Jon J. Muth

About Jon J. Muth

Jon J. Muth (born 1960) is an American artist and writer who moved from painted comics into children's picture books, and is best known for Zen Shorts (2005), which received a Caldecott Honor in 2006.

Muth was born on 28 July 1960 in Cincinnati, Ohio. He studied stone sculpture and shodo brush calligraphy in Japan, and painting, printmaking and drawing in England, Austria and Germany. In comics he painted Moonshadow with the writer J. M. DeMatteis and The Mystery Play with Grant Morrison, which won him a 1995 Eisner Award as best painter. For Neil Gaiman's The Sandman: The Wake he illustrated the story "Exiles", and he also worked on Havok and Wolverine: Meltdown (1988) with Kent Williams.

His picture book work began with Come On, Rain! (1999), written by Karen Hesse, which earned him a Gold Medal from the Society of Illustrators. He then wrote and painted his own books: The Three Questions (2002), drawn from a Leo Tolstoy story, Stone Soup (2003) and Zen Shorts (2005), which introduced the character Stillwater and spent 41 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Stillwater returned in further titles including Zen Ties, Zen Ghosts and Hi, Koo!. He has also illustrated Mo Willems's City Dog, Country Frog (2010) and Caroline Kennedy's poetry anthologies. He lives in upstate New York with his family.

For collectors

The first editions of Come On, Rain! (1999), The Three Questions (2002) and Zen Shorts (2005) carry his paintings. In comics, his painted work for Moonshadow and The Mystery Play and his story in The Sandman: The Wake are the titles most associated with him.