Fit 7, pg. 73/3 … the square root of negative one is snark!

There are times in one's life when one realizes that one has simply drawn too many lines for one's own good. Not in the above stanzel, of course, which has precisely the number of lines and squiggles necessary to evoke the horror of a fat, timorous Banker (played here by Karlos Marx) being done away with by a snappy, savage Bandersnatch, played here by a Hindustani monkey who spends his spare time inside a snake charmer's basket.

This business of lines without rest or pause makes a middle-aged cross-hatcher wonder at times: what's it all about, eh? One skips and hops one's way across a page and once one is done, good lord, there's another page! And another and another.

To those readers who come here regularly for a bit of snappy analysis and pithy tomfoolery concerning whatever page of my GN Snark happens to be up for it this week, this must all come as a bit of a surprise.

There are no deep thoughts behind the above stanzel. There is no meaning, hidden or otherwise, nor any subtle message. It's genuine Nonsense of the highest, inkiest, most linear order.

It's just a bunch of subcontinental monkeys and a possessed hookah shanghaing a Banker dressed up to look like Karl Marx until, like this rather depleted illustrator, fainting he falls to the ground.

Next week: more lines! Who would have thought it?

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NB. Saturnalia is fast approaching and smart shoppers know that no child's stocking is properly stuffed without a copy of this artist's GN version of the Snark. Not only is it the best thing Lewis Carroll ever wrote but this version goes all out to furnish the little tykes with what one reviewer called a "Surrealist version of Where's Waldo."

And why not lavish a fresh copy of Martin Olson's Encyclopaedia of Hell onto any disaffected, black-clad gothic teenagers you are compelled to know? The LA Weekly has an excellent review of it here and even better, you can buy the full-color poster here. It sure beats having Kurt Cobain on the wall, mom and dad. Available from Feral House or even Amazon.

Fit 7, pg. 73/2 … there's nothing like a good ol' delhi sandwich with extra snark and hold the marx

The Banker’s annihilation, or rather, impending deracination, at the hands of a Bandersnatch provides an excellent opportunity to shift the entire setting of this Snark into the farther reaches of the British Raj. We are in Old Delhi now and in the background of this Fit one can spot the distinctive silhouette of Delhi’s Red Fort, the last bastion of the Mughal emperors.

As for the Bandersnatch … modern Delhi is plagued by monkeys (they’ve even assassinated the deputy mayor) and the word for these sacred and homicidal creatures in Hindi, bander, combines perfectly with snatch for our deadly, Nonsensical purposes.

Was this deliberate on Carroll’s part? Who knows. Both the bander and his hookah have ensnared our Banker into playing the fatal role of the priest Laocoön, as immortalized in the immensely influential Greco-Roman sculpture of the same name.

The Laocoön: the marriage of rhetoric & draftsmanship … yow!

No scene of Carrollian tragedy would be complete without a pun of some sort and in this case, I’ve ensured that the cheque drawn to bearer really does bare her. Such a splendid specimen of well-inked feminine Snark-hunting pulchritude, eh, Carroll sahib?

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NB. Apropos of nothing in particular except the desire to emphasize the importance of being paid to any young illustrators/writers/designers who happen to be reading this, Harlan Ellison has this to say:

… I did a very long, very interesting on-camera interview about the making of Babylon Five early on. So she calls me and she tells me they’d like to use it on the DVD, and can that be arranged? And I said, “Absolutely, all you gotta do is pay me,” and she said, “What?” And I said, “You gotta pay me!” She said, “Well, everybody else is, just, you know, doing it for nothing.”

There's more here and it's worth reading. If the suits are stiffing Harlan Ellison, what do you think they're going to do to the likes of you and me? And doesn't this imply that certain artists/writers with marquee value equivalent to Mr. Ellison must be doing it for free?

As the prostitute Miss Trixie put it in Jacques O'Bean's classic satire of American politics & mores, American Candide:

“Doctor Pantone always said that the business of Freedonia is business … That means don’t do anything for free, unless you want everyone to disrespect you and call you a really cheap slut. And that kind of sucks.”

Fit 7, pg. 73/1 … the snarkhunters of kumaon

We've arrived at the central conceit of this particular Fit of the Snark. The Banker, played here by the Eminent Continental Steamer, Karl Marx, is about to be assaulted by his nemesis, the Bandersnatch. You can see the latter's oddly mishapen hand clutching at the rotund Teuton's bloated ankle.

Karl Marx never visited the Old Delhi Railway Station, nor did the Admirable Carroll but we can be fairly certain that if they did, the general tenor of their surroundings would have appeared much as this artist has depicted them. The animal and mannequin headed bystanders, the bazaar atmosphere of narghila-puffing loafers, complete with a snake-charmer awakening the mysterious inhabitant of his basket, it's all there.

Perhaps the less-travelled reader will be taken aback by this local color but those of you who ever wandered into Old Delhi will heave an appreciative, paan-fumed sigh. It's all there, the latter will confirm, and the artist has done a slap-up job of capturing the ineffable, nonsensical air of the place.

In short, thanks to a little judicious visual interpolation and conflation by yours truly, the poet Carroll has done a superb job — despite himself — of conveying the air of a place where he had never been and probably never wished to be. And that is the very essence of hunting a Snark, a beast which conceals itself by cleverly non-existing wherever you are — you need to be where you aren't to pick up its ineffable trail.

To be where you cannot possibly be, that is the Snark Hunter's essential dilemma and you might as well get over it right now. It's not logical, Carrollian Nonsense, so go ahead and heave out your pathetic shriek of despair as you understand — too late! — that it's useless to fly!

Take a locally crosshatched scooter rickshaw instead, sahib, and above all, don't drink the water.

Fit 7, pg. 69 … Dialectical snarxism

At last, we've reached Fit the Seventh of this graphic novel version of Lewis Carroll's Hunting of the Snark. I drew a frontispiece for the first page of each Fit, each one usually involving a feeble pun and all of them concealing in some manner the All-Seeing Eye which I chose to represent the Snark.


Karl Marx, the working man's Marx Brother

This Fit concerns the Banker and I chose Karl Marx to depict the Banker for simple reasons of poetic justice. This canto of the poem will prove to be his downfall, his well-deserved sweeping into the dustbin of history, the ol' coot. Imagine that, doubting our capitalist masters.


The Sleeping Odalisque by J.A.D. Ingres

For the moment though, his Fate is being depicted as his fête, or birthday party, in French. His cake has the requisite 42 candles and the charming Alexandra “Xie” Kitchin is playing the violin for his amusement, just as she did in Carroll’s photo. Xie was one of the poet’s favorite child friends although I doubt that he would have approved of her presence in this Snarky up-date of the French painter Ingres’ famous harem scene.


Alexandra "Xie" Kitchin as photographed by Lewis Carroll

No matter, the Banker’s fan-waving monkey will soon restore some decorum. His name in Hindi, bander, summons up the spirit of the Carrollian Bandersnatch, the Banker’s soon-to-appear nemesis. His hookah will also figure in his downfall, a Marxist reminder that opium is the religion of the masses.

Just say no, Karl!

Next week: The Gang of Four take Five