In recent years, the Kiwanis Club (the fine folksbehind the annual burning of Zozobra) has opened up a contest for artists todesign and create poster artwork for the event and—surprise—this year’s winner is noneother than SFR’s MetroGlyphs cartoonist, Russ Thornton! Now, we can’t show youthe winning work just yet (it’s complicated but you can see it at burnzozobra.com),but we can tell you that the theme is the 1940s and that Thornton, who workedas a chef for Santa Fe Dining for over 20 years until he chose to pursue a career in art, hascreated something gorgeous.
"I always thought [Zozobra] was a cool subject and I alwayswanted to draw one," Thornton tells us. "It's supposed to be like an imaginary1940s Santa Fe, and I was kind of going for a watercolor look."
Thornton estimates it took him nearly three weeks to createhis massive, looming Old Man Gloom and that the process consisted of both penand ink drawing and digital colorization. "I had to make sure all the elementsand layers were the way I wanted them," Thornton says of him timeline, "and tohave the feather in my cap and another experience … I want to represent what Ithink is cool about Zozobra, and this is in keeping with that style."
Thornton’s image will appear as the official poster image for this year’s burning of Zozobra which you can buy at theaforementioned website. Thornton’s MetroGlyphs appears exclusively every singleweek in SFR, both in print and online. If you’re just visiting our fair city and are not familiar with Zozobra, youcan see the bizarre pagan ritual in action right here.
Santa Fe Reporter