Animal Gothic

Currently I'm working on some new stuff. The theme is Animal gothic (I find themes extremely comforting). I also really want to try and construct a children's illustrated book on the same theme but that is literally just a thought at the moment. I suppose I was originally inspired by an old book I had when I was a child called Willy the Wimp illustrated by Anthony Browne. There was a whole series about this character Willy-a chimpanzee that liked to read and listen to music but got bullied at school by the other bigger sportier chimps (just typing that description made me chuckle to myself) I'd always been fascinated by his mundane human world filled with these anthropomorphised gorillas. I guess the image above, of Willy in his little tank top feeling sorry for himself, found a comfy spot in my memory and remained. Check out his interpretation of Alice's adventures in Wonderland, was published yonks ago but you can still get it from the Alice shop in Oxford I think. Browne may also be the reasoning behind my obsessive pre-Burton Planet of the Apes phase.

A couple of other influences; a book of tales for children-I've been hunting for this book since I left home and my original got thrown/given away, but I vividly remember my favourite story was on the last few pages. It was called 'The man with the Horse's head'. and it was a morality tale I think about a prince that rebelled against the king's rules and was cursed with a horse's head for the rest of his years. Anyway, the story was rubbish but the illustration stayed in my mind. It was a double spread page, with numerous pictures, the text over the images. The first image showed a very well adorned prince sitting on a throne, and I think there was a princess by his side. The second image was his transformation once the curse had been inflicted; the prince running in despair, clutching his face. The final picture depicts the prince sitting stoically back on his throne but alone...and with a horse's head. The pictures were very well painted and I remember the look in the prince's eyes in this final picture, it was extremely melancholic...a nice touch that he was wearing riding boots too....

It's not a mythical C.S. Lewis fantasy of animal/human hybrid I'm interested in though, it is the appearance of normality skewed in a subtle way; for example-one idea I have is a series of illustrations portraying day to day events such as making a cup of tea, cycling to work, smoking a cigarette....but the tea drinker has a beak or the cyclist is a sea horse, things like that-just silly and random.But I also want to maintain a dark, slightly unsettling tone, I think that's where the gothic influence comes in. So a lot of black ink sketches, elaborate borders and patterns etc. but more Gorey than Giger. A guy I'd forgotten about for a while who is pretty awesome is Ian Miller, this was one of my favourite images when I was a teenager-yes I was a strange teenager.