Final Idea... The City in The Sea by Edgar Allan Poe..

After some really helpful and inciteful feedback from Phil today, it has come down to the moment of truth; whittling my research down tomy final idea, hopefully bringing my idea, an art direction/style and some thumbnail sketches to the table when i speak to phil tomorrow...

The City in The Sea by Edgar Allan Poe

Early on in my research for this unit, i established that i wanted to go with something quite dark, surreal and possibly gothic. I think The City in The Sea is the perfect opportunity for this, being a poem about a city ruled by death, that lays beneath the sea.

The Idea:

I will produce an environment based on the description in the poem with some small animation in terms of camera movement, lighting and fog, but my main focus will be producing a thorough pipeline for this unit going from pre-production right through to post-production without missing any stages of the pipeline out.

Style:

As i mentioned above, i imagine a gothic and surreal city that is in ruins. I also feel that this idea could possibly use some steampunk designs and the intricate details that can be found in The Brother's Quay work, particularly Street of Crocodiles which has some beautiful dusty and rusted textures. I've also considered the possibility of intigrative some textures using biro which i often use to draw and crosshatch on pieces of paper in my room.

The Poem:

Lo! Death has reared himself a throne
In a strange city lying alone
Far down within the dim West,
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best
Have gone to their eternal rest.
There shrines and palaces and towers
(Time-eaten towers that tremble not!)
Resemble nothing that is ours.
Around, by lifting winds forgot,
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.

No rays from the holy heaven come down
On the long night-time of that town;
But light from out the lurid sea
Streams up the turrets silently-
Gleams up the pinnacles far and free-
Up domes- up spires- up kingly halls-
Up fanes- up Babylon-like walls-
Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers
Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers-
Up many and many a marvellous shrine
Whose wreathed friezes intertwine
The viol, the violet, and the vine.
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.
So blend the turrets and shadows there
That all seem pendulous in air,
While from a proud tower in the town
Death looks gigantically down.

There open fanes and gaping graves
Yawn level with the luminous waves;
But not the riches there that lie
In each idol's diamond eye-
Not the gaily-jewelled dead
Tempt the waters from their bed;
For no ripples curl, alas!
Along that wilderness of glass-
No swellings tell that winds may be
Upon some far-off happier sea-
No heavings hint that winds have been
On seas less hideously serene.

But lo, a stir is in the air!
The wave- there is a movement there!
As if the towers had thrust aside,
In slightly sinking, the dull tide-
As if their tops had feebly given
A void within the filmy Heaven.
The waves have now a redder glow-
The hours are breathing faint and low-
And when, amid no earthly moans,
Down, down that town shall settle hence,
Hell, rising from a thousand thrones,
Shall do it reverence.

The first paragraph will be the focus of this unit, as it describes a town/city where death had created a throne in which he overlooks and watches the land he rules. This town/city is set under gloomy waters, being a place of rest, but not to be mistaken for hell, as it states 'Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best have gone to their eternal rest.'

The Lake by Edgar Allan Poe...

Another interesting poem i found by Edgar Allan Poe was The Lake which has a beautiful description of a wild lake which is positioned in a quiet and lonesome spot, as the poem goes on to describe the scene of the lake in amongst the beauty of the night sky.

In spring of youth it was my lot
To haunt of the wide world a spot
The which I could not love the less--
So lovely was the loneliness
Of a wild lake, with black rock bound,
And the tall pines that towered around.

But when the Night had thrown her pall
Upon that spot, as upon all,
And the mystic wind went by
Murmuring in melody--
Then--ah then I would awake
To the terror of the lone lake.

Yet that terror was not fright,
But a tremulous delight--
A feeling not the jewelled mine
Could teach or bribe me to define--
Nor Love--although the Love were thine.

Death was in that poisonous wave,
And in its gulf a fitting grave
For him who thence could solace bring
To his lone imagining--
Whose solitary soul could make
An Eden of that dim lake.

The City in the Sea by Edgar Allan Poe...

The City in The Sea is a poem by Edgar Allan Poe and another take on the many stories and adaptations of death and its connection with hell. The final version was published in 1845, but an earlier version was published as "The Doomed City" in 1831 and, later, as "The City of Sin". The poem tells the story of a city ruled by Death using common elements from Gothic fiction. Poe drew his inspiration from several works, including Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and was accused of plagiarizing "The City in the Sea" from a lesser-known poem.

Lo! Death has reared himself a throne
In a strange city lying alone
Far down within the dim West,
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best
Have gone to their eternal rest.
There shrines and palaces and towers
(Time-eaten towers that tremble not!)
Resemble nothing that is ours.
Around, by lifting winds forgot,
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.

No rays from the holy heaven come down
On the long night-time of that town;
But light from out the lurid sea
Streams up the turrets silently-
Gleams up the pinnacles far and free-
Up domes- up spires- up kingly halls-
Up fanes- up Babylon-like walls-
Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers
Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers-
Up many and many a marvellous shrine
Whose wreathed friezes intertwine
The viol, the violet, and the vine.
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.
So blend the turrets and shadows there
That all seem pendulous in air,
While from a proud tower in the town
Death looks gigantically down.

There open fanes and gaping graves
Yawn level with the luminous waves;
But not the riches there that lie
In each idol's diamond eye-
Not the gaily-jewelled dead
Tempt the waters from their bed;
For no ripples curl, alas!
Along that wilderness of glass-
No swellings tell that winds may be
Upon some far-off happier sea-
No heavings hint that winds have been
On seas less hideously serene.

But lo, a stir is in the air!
The wave- there is a movement there!
As if the towers had thrust aside,
In slightly sinking, the dull tide-
As if their tops had feebly given
A void within the filmy Heaven.
The waves have now a redder glow-
The hours are breathing faint and low-
And when, amid no earthly moans,
Down, down that town shall settle hence,
Hell, rising from a thousand thrones,
Shall do it reverence.

'Watch a city grow over night' and 'World Builder'...

I'm still looking into environment and object research for the transcription project, so here's a couple of animations from AniBoom, courtesy of Shabhir all about environment design...



Animation by Anca Risca and Joji Tsuruga



by filmmaker Bruce Branit.

The Bells by Edgar Allan Poe...

I decided to look into Edgar Allan Poe's short stories and poems as an influence for this transcription unit... The bells was a particularly interesting poem which specifically revolves around bells, repeatedly mentioning them throughout...

"The Bells" is a heavily onomatopoeic poem which is perhaps best known for the diacopic repetition of the word "bells". The poem has four parts to it; each part becomes darker and darker as the poem progresses from "the jingling and the tinkling" of the bells in part 1 to the "moaning and the groaning" of the bells in part 4.

I

Hear the sledges with the bells —
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells —
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

II

Hear the mellow wedding bells —
Golden bells!
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
Through the balmy air of night
How they ring out their delight!
From the molten-golden notes,
And all in tune,
What a liquid ditty floats
To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats
On the moon!
Oh, from out the sounding cells
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
How it swells!
How it dwells
On the Future! — how it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells —
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!

III

Hear the loud alarum bells —
Brazen bells!
What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak,
They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune,
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,
And a resolute endeavor
Now — now to sit or never,
By the side of the pale-faced moon.
Oh, the bells, bells, bells!
What a tale their terror tells
Of Despair!
How they clang, and clash, and roar!
What a horror they outpour
On the bosom of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear it fully knows,
By the twanging
And the clanging,
How the danger ebbs and flows;
Yet the ear distinctly tells,
In the jangling
And the wrangling,
How the danger sinks and swells,
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells —
Of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells —
In the clamor and the clangor of the bells!

IV

Hear the tolling of the bells —
Iron bells!
What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!
In the silence of the night,
How we shiver with affright
At the melancholy menace of their tone!
For every sound that floats
From the rust within their throats
Is a groan.
And the people — ah, the people —
They that dwell up in the steeple,
All alone,
And who tolling, tolling, tolling,
In that muffled monotone,
Feel a glory in so rolling
On the human heart a stone —
They are neither man nor woman —
They are neither brute nor human —
They are Ghouls:
And their king it is who tolls;
And he rolls, rolls, rolls,
Rolls
A paean from the bells!
And his merry bosom swells
With the paean of the bells!
And he dances, and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the paean of the bells,
Of the bells —
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the throbbing of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells —
To the sobbing of the bells;
Keeping time, time, time,
As he knells, knells, knells,
In a happy Runic rhyme,
To the rolling of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells —
To the tolling of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells —
To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.

Giovanni Piranesi (1720-1778)...

When reading about Erik Desmazieres i came across Giovanni Piranesi an Italian artist famous for his also famous for etchings, particularly of Rome and fictitious and atmospheric "prisons".

The Prisons (Carceri d'invenzione or 'Imaginary Prisons'), is a series of 16 prints produced in first and second states that show enormous subterranean vaults with stairs and mighty machines. These in turn influenced Romanticism and Surrealism. While the Vedutisti (or "view makers") such as Canaletto and Bellotto, more often reveled in the beauty of the sunlit place, in Piranesi this vision takes on a Kafkaesque, Escher-like distortion, seemingly erecting fantastic labyrinthian structures, epic in volume, but empty of purpose. They are cappricci -whimsical aggregates of monumental architecture and ruin. The series was started in 1745. The first state prints were published in 1750 and consisted of 14 etchings, untitled and unnumbered, with a sketch-like look. For the second publishing in 1761, all the etchings were reworked and numbered I–XVI (1–16). Numbers II and V were new etchings to the series. Numbers I through IX were all done in portrait format, while X to XVI were landscape. Though untitled, their conventional titles are:

1. Title Page



3. Round Tower



4. The Grand Piazza



5. The Lion Bas-Reliefs



6. The Smoking Fire



7. The Drawbridge



8. The Staircase with Trophies



9. The Giant Wheel



10. Prisoners on a Projecting Platform



11. The Arch with a Shell Ornament



12. The Sawhorse



13. The Well



14. The Gothic Arch



15. Pier with a Lamp



16. Pier with Chains

Erik Desmazieres...

Whilst looking through the work of Jorge Luis Borges, I came across Erik Desmazieres, an artist who's work particularly focuses on imaginary architecture using the styles and techniques of etching.

"Erik Desmazières was born in Rabbat, Morocco, son of a French diplomat. He spent his childhood in Morcco, Portugal, and France. Desmazières studied at the Institute d’Etudes Politiqoue, political science and took an evening art course at the Cours du Soir de la Ville. After graduation he decided to pursue a career as an artist."

"Considered to be one of the finest printmakers of his generation, Desmazières was strongly influenced by artists such as Giovanni Piranesi and Jacques Callot. Erik Desmazières work is represented by galleries in Europe, the United States, and Japan and is collected by important museums worldwide."

Artworks:

Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) Short Stories...

Jorge Luis Borges, was an Argentine writer, essayist, and poet born in Buenos Aires. In 1921, Borges began publishing his poems and essays in surrealist literary journals. His work was translated and published widely in the United States and in Europe. Borges himself was fluent in several languages. His work embraces the "character of unreality in all literature." His most famous books, Ficciones (1944) and The Aleph (1949), are compilations of short stories interconnected by common themes such as dreams, labyrinths, libraries, fictional writers, religion and God. His works have contributed to the genre of magical realism, a genre that reacted against the realism/naturalism of the nineteenth century. Writer and essayist J. M. Coetzee said of him: "He, more than anyone, renovated the language of fiction and thus opened the way to a remarkable generation of Spanish American novelists."

Here's a few notable stories/texts that rely heavily on a specific object, space or place throughout the narrative...

The Book of Sand



The "Book of Sand" is the Book of all Books, and is a monster. The story tells how this book came into the possession of a fictional version of Borges himself, and of how he ultimately disposed of it.

On opening the book, Borges finds that the pages are written in an indecipherable script appearing in double columns, ordered in versicles as in a Bible. When he opens to a page with an illustration, the bookseller advises a close look, since the page will never be found, or seen, again. It proves impossible to find the first or last page. This Book of Sand has no beginning or end: its pages are infinite. Each page is numbered, apparently uniquely but in no discernible pattern. The bookseller indicates that he acquired the book in exchange for a handful of rupees and a Bible, from an owner who did not know how to read. He and the fictive Borges strike a bargain, and Borges exchanges his entire pension plus a black-letter Wyclif Bible for the miraculous book. The worldly Borges ultimately proves no more able to live with the terrifying book than was the salesman. He considers destroying the book by fire, but decides against this after reasoning that such a fire would release infinite amounts of smoke, and asphyxiate the entire world. Ultimately, Borges transports the book to the Argentine National Library with the infinite book deliberately lost in a near-infinity of books.

The Zahir



In the story, Zahir is a person or an object that has the power to create an obsession in everyone who sees it, so that the affected person perceives less and less of reality and more and more of the Zahir, at first only while asleep, then at all times.

Borges plays himself in the story as a man who, after paying for a drink, gets the Zahir in his change. At the very beginning of the story Borges describes it: a common twenty-centavo coin, with the year of minting of 1929 and knife marks scratching the letters N T and the figure 2. Borges then tells the reader about a train of thought focused on famous coins throughout history and legend, and the fact that a coin symbolizes our free will, since it can be turned into anything. These feverish thoughts keep him awake for a while. The next day Borges decides to lose the coin. He goes to a faraway neighborhood in Buenos Aires and manages to get rid of the Zahir by paying for another drink in an anonymous bar.

The writer is unable to forget the coin, which fills his dreams and his waking moments too. In the meantime, he tries to look for a cure to his obsession, and after some research he finds a book that explains his malady. In this book, the Borges character reads that the Zahir is a piece of Islamic folklore that dates back to the 17th century. A Zahir is an object that traps everyone who so much as takes a look at it, even from afar, into an obsession that finally erases the rest of reality. In other times and places, a tiger has been a Zahir, as well as an astrolabe, the bottom of a well, and a vein in a marble column in a mosque. According to the myth, everything on earth has the propensity to be a Zahir, but "the Almighty does not allow more than one thing at a time to be it, since one alone can seduce multitudes".

Borges tells us that soon he will be unable to perceive external reality, and he will have to be dressed and fed. In idealistic philosophy, "to live and to dream are synonymous", and he will simply pass "from a very complex dream to a very simple dream". In a mixture of despair and resignation, he wonders:

Others will dream that I am mad, and I [will dream] of the Zahir. When all men on earth think day and night of the Zahir, which one will be a dream and which a reality, the earth or the Zahir.



The Library of Babel



Borges's narrator describes how his universe consists of an enormous expanse of interlocking hexagonal rooms, each of which contains the bare necessities for human survival—and four walls of bookshelves. Though the order and content of the books is random and apparently completely meaningless, the inhabitants believe that the books contain every possible ordering of just a few basic characters (letters, spaces and punctuation marks). Though the majority of the books in this universe are pure gibberish, the library also must contain, somewhere, every coherent book ever written, or that might ever be written, and every possible permutation or slightly erroneous version of every one of those books. The narrator notes that the library must contain all useful information, including predictions of the future, biographies of any person, and translations of every book in all languages.

Despite — indeed, because of — this glut of information, all books are totally useless to the reader, leaving the librarians in a state of suicidal despair. This leads some librarians to superstitions and cult-like behaviour, such as the "Purifiers", who arbitrarily destroy books they deem nonsense as they move through the library seeking the "Crimson Hexagon" and its illustrated, magical books. Another is the belief that since all books exist in the library, somewhere one of the books must be a perfect catalog of the library's contents; some even believe that a messianic figure known as the "Man of the Book" has read it, and they travel through the library seeking him.

The Voyage of The Poppykettle by Robert R. Ingpen...

A long time ago in Peru, a community of miniature fishermen lived along the beach. Theirs was a simple life, making canoes out of grass and fishing for anchovies. But when the Spaniards invade, the little Peruvians have to search for a new home.

Transforming an old tea kettle into a ship suitable for the high seas, the small band set off in search of a land "beyond the horizon". They sail across the mighty pacific, dodging ferocius iguanas near the Galapagos Islands, getting lost on perilous reefs, and nearly sinking in a terrible storm. Finally, their tea kettle comes to rest in a strange new land they can call home - Australia.

Robert Ingpen animates this peculiar tale with vivid, rich illustrations, and imaginatively captures the details of daily life aboard a little tea kettle.

Norse Mythology... Cosmology...

The Norse were a Seafaring people, and viewed the world through a polar-coordinate-system. In Norse mythology there are 'nine worlds' (níu heimar), that many scholars summarize as follows:

Midgard - world of average human experience
Álfheimr - world of the Álfar (elves).
Svartálfaheim - world of the Svartálfar (black elves)
Vanaheimr - world of the Vanir
Muspellheim - world of fire
Jötunheimr - world of the jötnar
Niflheim - world of those who die from age or sickness.
Asgard - world of the Æsir
Hel - world of the Niðavellir, netherworld.

Each world also had significant places within. Valhalla is Odin's hall located in Asgard. It was also home of the Einherjar, who were the souls of the greatest warriors. These warriors were selected by the Valkyries. The Einherjar would help defend the gods during Ragnarok.

These worlds are connected by Yggdrasil, the world tree, a giant tree with Asgard at its top. Chewing at its roots in Niflheim is Nidhogg, a ferocious serpent or dragon. Asgard can also be reached by Bifrost, a rainbow bridge guarded by Heimdall, a god who can see and hear for a thousand miles.

Japanese/Chinese Mythology... Yomi...

In Japanese mythology, Yomi is the underworld in which horrible creatures guard the exits. According to Shinto mythology as related in Kojiki, this is where the dead go to dwell and apparently rot indefinitely. Once one has eaten at the hearth of Yomi it is impossible to return to the land of the living. Yomi is comparable to Hades or hell. This realm of the dead seems to have geographical continuity with this world and certainly cannot be thought of as a paradise to which one would aspire, nor can it appropriately be described as a hell in which one suffers retribution for past deeds; rather, all deceased carry on a gloomy and shadowy existence in perpetuity regardless of their behavior in life. Many scholars believe that the image of Yomi was derived from ancient Japanese tombs in which corpses were left for some time to decompose. After the arrival of Buddhism, Yomi also became one of the Buddhist hells in Japan, like Kakuri which is ruled by Enma (Judge of the Underworld).

The kanji (Chinese characters) that are sometimes used to transcribe Yomi actually refer to the mythological Chinese realm of the dead called Huángquán, which appears in Chinese texts as early as the eighth century BCE. This dark and vaguely-defined realm was believed to be located beneath the earth, but it was not until the Han Dynasty that the Chinese had a clearly articulated conception of an underworld below in contrast with a heavenly realm above. With regard to Japanese mythology, Yomi is generally taken by commentators to lie beneath the earth and is part of a triad of locations discussed in Kojiki: Takamahara ("high heavenly plain", located in the sky), Ashihara-no-Nakatsukuni ("central land of reed plains", located on earth?), and Yomo-tsu-kuni ("Land of the Yomi", located underground).

Yomi is ruled over by Izanami no Mikoto, the Grand Deity of Yomi. According to Kojiki, the entrance to Yomi lies in Izumo province and was sealed off by Izanagi upon his flight from Yomi, at which time he permanently blocked the entrance by placing a massive boulder at the base of the slope that leads to Yomi. Upon his return to Ashihara-no-Nakatsukuni, Izanagi noted that Yomi is a "polluted land". This opinion reflects the traditional Shinto association between death and pollution.

Transcription... NEW Missionary Statement...

After some more feedback from Alan and Phil, I feel it's important to write a new missionary statement clearly identifying what i want from this project. Here are the main areas i need to improve and tackle in this project if i'm going to have any chance of a successful product at the end of the 10 week programme:

1. DEEP RESEARCH - After my talk last week, it was clear that Alan's emphasis on some deep research was going to be pivotal in my success during this unit. I decided to start from scratch, taking the suggestions my tutors had previously made as a start point and branching out from there. This means that from every bit of research i have the possibility of finding 10 more things and from those, a further 10 things etc giving a broader range of ideas and knowledge.

2. CHARACTER DESIGN OR ENVIRONMENT? - Phil asked a good question, and one that i hadn't really given some proper consideration until now. At this stage in the course, i would say my strengths definitely sway towards environment design, which Phil suggests i should use to direct the story of my animation. This would mean finding a story, narrative or text that heavily depends and revolves around environments or even objects.

3. STYLE - The most important thing i have taken from their feedback is a need to incorporate style into my work, with Alan suggesting creating a styles research portfolio, whilst Phil has recommended finding a story or text to transcribe before adopting a legitimate style to add to the mix. This could be from artists or illustrators from a similar time period or whose work naturally lends to the subject area of environments or objects in this case.

4. CONFIDENCE - A common hinderence in my work and studies is my lack of confidence. The only way i can tackle this successfully is to do well in my work, get stuck in and try to absorb as much knowledge from the resources (tutors, classmates, books, films/animations etc) around me as possible.

Other key skills i wish to adapt and further develop during this unit are a strong production pipeline from pre-production to post-production, organisation and time management skills, umong other...

Irish Folklore... The Demon Bride...

The ancient churchyard of Truagh, County Monaghan, is said to be haunted by an evil spirit, whose appearance generally forebodes death.

According to legend, at funerals the spirit watches for the person who remains last in the graveyard. If it be a young man who is there alone, the spirit takes the form of a beautiful young girl, inspires him with ardent passion, and exacts a promise that he will meet her on that day and month in the churchyard. The promise is then sealed with a kiss, which sends a fatal fire through his veins, so that he is unable to resist her caresses, and makes the promise required. Then she disappears, and the young man proceeds homewards; but no sooner has he passed the boundary wall of the churchyard, than the whole story of the evil spirit rushes on his mind, and he knows that he has sold himself, soul and body, for a demon's kiss. The terror and dismay take hold of him, till despair becomes insanity, and on the very day and month fixed for the meeting with the demon bride, the victim dies the death of a raving lunatic, and is laid in the fatal graveyard of Truagh.

But the evil spirit does not limit its operations to the graveyard; for sometimes the beautiful demon form appears at weddings or festivities, and never fails to secure its victims, by dancing them into the fever that maddens the brain, and too surely ends in death.

The Hunting of The Snark by Lewis Carroll...

The Hunting of the Snark (An Agony in 8 Fits) is usually thought of as a nonsense poem written by Lewis Carroll in 1874, when he was 42 years old. It describes "with infinite humour the impossible voyage of an improbable crew to find an inconceivable creature".

The story follows a crew who after crossing the sea guided by the Bellman's map of the Ocean—a blank sheet of paper— arrive in a strange land. The Baker recalls that his uncle once warned him that, though catching Snarks is all well and good, you must be careful; for, if your Snark is a Boojum, then you will softly and suddenly vanish away, and never be met with again. With this in mind, they split up to hunt. Along the way, the Butcher and Beaver -previously mutually wary for the Butcher's specialty in preparing beavers- become fast friends, the Barrister falls asleep and dreams of a court trial defended by the Snark, and the Banker loses his sanity after being attacked by a frumious Bandersnatch. At the end, the Baker calls out that he has found a Snark; but when the others arrive he has mysteriously disappeared, 'For the Snark was a Boojum, you see'.

Illustrated Works:

When looking through the artwork of Max Ernst, i came across these bold and stylistic illustrations which Ernst himself played a part in creating. The design of the ship and characters in these illustrations have a particularly strong style, adopting a golden-age fairytale feel. Much like transcriptions for films like The Chronicles of Narnia and Alice in Wonderland, I feel that The Hunting of The Snark could also have a very fantastical and magical feel/style that would create a great family animation/film.

Japanese Folklore... Monsters/Creatures...

Yokai Daizukai, an illustrated guide to yokai authored by manga artist Shigeru Mizuki, features a collection of cutaway diagrams showing the anatomy of 85 traditional monsters from Japanese folklore. Here Pinktentacle did explanations for a few illustrations from the book.



Yanagi-baba ('willow witch') is the spirit of 1,000-year-old willow tree. Anatomical features include long, green hair resembling leafy willow branches, wrinkled bark-like skin, a stomach that supplies nourishment directly to the tree roots, a sac for storing tree sap, and a cane cut from the wood of the old tree. Although Yanagi-baba is relatively harmless, she is known to harass passersby by snatching umbrellas into her hair, blowing fog out through her nose, and spitting tree sap.

The Mannen-dake ("10,000-year bamboo") is a bamboo-like monster that feeds on the souls of lost travelers camping in the woods. Anatomical features include a series of tubes that produce air that causes travelers to lose their way, syringe-like fingers the monster inserts into victims to suck out their souls, and a sac that holds the stolen souls.

The Makura-gaeshi ("pillow-mover") is a soul-stealing prankster known for moving pillows around while people sleep. The creature is invisible to adults and can only be seen by children. Anatomical features include an organ for storing souls stolen from children, another for converting the souls to energy and supplying it to the rest of the body, and a pouch containing magical sand that puts people to sleep when it gets in the eyes. In addition, the monster has two brains -- one for devising pranks, and one for creating rainbow-colored light that it emits through its eyes.

The Kuro-kamikiri ("black hair cutter") is a large, black-haired creature that sneaks up on women in the street at night and surreptitiously cuts off their hair. Anatomical features include a brain wired for stealth and trickery, razor-sharp claws, a long, coiling tongue covered in tiny hair-grabbing spines, and a sac for storing sleeping powder used to knock out victims. The digestive system includes an organ that produces a hair-dissolving fluid, as well as an organ with finger-like projections that thump the sides of the intestines to aid digestion.

The Kijimunaa is a playful forest sprite inhabiting the tops of Okinawan banyan trees. Anatomical features include eye sockets equipped with ball bearings that enable the eyeballs to spin freely, strong teeth for devouring crabs and ripping out the eyeballs of fish (a favorite snack), a coat of fur made from tree fibers, and a nervous system adapted for carrying out pranks. The Kijimunaa's brain contains vivid memories of being captured by an octopus -- the only thing it fears and hates.

Kasha, a messenger of hell, is a fiery monster known for causing typhoons at funerals. Anatomical features include powerful lungs for generating typhoon-force winds that can lift coffins and carry the deceased away, as well as a nose for sniffing out funerals, a tongue that can detect wind direction, and a pouch containing ice from hell. To create rain, the Kasha spits chunks of this ice through its curtain of perpetual fire.

The Hyōsube, a child-sized river monster (a relative of the kappa) from Kyushu that lives in underwater caves, ventures onto land at night to eat rice plants. The monster has a relatively small brain, a nervous system specialized in detecting the presence of humans, thick rubbery skin, sharp claws, two small stomachs (one for rice grains and one for fish), a large sac for storing surplus food, and two large oxygen sacs for emergency use. A pair of rotating bone coils produce an illness-inducing bacteria that the monster sprinkles on unsuspecting humans.

The Fukuro-sage -- a type of tanuki (raccoon dog) found in Nagano prefecture and Shikoku -- has the ability to shapeshift into a sake bottle, which is typically seen rolling down sloping streets. The bottle may pose a danger to people who try to follow it downhill, as it may lead them off a cliff or into a ditch. The Fukuro-sage usually wears a large potato leaf or fern leaf on its head and carries a bag made from human skin. The bag contains a bottle of poison sake. Anatomical features include a stomach that turns food into sake, a sac for storing poison that it mixes into drinks, and a pouch that holds sake lees. The Fukuro-sage's urine has a powerful smell that can disorient humans and render insects and small animals unconscious.

The Doro-ta-bō ("muddy rice field man"), a monster found in muddy rice fields, is said to be the restless spirit of a hard-working farmer whose lazy son sold his land after he died. The monster is often heard yelling, "Give me back my rice field!" Anatomical features include a gelatinous lower body that merges into the earth, a 'mud sac' that draws nourishment from the soil, lungs that allow the creature to breathe when buried, and an organ that converts the Doro-ta-bō's resentment into energy that heats up his muddy spit. One eyeball remains hidden under the skin until the monster encounters the owner of the rice field, at which time the eye emerges and emits a strange, disorienting light.

The Bisha-ga-tsuku is a soul-stealing creature encountered on dark snowy nights in northern Japan. The monster -- which maintains a body temperature of -150 degrees Celsius -- is constantly hidden behind a fog of condensation, but its presence can be detected by the characteristic wet, slushy sound ("bisha-bisha") it makes. Anatomical features include feelers that inhale human souls and cold air, a sac for storing the sounds of beating human hearts, and a brain that emits a fear-inducing aura. The Bisha-ga-tsuku reproduces by combining the stolen human souls with the cold air it inhales.