rob Schroeder, Written by Conor Stechschulte, starring Vincent Kartheiser, Chelsea Lopez, Breeda Wool, Tunde Adebimpe, and Bob Stephenson. Released by Magnet Releasing, 2022.

•Premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival

• Won the Silver Audience Award at Fantasia Fest in Montreal.

•Won Best Narrative Feature at Mammoth Lakes Film Festival.

Poster below by Robert Beatty.

7.75 x 9.75" 16pgs. 2 color offset in metallic grey and blue/black. White cover stock, cream interior pages.

Two stories running parallel, both accompanied and interrupted by the sound of the wind: a college student returns home on fall break and is confronted with her family's recurring issues and a park ranger gives a tour of a Mississippian mound site.

“Shrieky Forest” 8.5 x 11”, 5-color Risograph Print in Federal Blue, Green, Mint, Fluorescent Pink and Yellow from 5 watercolor originals, published in Colorama Clubhouse #10, 2018.

Risograph-printed Syllabi for various classes taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago from 2017-Present. Dimensions ~ 5 x 7.75.

8 x 10.25" 20 pgs. Risograph. Federal Blue and Black on Blastoff Blue Covers, Federal Blue on Grey interiors.

The stories of five different self-taught artists as told by broken things and a meditation on what art is and how it survives.

3 22.5x34" Black and White Offset Broadsheets.

AVAILABLE

1. A collaboration with Jennifer Chen-su Huang On the exterior a park ranger gives a tour of a Native American mound site on a windy morning while in the interior the sound of the wind triggers 115 memories. The comic is an edit/adaptation of a comic forthcoming from Tonto in Austria.

2. A woman rises out of the water and tells the story of a lonely park ranger. Adapted/expanded version of a comic that previously appeared in Christmas in Prison

3. Two friends have tea and discuss a protest that one of them has just attended while the wind blows outside. Interior doubles as a protest sign/poster.

5.75 x 8.25" 8pgs. Risographed covers and endpages. Four-Color Offset interiors.

A far-future science fiction story about the lonely inmate of a migrating prison camp told with thirteen watercolor paintings.

5 3/8 x 7" 96 Pgs. Four color + Gloss Screen Printed Cover, Screen, Offest, and Risograph printed in 22 different spot colors inside.

Handmade and hand perfect-bound.

8 different but interconnected stories dealing with ideas about reflection/representation, language, loneliness, structures for meaning, and books themselves.