The blog of Richard Thompson, caricaturist, creator of "Cul de Sac," and winner of the 2011 Reuben Award for Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Today's Cul de Sac from Two Days Ago, January 22 2012

My original plan was to have a week of Mom reading Lewis Carroll to Alice, with Alice responding in various annoying ways. Like here, where she's fixating on some pointless digression because that's what four-year-olds often do.

I don't remember why but the week got boiled down to a Sunday. It's an excuse to try drawing like the formidable John Tenniel, whose definitive Alice illustrations show Wonderland in careful, other-worldly detail and solidity. Which was a stupid thing to do, as I discovered after fussing with the counterfeit Tenniels and using up half a bottle of ProWhite on Alice alone. I meant to save the roughs for this and post them. They were nice and loose and got a semi-Tennielly effect in a few quick lines without any worrying but I must have chucked them.

Millions of illustrators have taken a shot at illustrating Carrol's Alice. His characters and situations exert a powerful visual fascination; you want to draw a croquet game with flamingo mallets just to see what it'd look like. For me, of all the other artists who've tried, only a two have brought something worthwhile to putting Wonderland on paper- Ralph Steadman and Deloss McGraw. But neither is likely to unseat Tenniel as Court Painter to the White Queen.


2 comments:

Neat Man said...

I love Ralph Steadman's "Alice" work. I wish Ralph would return to this approach. His current work lacks that loverly tension that exists by juxtaposing the technical detail and the serendipitous splats.

Mike said...

I adored this strip (and featured it at comicstripoftheday.com) simply because of the way you drew Tenniel without abandoning Thompson. You were absolutely in the zone with this one.