All through the composition process, I've been conscious of trying to keep each lay-out different and intriguing whilst obviously maintaining some visual consistency. In the earliest discussions of this project, the thought had been to use it as a vehicle for my more psychedelic leanings. In fact, as I've delved deeper and deeper into the crafting of a story, and the characters, I've been seduced back towards "reality", and perhaps a safer, more palatable style.
This page, where Squergil is transported from the window world and back to his own dimension, however, really offered me the opportunity to cut loose.
The image (minus Squergil here) is obviously somewhat reminiscent of Miro and similar artists, but the image I actually had in the back of my mind was this (artist unknown):
I've ended up contrasting pages with full "worldly" detail and colour with those with much simpler, starker colour schemes.. this is another example of that. I like the fact that leaving white spaces feels somehow "wrong" in the context of a story book too, as if the boundaries of the medium itself have come unstuck.
I need a sound effect for when Squergil Wergil lands in a tub of water in the circus, and this pineapple had been haunting my kitchen for a fortnight.. so the time came today to run a bath, and drop the pineapple into it (I'm sure I remember reading that The Orb did something similar with a melon on one of their early records.. at least, that's my excuse).
The audio side of this project is something which is not recorded in such minute detail as the visual development is, in sketch books and so forth, despite the large amount of time and effort that has inevitably gone into it. So I decided to film myself recording the splash sound effect.
It probably just looks like me aggressively bathing a pineapple though.
The music is from the circus scene, unmixed.
On an interesting side note, found this on Wikipedia, which neatly dovetails with the pine cone theme:
"The word pineapple in English was first recorded in 1398, when it was originally used to describe the reproductive organs of conifer trees (now termed pine cones). When European explorers discovered this tropical fruit, they called them pineapples (term first recorded in that sense in 1664) because of their resemblance to what is now known as the pine cone. The term pine cone was first recorded in 1694 and was used to replace the original meaning of pineapple."
Okay.. this is a very rough "sketch" of this page, done very quickly with Photostudio 5 to see how it would look.
I've been thinking for a while that the story was lacking a darker aspect. Which isn't to say that there aren't moments of peril in the story - there are, but I'm not convinced that they won't get lost in what is otherwise a fairly upbeat story (obviously, the music will help a lot there!).
One of the picture books I've been referencing a lot during this project, both for composition/page layout and tone, is Tove Jansson's "Who Will Confort Toffle?". This is simply due to the fact that it's a picture book that I much admire, and I think it strikes a fantastic balance of light and dark tones, both thematically and image-wise.
I think the most striking and memorable image in the book is probably the confrontation with the Groke, which provides a climax of sorts to the story (or certainly to Toffle's quest).
The book alternates between pages packed with detail and movement, and a page such as the Groke one, where suddenly there is just one crucial event being focussed on.
I've always considered that part of the reason that the Moomins stayed with me from my childhood is that I was very aware at the time, aged 7 or 8 and watching the animation, that there was something a bit weird and different about it. It was very dark in places, and it was partly this that caused it to make a big impression on me I think. The program felt like a window into a strange alien world, and I remember it felt strange to me that no other programs were telling me about this world.
Very recently, I was watching the Time Shift documentary "Oliver Postgate: A Life In Short Films". Having thought myself well-versed on all things Postgate, I was surprised to see things in the documentary that I recalled from my childhood, but hadn't known were to do with him. In particular, I was literally gobsmacked to see a (very short) clip from the series Tottie. It really felt like suddenly remembering something very familiar after a bout of amnesia - a door had been thrown open somewhere deep in my mind that led to a room that I had forgotten was even there, and yet was instantly familiar.
Upon further research, it transpired that the series had been infamous at the time as it featured a scene in which one of the characters is murdered by another. It's clear to me, looking back now, and given the intensity of sensation I felt upon first seeing the characters again, that this program had a great influence on me, and is in fact very likely the reason I am fascinated by dolls faces, and the work of Jan Svankmajer (to which one suspects it owes a debt).
I can only further conclude that the dark resolution to the story is the reason that it made such an impact.
So.. to try to get back to the point.. it's clear that it would be good to have a darker aspect to the story!
Risk of death-by-falling/cannibals aside, I've found a way to inject a little eeriness into the story (stopping short of squirrel murder for now) with this "looking house" notion.. sort of a CCTV lighthouse, I suppose. The single-page image will provide a segue from the light-hearted mood of the previous scene (in the boneyard) into the more perilous past of the journey that follows, while also breaking up the double-page spread layout.
It's meant to be ominous, and portentous, more than anything, and I think it succeeds in that. The significance of the house, and whether it is actually benevolent or threatening, is something which will remain unaddressed in the text, but the image is echoed in the first double-page spread which features a small bird-house looking-house eye. From this idea of the looking-house, an ambiguous subtext, created through the eye motif, and references in the text (ie. the Observation Cats), has emerged.
This is really the fun part of the story-writing process for me.. something that I was thankfully reminded of by Salvatore's workshop - it becomes like a game, to attempt to resolve all of the loose ends, and add little suggestive elements here and there to strengthen potential interpretations.
Cover of Matthew Thurber's "Sherlock Holmes and the Large Door" cassette, Pot Latch, I Gather Tapes.
As mentioned in the last post, I recently acquired a lo-fi homemade audio-book by my current favourite comic artist Matthew Thurber, called "Sherlock Holmes & The Large Door". I was going to link to his site (www.ambergriscomics.com/) but as of the time of writing, it seems to be down.
But they have more! Well, no more audio-books at first glance (I guess it is a niche within a niche, marketwise), but was very interested to see this. It's a tape of music, but it also includes a 16-page silk-screened comic. Looks really nice! And not totally dissimilar to what I'm doing (albeit with a reverse emphasis). Interesting!
Here's a review of the first release on Thurber's Pot Latch, I Gather label too, which explains it all much better than I could: Anti-Matter Alma Mater review.
It's been quite interesting to think about the balance of word and image in my audio story book. As far as I remember, all such tapes I had as a child had sufficient information in the audio that the book was not essential.
Of course, in a picture book, that is not always the case, quite the opposite may be true.. and that relationship hasn't disappeared just because I have a narration.. really that's little different to having written text next to the image. But I've perhaps become a little less aware of it as I've had in my head a (perhaps false) notion that the narration should tell the whole story. This is partly a consequence of not having written a story in some time, and getting carried away with it, but I think I need to wrestle some degree of control back to the images.
Off the top of my head, the only image I can think of that really has something substantial to say beyond the narration is the final page - Squergil and the trapeze artist sat side by side in the circus. The narration talks of finding new friends, but the image allows the viewer to infer a lot more.
Essentially, what I'm saying is.. I need to remember that what I'm making is not an audio play - more of an audio accompaniment.
This line of thinking has only been comlpicated by the fact that I've applied to have the audio broadcast online on May 1st. As mentioned before, my favourite internet radio station, Intergalactic FM, is hosting a one-day "streaming festival" where listeners get the chance to turn the tables and stream their audio to the station for half an hour. I'm massively excited to be taking part, but it raises some issues. Should simply ensure that all the images are available online somewhere for the duration of the broadcast (this would be my ideal scenario anyway).. or should I tweak the script so that the images are not essential?
On reflection, I think that if the book is to be at all interesting, I need to ensure that the images are as crucial, if not more so, than the narration.
On further reflection.. I suppose that as a rule, the less text there is, the greater burden the images take in communication.. which is what can make a good picture book so interesting, from an illustrator's point of view.
But then, the amount of text I've written for the story (at least 3000 words) is probably more suited to the type of book where images are presented as secondary to the text (or at least equal - one picture per page of text. Given the low cost of those web publishing sites, I'm very tempted to knock up a version of my book in that format if I have time towards the end of the project). Perhaps it would have been more interesting if I had done a picture book with very minimal text, and a muscially abstract soundtrack.. perhaps something a little closer to my original intention, but with less text?
I recently bought a cassette by the comic artist Matthew Thurber. It features an "original Sherlock Holmes story", called Sherlock Holmes and The Large Door. In this adventure, the narration leads the way, but much of the scene is left to be set by the (also rather surreal) audio. I suppose this is one of the strengths of a radio play, that the imagination is left (with prompts) to form its own image.
Am I trying to butt together two forms that work better exclusively, the picture book and the audio play?
But at the end of the day, I suppose that what is more or less interesting is a matter of debate, and I need to focus on simply doing the thing that I am doing as well as it can be done. So.. an audio book with non-exclusive illustrations.
My favourite radio station, Intergalactic FM, is hosting a one-day live streaming festival on May 1st. For 12 hours, listeners will be given a chance to stream their own audio on the station for half an hour. I'm pencilled in for a slot, in which I plan to broadcast my project.. a global premiere!
In the fortnight after hand-in, I will look into what would be the best way to host my images online in some sort of gallery, so that people can click to "turn the page when they hear the beep". Very exciting. A really great (and brave!) idea and amazing to have the chance to participate!
IFM is actually quite significant to this project in that it plays a lot of instrumental music I would listen to that has elements of implied narrative (something like Drexciya being a good example).
In particular, this past year I've really gotten into Legowelt through listening to this station, whose music is almost always narrative-led. He also has a show called Astro Unicorn Radio, which, amongst lots of amazing and obscure electronic music, has also broadcast existing radio plays, with his own music added.
I've listened to the Dreammachine channel a lot too, and been exposed to lots of soundtrack music.. all of which has definitely had an influence on me. During my 100 Days song project, back in December, I recorded several tracks to soundtrack an imaginary horror film, "Night Baboon". Last month I went to Scotland for five days, for the Homegame Festival, and so I recorded one more new song, drew some baboons, and made a 3" CD-R of the Baboon songs to sell. The songs on this CD are quite dark, compared to the current project, but the compositional methodology, thus far, is very similar.
A video of a nice cassette packaging/booklet design by the Darbolistic Rex label, for the compilation album A Pairing In Disorder (there's actually a slightly better video of the finished thing here.
Seeing this makes me wonder if I couldn't have been a bit more imaginative in the way I've chosen to package my tape. I think that having everything on a plate for me at Tapeline made that decision easier. To be truthful though, I'm sure that if I had tried to make some kind of book that formed a part of a box, it would have turned out looking very handmade (in spite of any attempts to the contrary) and I'm trying my best to make something slick and professional looking!
