OK, so I drew up a maze with a Leprechaun and a pot o’ gold, because… Stereotypes. I thought it may be a fun activity for people who celebrate their Irish or Celtic heritage this time of year. I do love to rock the Celtic Shenanigans 🍀 playlist on random more often than usual this time of year. You can spare me your “dusting off” Dropkick Murphys/Flogging Molly jokes. I have heard them all, and I listen all year. (I also don’t drink much any more, but my Beer 🍻 playlist also feels stereotypical and apropos.)
🪙☘️🪙🌈🪙🍀🪙
I also made a shamrock maze & a four-leaf clover maze, for a fun quick activity, & I uploaded them to my TeePublic & RedBubble shops. Everything is on sale right now at TeePublic, including these two designs. Get T-shirts for $16, stickers for $3, or all kinds of other cool stuff. You can even customize the colors of the products, so you can have a black hat or T-shirt, a green one, or whatever you prefer.
Which one do you like more, the shamrock (three-leaf clover) or the lucky four-leaf clover? Should I add this leprechaun maze to the shops too?
☘️🍀
Check out all of these mazes, in a printable black & white if you’d like:
🍀☘️🍺🤘🍻☘️🍀
They work great as adult coloring book pages too. You can fill in the dead ends to find the path, or just color ’em however you please. I’m a big fan of anarchy.
You can check out my playlists on your preferred streaming service with these links from Tune My Music:
I love Thanksgiving. It’s coming soon. This is some Turkey Day attire that you can relax in. Wear it under a nice cozy flannel. It appears to be on sale at both my TeePublic and RedBubble shops currently. You should take advantage of that if you’re so inclined.
You can get this design on an apron, a coffee mug, a tote bag, a hoodie, a blanket, a pillow… or all kinds of stuff really. You can change the clothing color with a bunch of options & styles at each site too. Poke around & see if you can find something you like!
Also, you can print this out & try to solve it for free. Or do it on your phone/tablet/whatever. You can post it on social media & tag me@AiXeLsyD13.
Of course, I have a buch of other Thanksgiving themed mazes too:
Hey, this pumpkin maze works for Halloween and Thanksgiving if you ask me. And, you can get two versions of it on all kinds of stuff too:
You can get the full color orange one on stuff at TeePublic and at RedBubble. You can also get the black & white one on stuff at TeePublic. I thought that might look cool on an orange T-shit.
I guess I never did update, lots of the listings are down or read as “Temporarily Unavailable.” I would like them to read as “⚠ 404 Page Not Found.“
I did get two short emails from the offender. Thank you to Jakob Mewes for reaching out! I never did hear back from Jakob after reaching out for further details. Did you Google AiXeLsyD and/or Gasoline Dion and find me here? I’d love to know!
I did get two emails from Mr. Heppke.
From: Kurt Heppke <mail@kurtheppke.com>
Date: Mon, Jun 30, 2025 at 8:22 AM
Subject: Re: Unauthorized Use of My Artwork in Your Book – DMCA & Cease-and-Desist
To: Eric Carroll <red@acted.yo>
Dear Mr. Carrol,
I'm sorry for using your trademarked images and I really want to apologize for that. I took the images from Pinterest and did not check the license. I made a mistake.
I have requested today that the book be stopped selling immediately and will send you confirmation as soon as I have it.
I hereby give you written confirmation that I will no longer use your work.
I also confirm the immediate cessation of any further use or reproduction of your work in any form.
I am truly sorry for the trouble I have caused you.
I would like to make one more point about your WordPress post " Stolen Mazes! (Someone took my art.)". It gives the impression that I have flooded half the world with my books. No. I've sold the book 8 times in the last 3 years. So I think the damage is limited.
That's not an excuse!
Anyway, thank you for your patience and kindness and I will definitely change my behavior when it comes to checking licenses.
Best regards
Kurt Heppke
---
Kurt Heppke
Tel: +## ### ########
Mail: mail@kurtheppke.com
Homepage: www.kurtheppke.com
And, then this, referencing the photo below:
From: Kurt Heppke <mail@kurtheppke.com>
Date: Tue, Jul 1, 2025 at 11:01 AM
Subject: Re: Unauthorized Use of My Artwork in Your Book – DMCA & Cease-and-Desist
To: Eric Carroll <red@cted.yo>
Dear Mr. Carroll,
I have withdrawn my book "Labyrinthe" from sale and would like to inform you of this, as promised:
Labyrinthe
Leichte Schwere und ganz ganz Schwere
ISBN-13: 9783756233120
Verlag: Books on Demand
Erscheinungsdatum: 30.06.2022
the German sentence:
"Wir haben Ihr Buch wunschgemäss für Bestellungen aus dem Buchhandel gesperrt. Auch die Listung für den internationalen Vertrieb und der E-Book-Vertrieb wurden damit automatisch ausgesetzt."
means:
"We have blocked your book from bookstore orders as requested. The listing for international distribution and e-book distribution have also been automatically suspended."
I would like to apologize once again and thank you for your patience and kindness.
Best regards
---
Kurt Heppke
Tel: +## ### ########
Mail: mail@kurtheppke.com
Homepage: www.kurtheppke.com
And this was in there:
✍️
I did not reply, as I am still salty about it. A little theft is still theft. I know Joe Wos sent something over to the effect of a Cease & Desist or DMCA, and Brian Hilbert commented on my last post. I never did get a comment from Sean C. Jackson. Not sure how many other maze artists were robbed. I never did track any others down.
I’m sadly still morbidly curious to get my hands on a copy of this outrage. Share your stories of art theft in the comments, or comment here if your stuff was also uncredited in this book!
I try to not plug my books or T-shirts too often. You know the art (one guy even tried to steal the art). You know the links to Amazon, RedBubble, & TeePublic & the links up top here. There’s even the Linktree. It’s a fun creative outlet for me, and I would appreciate a few more sales, just like I appreciate all that you have purchased!
TeePublic is having a sale, you can get these shirts & more for $16 thos weekend! Should I upload some more Halloween themed mazes? May be time to draw some new ones! You can get stickers, hats, pins, & other cool stuff there too. #TeePubic @TeePublic #TShitts#Mazes#Guitar#Food 🤘🏻 https://tee.pub/lic/AiXeLsyD13
So, I recently got an interesting message via my contact form:
I did write back, but have yet to receive a reply. I would like to thank you Jakob, for reaching out! Not sure how you found me, but then again maybe I am sure as the one stolen maze is kind of highly specific in subject matter, but we’ll get to that.
I did do some light Googling though, like a modern-day super lazy Sherlock Holmes (or at least Dick Tracy). The ever-so-helpful auto AI summary was actually kind of enlightening…
Yeah. That one past stuck out.
“He finds inspiration for his books by browsing graphic portals and libraries.”
I take that to mean “Bruh finds shit on Pinterest or Google image search and steals it to put into his books.”
Mr. Heppke has a website, and apparently several books. I know that print-on-demand can be looked down upon by “real” publishers, and these are considered “low content” books, but theft is theft.
I know I have pinned them in the past, so they may be floating around there too. There are probably about 100 people on the planet who have heard, saw, heard about, or remember my old punk band, AiXeLsyD. Why take that maze? Our logo is right there beside a terrible drawing of my 1986 Buick SkyHawk. Weird. Also, it name drops Sheetz & Wendy’s as places to not stop (as well as a nudie bar). They may have a harder copyright infringement case than me? 🤣 I’m sure the maze is much older than 2012. The quality of the scan & the coloring is BAD.
I have thought about collecting all my old stuff for a book… but the thought of checking to see if they’re passable & providing solutions is overwhelming, and now that I put out You Can See Yourself Out, I feel like I have a level of quality that I need to maintain. Drawing the mazes & posting them has always kind of been a creative outlet & stress relief for me. I think I’d need to re-scan the pile of stuff that I have, and the stuff that I just posted to social media with phone pictures if I were to do it right… and include solitions.
I’m not doing art to get rich, or even make a living… but if I can fund keeping this blog AiXeLsyD13.com, and buy some art supplies, that would be awesome. I have made tens of dollars off of my books and merch. That’s not a complaint by any means, but some dude across the globe shouldn’t be making money off of my art. (As an aside, check this shit out! Art theft is rampant, and following @kilkennycat_art on Threads has opened my eyes to it.)
I’m unsure of my next step. Is reaching out directly to Norderstedt Books on Demand and/or Kurt Heppke directly via email with some sort of cease and desist the way to go? Is that at all official? Is Google Translate even gonna get it right?
I don’t have any written verbiage here about my mazes being copyrighted, but I do have dated posts, and I think copyright is implied with any created works… no? I have no idea how any of it works really within the US, let alone internationally & specifically in Germany.
It also looks like this damn thing is available on more than a few sites:
At any rate, I implore you to by mazes (or any art) from the artist through their official channels… or enjoy the many free mazes that are put out there by all of us.
So, Cease-and-Desist email or letter? DMCA Takedown? Both? Lawyer up? I’m assuming there is not much to financially recover with print-on-demand sales. I just don’t want anyone making money off of my art other than myself.
Well then, it’s finally here. I finished maze book number two! This one is better than the last one, I promise. The first was sort of a test run just to see how Amazon KDP works. I wholeheartedly appreciate everyone that bought that book, but this one just objectively looks better and much more time was put into its creation. It ought to be much more challenging and enjoyable, IMHO.
This book a collection of a bunch more larger mazes, and a few small ones that I have been drawing since late 2023. There’s no common theme other than most of the mazes have a silly vibe. A few have no vibe at all. There’s aliens, rodents, yard work, holiday stuff, rock n’ roll, a treasure map, food, retail aversion, gross stuff, & more.
You Can See Yourself Out: A Collection of Fun, Irreverent, Festive, & Wild Hand-Drawn Mazes (Front Cover)
I hope you consider picking up a copy for yourself, & maybe even one for a friend? If not, just sharing the link to someone who you think may enjoy it, or just sharing it in general would be awesome.
The link is https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F9Y7SFXS and I’d love if you could share it, review it, favorite it or save it to a list… anything to help even if you’re not interested in a purchase. You could give me a good (or terrible) review or add it to your list on GoodReads too, if that’s your thing.
I had fun making a collage with punk ‘zine vibes for the cover. I busted out the mixed media, printed on weird paper, got two cutting, ripping, & coffee staining… and unearthed the leopard & cheetah print tape.
All of the mazes were hand-drawn, scanned in, edited (& “solved”) in paint.NET, & put together with Open Office. I haven’t stepped into the world of digital drawing yet, and I like my free programs. Someday, I’ll probably dive into GIMP a little more.
I love drawing the mazes, and it’s a great creative outlet like blogging or making music or playing out live. I’m sitting on a pile of old ones that I can convert into a book… but I need to make sure they’re all solvable and do the solutions.
Some are too big to fit on my scanner, and scanning with my phone has less than desirable results… so I’m gonna have to go somewhere like a FedEx Office store and hope they can help before they all disappear. I have a problem picking up any notebook that catches my eye and is the right price, regardless of size & paper type. I like the feel & the calming of pen on paper.
Because I have been excited about this, and I made a small collage with leftover bits, I popped up some new merch designs in my TeePublic & RedBubble stores with that new collage & the book cover images. I do have some older designs there with a few of the mazes that are featured in this book too. If you have an account & follow me on either of those sites, it may help my stuff get seen a bit more. I’d appreciate any form of liking/sharing/tagging if you’re so inclined!
In fact, check out all these designs from or inspired by the book, you can get them on all kinds of merch at each store! (I ordered a sticker, a magnet, a coffee cup, & a hoodie so I’m already in the hole.)
If you’re taking advantage of Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, or Cyber Monday sales… take the time to consider some of my Christmas themed maze T-shirts from Tee Public or Red Bubble!
You can customize the color of the shirt, choose from many styles, and get the same designs on all kinds of merchandise like coffee mugs, stickers, and pillows.
Yeah, I have had some down-time lately, so I finally hit the maze thing full force. You may have read about it here or here.
I got my books today! Getting reports from others that they have theirs too, thanks for posting & tagging me! Feel free to share the link anywhere & everywhere! Ha ha.
As of now, I have sold 25 copies, and it’s staying solid there. It’s not a huge number, but hey… it’s more than I have ever sold before! We did get a private photo of our friends’ daughter solving one of the mazes in the book, too. How cool is that? Early reports are that it is challenging and fun for a 10yo.
I need help getting the word out, as I have a $0 advertising budget.
If you can, leave a review on Amazon, or even at GoodReads! It would be awesome if you add it to your “to read” or wish list, or even marked as “read” at GoodReads, or follow me as an author there.
The consistently most visited post at my blog is In a maze mood, I guess. from January 2012. I have no idea what drives everyone there. Maybe Pinterest? I am tempted to update that page with a link to the book!
I’m also very interested in the Kindle books… Is it useless on a Kindle? Can you mark it up on anything?
In other news, did you know that they both cater? I wish someone would have told me.
I actually stopped at the local Panera the other night because the wife was sick and wanted some of that cheese-broccoli soup. I went in to get some to go, and got myself a half of a turkey sandwich and a cup of the chicken noodle.
The employee (a young girl, of course) at the counter was quite friendly, asked if I wanted lettuce tomato or onion on the sandwich, and even asked if I wanted mustard and/or mayo. Clearly, someone went over new procedures. Sadly, I asked for lettuce & tomato… and got neither, but I did get mustard and mayo. I applaud the effort, and shame on me for not checking before I left the store.
I have to say, after my initial complaint, they have totally stepped it up service-wise. I still call shenanigans on the new soup. They ought to let sales do the talking… OFFER BOTH. It’s certainly a popular item. Let the consumers decide if they want a great-tasting soup… or the crappy flat-noodled healthy soup. Clearly, as a leader in the Fast Casual industry, you can afford to test the proverbial waters? I think more changes have been made, but it’s still not the old soup. Shenanigans.
Also, I counted 3 signs within a span of about 8 feet on the counter where you wait for your order advertising the catering… and the pop machine still does it too. I think the receipt may have even said something about it.
I spend far too much time contemplating fast food & fast casual dining. If only I could save time buy purchasing already prepared meals. Does anyone out there do that?
World (and Lunar) Domination 