Amazing Facts and Beyond - by Kevin Huizenga & Dan Zettwoch (Hardcover)

About the Book

An awesome treasury of facts so fake they seem real.

Book Synopsis

Ignatz award Nomination for Outstanding Collection

Leon Beyond--part John Hodgman, part out-of-date school textbook--is the know-it-all, relentless-fact-baking brain child of cartoonists Kevin Huizenga and Dan Zettwoch. Leon's knowledge was catalogued weekly in the St. Louis Riverfront Times. Amazing Facts and Beyond collects the comic-strip's best and most outrageous moments. Discover the world of optilusors, Robert Skur, dance notation and grooved disc jellyfish. Learn new words and concepts: winkaton or optogenerian. Mark your extreme calendar before you travel to the pancake and eggs nebula. Meticulously un-researched and full of dubious knowledge, Amazing Facts and Beyond is the modern successor to Ripley's Believe It Or Not. Featuring guest contributions by Ted May, and others.

From the Back Cover

"The most merciful thing in the world [...] is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. [...] but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age."--H.G. Lovecraft

Leon Beyond is the know-it-all, fact-baking brain-child of cartoonists Kevin Huizenga and Dan Zettwoch. For four solid years Leon Beyond dropped dubious knowledge every week in the comics section of the St. Louis Riverfront Times and then disappeared! His tidbits and trivia have changed our understanding of the world forever. Amazing Facts & Beyond collects the comic-strip's best and most mental adventures. Stretch your brain and enter the world of memory palaces, volcano graffiti, baseball slang, rap commercials, and much more. Mark your avante-garde cat calendar as you travel to the Pancake and Eggs Nebula!

Meticulously un-researched and full of beautiful cartooning, Amazing Facts & Beyond is the postmodern successor to Ripley's Believe It Or Not. Features include a comprehensive uncivilizedbooks.com Beyondex, behind-the-scenes photographs, and a special color section. Feel free to scratch 'n sniff! There are no stickers.

Review Quotes

Ignatz award Nomination for Outstanding Collection

Zettwoch and Huizenga's flagrant disregard for the truth makes each strip a fresh exercise in trying to decipher what is real and what is not. Topics are numerous and delightful, including spotlights on the Museum of Leftover Masterpieces, the Secret History of Dogs as Weapons, and an account of a Jesuit missionary in China who fused the art of kung fu and the Bible into a single gospel. [...] this is a book to be savored [...]--Publishers Weekly

"I feel like a pretty well-informed guy, but the great Leon Beyond taught me something new on virtually every page of this beautiful collection. Indispensable!"--Ken Jennings, all-time Jeopardy! champion and author of Brainiac and Because I Said So.

"I met Leon Beyond at a party once. In the span of eleven minutes he taught me: the sordid history of pet portraits, how to cook an egg on your own body, and which trees look the most like ex-presidents. I haven't been able to forget these facts, no matter how hard I've tried!"--Lisa Hanawalt, My Dirty Dumb Eyes

About the Author

Kevin Huizenga (HIGH zing guh) grew up in a suburb of Chicago, South Holland, which is a small town of Dutch immigrants. He is the son of an accountant and a nurse. In high school he started reading minicomics and quit playing baseball. He attended Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he started drawing the influential mini-comic Supermonster.

Huizenga moved to St. Louis where he drew the comic book series Or Else as well as the strip Leon Beyond with Dan Zettwoch. Eventually, he also created his series Ganges. Huizenga taught in the Comic Art program at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design from 2015-2019.

His graphic novels include The River at Night, Curses, The Wild Kingdom, and Gloriana. His work has been translated into six languages, including Dutch; he won five Ignatz awards and been nominated for Harvey and Eisner awards.

Dan Zettwoch is a cartoonist, information designer and printmaker in St. Louis. He earned his BFA in visual communications with an emphasis in illustration from Washington University, where he teaches in the Sam Fox School's MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture program.

In addition to many self-published zines and handcrafted mini-comics, his books include BIRDSEYE BRISTOE (Drawn & Quarterly), AMAZING FACTS & BEYOND (Uncivilized Books), and Science Comics: CARS: ENGINES THAT MOVE YOU (First Second). His goofball illustrations and jam-packed diagrams have also been seen in the Missouri History Museum, the State Capitol Museum, and in homemade screenprints commemorating local birds, baseball, and strange foods.