Archive for March, 2010
The Galaxy’s a fun place. You’ll need to have this fish in your ear.
Posted by: John Martz
Book: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (purchase on Amazon)
Ford, with a lightning movement, clapped his hand to Arthur’s ear, and he had the sudden sickening sensation of the fish slithering deep into his aural tract. Gasping with horror he scrabbled at his ear for a second or so, but then slowly turned goggle-eyed with wonder. He was experiencing the aural equivalent of looking at a picture of two black silhouetted faces and suddenly seeing it as a picture of a white candlestick. Or of looking at a lot of coloured dots on a piece of paper which suddenly resolve themselves into the figure six and mean that your optician is going to charge you a lot of money for a new pair of glasses.
The Babel fish is a living hearing aid that decodes the brainwaves embedded in all speech patterns. Like Star Trek’s universal translator, the Babel fish is a simple plot device used to avoid the obvious obstacle of an interstellar language barrier.
But like all good science fiction, the story and the characters here exist as vehicles for larger ideas. And with the Babel fish Douglas Adams, a self-described radical atheist, dismisses both Intelligent Design and the circular logic of religious extremism in one fell swoop:
Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mindbogglingly useful could have evolve purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as the final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God.
The argument goes something like this: ‘I refuse to prove that I exist,’ says God, ‘for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.’
‘But,’ says Man, ‘the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn’t it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don’t. QED.’
‘Oh dear,’ says God, ‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
I nearly didn’t illustrate this scene. After my first illustration, I was very aware that I hadn’t actually drawn any of the main characters yet. So I thought my next move should be to introduce Arthur Dent, the story’s protagonist, in some straight-forward, literal interpretation. But as I started to reread parts of my dogeared 1979 paperback, this image of the Babel Fish with a brain for a speech bubble materialized.
And it’s these little moments in the book that make Douglas Adams so much fun to read. The characters really do take a back seat to the ideas and philosophies sprinkled throughout. The main character isn’t Arthur Dent. As Douglas Adams would say, he’s just this guy, you know. It’s the book within the book, the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, that allows Douglas Adams to bounce from one idea to the next, and inject his world view into a series of events that can give it shape.
For kicks, here are iPhone-sized wallpaper versions of this, and my previous scene featuring Arthur’s home about to be demolished. Click for full size:
The Rats
Posted by: Julia Sonmi Heglund
Book: Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH (purchase on Amazon)
“There were a dozen of them, and at first she could not quite see what they were up to. Then she saw something moving, between them and behind them. It looked like a thick piece of rope, a long piece, maybe twenty feet. No. It was stiffer than rope. It was electric cable, the heavy, black kind used for outdoor wiring and strung on telephone poles.”
This is the first scene introducing the rats, and presents them in a mysterious way. Also curious is how the cat, Dragon, sleeps so soundly not too far away.
The Hobbit, part two
Posted by: Sam Bosma
Book: The Hobbit (purchase on Amazon)
“Dawn take you all, and be stone to you!”
This scene with the three trolls is one of my all time favorites in literature. I love the trolls arguing about how to cook the thirteen dwarves, and their dimwitted back and forth with the unseen Gandalf. It’s the first real scene where Gandalf reveals some of his power, keeping the murderous trolls occupied until the sun rises and smites the three.
I’ll be posting a rather lengthy post on the process of this piece on my blog come Friday, which should make me look like a real idiot.
Next month I’m looking to do something a lot more simple; these extensive pieces are sometimes pretty nasty to deal with.
Peter And Wendy: The Flight
Posted by: Will Bryant
Book: Peter Pan and Wendy (purchase on Amazon)
"Second to the right , and straight on till morning."
As I’m reading through J.M. Barrie’s story of Peter Pan I’m quickly liking Peter less and less. I must admit, it’s a shame that I’m more familiar with Disney’s adaptations of this adventure seeking boy. However, I understand why changes were made…Peter might as well be throwing rocks and giving these kids wedgies as they’re blindly “following the leader” to make believe land.
With that said, my interpretation of Peter is light hearted and currently leading the children on an adventure like a boy scout on the trail to summer camp. He’s got some charm in his knobby knees while soaring under Marc Bolan’s bebop moon. Try not to fall asleep while flying, catch ya in Neverland doods!
Check back tomorrow for the amazing Sam Bosma and his wonderful vision of The Hobbit!
Alice part two: the return of the White Rabbit.
Posted by: Meg Hunt
Book: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (purchase on Amazon)
click to enlarge.
Just at this moment her head struck against the roof of the hall: in fact she was now rather more than nine feet high…to get through was more hopeless than ever: she sat down and began to cry again…After a time she heard a little pattering of feet in the distance, and she hastily dried her eyes to see what was coming. It was the White Rabbit returning, splendidly dressed, with a pair of white kid-gloves in one hand and a large fan in the other.
In this scene, Alice is in a great hall of doors and just after drinking that fateful ‘Drink-Me’ bottle and shrinking, and then eating the ‘Eat-Me’ cake, she finds herself too big to use her little key to go where she wants to go. Her tears are the start of the Pool of Tears– right now harmless, but in a little bit that’ll change!
Anyhow, I wanted to be sure to introduce the White Rabbit into this second scene, as otherwise you wouldn’t see him til late into the series. He’s a little fussy, a little dapper, but mostly shocked at this giant girl! I guess I would be too.
Next month, we get outdoors and start exploring Wonderland. I’m excited, how about you? Check back tomorrow though for Will Bryant’s next scene from Peter Pan!
