At the People's Market in Missoula this summer Theo Ellsworth sat along the curve, peddling a craft uncommon to the vendors packing this city's north-end streets. With the morning unfolding around him, he scribbled diligently upon a pad of paper, creating images pulled from the depths of his mind.

As a fan of the written word, I had to stop that morning to peruse his collection of self-published art-zines, the black ink and raw stories within somehow honest in ways mass-publications fail to be.

If nothing else, the work proved memorable in that Ellsworth, the man, had enough confidence to share the musings that most people kept confined to their journals, locked away from prying eyes.

But then again, when it comes to his work, Ellsworth isn't shy. While his craft is hard to name, it comes as a cross between cartooning and art, poetry and the nonsensical ramblings of a writer emerging from a dream.

This past weekend at the Montana Festival of the Book, I spotted Ellsworth again, sitting like a pariah in the lobby of the Holiday Inn, surrounded by the larger publishers whose glossy covers and big-name authors trumped his home-spun hobby.

But Ellsworth didn't mind. He set up a table, wisely in a corner by the bookstore where the traffic was highest. Again he was scribbling his fanciful pictures and whimsical words. Six volumes of his ongoing comic series, "Capacity," sat neatly aligned. Just beyond a second book, an ongoing art-zine dubbed the "Paper Wasp," sat in a pile. He sold miniature magnets too, with pictures of his work laminated across the front.

Ellsworth smiled kindly as I pulled up a chair. In a soft and easy voice verging on timid, he began sharing his story -- the root of his poetry and prose, his art and his recent success at the Alternative Press Expo in San Francisco, where his work turned heads.

"The expo totally opened up my world," Ellsworth said, taking a rare moment to look up from his sketchpad. "There were tons of self-publishers. I ended up making a lot of connections."

Ellsworth named his inspirations -- Dr. Seuss and Edward Gorey, whose surreal pen-and-ink images seem at a glance both delightful and horrific. He also detailed his affinity for art nouveau in general.

The books in his "Capacity" series stand on their own, or, when read as a series, present a consistency that even Ellsworth has a hard time naming. They are, he tells me, part of a 10-part series to come, which he hopes to publish in a single volume. But that will take time, he admits. He already sold his car and tried living off the proceeds. Eventually the money ran out, but his girlfriend's help and the meager sales off his work have kept him in the game.

"It's been going good," Ellsworth said. "The People's Market has been fun. My work has been well received. There's something about putting words and pictures together that really excites me."

From Los Angeles, Ellsworth moved to Montana at the age of 6. He has remained ever since, graduating from Sentinel High School -- not too long ago by the looks of him. Sure, he says he's 29, but with his pencil-thin mustache and gray suede hat, he somehow looks younger, working with the fervor of a man whose dreams are still intact.

Those dreams, he tells me, are what drive his work. As the festival pushes on -- as the patrons, authors and editors wander about the lobby discussing their latest projects -- Ellsworth works his pen, creating a scene that looks like Constantinople under a starry sky.

He scribbles on a white sheet of paper with a black Sharpie. It's not his chosen pen, he says. But it costs much less than his "repidograph," a tool that lays down precise, light-resistant, waterproof lines. Plus, he admits, he doesn't have to worry about loosing a Sharpie, or breaking the tip. The edge of his palm is black.

"I like the way the pictures say things the words can't say, and the way the words say things the pictures can't," he said. "They're kind of inseparable to me."

Ellsworth has known since he was a kid that he wanted to draw and write. But he moved away from the craft, denying his inner dreams.

Then, one year visiting his mother, he came across a homework assignment he had completed in the fourth grade. Simply, the assignment had asked, "What do you want to be when you grow up?"

Ellsworth had drawn a picture then of a man with a thin mustache. The picture, he realized, was himself.

After a bad case of poison oak, during which he could hardly move, Ellsworth said he realized he had to return to his dreams. He had to pursue the craft that lived inside him. He began writing again. He began sketching. Now his work, like his name, is catching on in cities where the alternative reading scene is strong.

"I was writing a lot and drawing a lot, but nothing was totally complete," Ellsworth said, coloring a white sky black. "I felt the pictures had stories locked inside them. When I put the two together, it felt suddenly like a complete art form."

Reporter Martin Kidston can be reached at 447-4086, or at helenair.com">mkidston@helenair.com