That Old A.Word.A.Day Magic!

Last November I had the great good fortune to illustrate a week's worth of words for Anu Garg's brilliant A.Word.A.Day. It was so much fun that I asked Anu if I could do it again this year & to my extreme delight he said yes!

If you're a friend/follower of Oddments & have never been to AWAD, hustle right on over there & subscribe-- it's an amazing resource of word lore, as entertaining as it is educational.

Of course if you're coming here from A.Word.A.Day, I don't have to convince you that Anu is a genius! Welcome to Oddments-- I hope you'll have fun browsing through my blog. You'll find plenty of words & letters playing with the paint around here.  And perhaps you'd like to see some in-progress versions of last year's AWAD illustrations, or have a look at my Etsy shop, Curious Art Lab, where I have prints & some originals from both years.

W is for Wanyūdō

This week's entry for AlphaBeasts! is Wanyūdō, a yokai that takes the shape of a flaming wheel bearing an anguished, disembodied face. If you come too close, it's likely to steal your soul & roll it back to Hell. I think the kids in the background are probably wise to keep their distance, but hey, I guess it is "some tire"!

Acrylic on ad scanned from St. Nicholas Magazine, August 1920, ~6.5"x9"

edit: Joey Weiser sent me a fabulous YouTube clip of Gegege noKitaro featuring Wanyūdō!

edit #2: EC Steiner (a.k.a. King Unicorn) sent another Wanyūdō cameo, this time from The Great Yokai War! (The big wheel makes his appearance around 1:33.)