Dick and Dottie Fitch saw what they wanted soon after stepping into a Moroccan artist's studio — a wooden figure that reminded them of Zozobra.

"Dottie and I just looked at each other," said Dick Fitch. "She doesn't like to buy stuff, you know, but this one she could see."

The Fitches spent three and a half weeks in Morocco in April and May. They already were familiar with the work of the artist Mohamed Tabal, but had trouble tracking him down.

Their driver took them to a small town in the desert, between Marrakech and the seaside village of Essaouira, where they left word with Tabal's uncle and son. But they had to come back the next day to find the artist himself.

The Fitches, who have lived in Santa Fe for 42 years, immediately took note of the Zozobra look-alike.

Similar to the figure that evolved from artist Will Shuster's effigy for Old Man Gloom of the 1920s that will burn Thursday night, the Moroccan figure has protruding ears, large eyes, a peanut-shaped head, blue hair, oversized hands and a stunned, frightened, angry expression that seems to say, "What are you doing to me?"

Unlike Zozobra, the Moroccan figure is decorated front and back with images of birds, plants, a fish, cats, horses and a human figure, and its hands are held over its body — not waving about like Zozobra's.

The Fitches bought the figure along with a lizard image and a bowl. Dick Fitch doesn't remember what they paid. "We just paid what they said to pay," he said. "When I buy stuff like this, I think, 'If I did this, how long would it take me to carve it, paint it?' "

If the Zozobra piece had a name or if there was a story behind the character, the Fitches didn't catch it. Tabal, 50, spoke Arabic and French, but no English.

Fitch, a retired geologist and teacher, described Tabal as a pleasant man well known for his colorful jungle scenes of palm trees, thatched-roof huts, lions and other African animals. He gave the Fitches a book about himself and inscribed it to them in Arabic, though they have yet to have it translated.

They had the 33-inch figure and the other objects shipped to their home in Sol y Lomas. The package arrived about the same time as they did, after they stopped off in New York to visit Dick Fitch's brothers. They keep it near the front door where "you can't avoid it," Fitch said.

"We think it's really funny," he said. "You can't look at it without thinking of Zozobra. So this is the first chance we've had to let other people in Santa Fe see it."

Contact Tom Sharpe at 986-3080 or tsharpe@sfnewmexican.com.