Book Review: Skary Childrin and the Carousel of Sorrorow

Skary Childrin and the Carousel of Sorrow by Katy Towell

"Adelaide Foss, Maggie Borland, and Beatrice Alfred are known by their classmates at Widowsbury's Madame Gertrude's School for Girls as "scary children." Unfairly targeted because of their peculiarities—Adelaide has an uncanny resemblance to a werewolf, Maggie is abnormally strong, and Beatrice claims to be able to see ghosts—the girls spend a good deal of time isolated in the school's inhospitable library facing detention. But when a number of people mysteriously begin to disappear in Widowsbury, the girls work together, along with Steffen Weller, son of the cook at Rudyard School for Boys, to find out who is behind the abductions. Will they be able to save Widowsbury from a sinister 12-year-old curse? " Source: Amazon

I was introcuced to "Childrin R Skary" through a friend of mine, who showed me the animations made by the author herself. Said animations have mostly one running theme:
Little scary girls and how they change the world for the better or the worse. They were quite nice to watch, though a bit badly drawn and a bit too predictable in their story, but entertaining and creative in other aspects. (That does sound worse than I inteded it to. I guess it would be best if you judge for yourselves: http://skary.com/)

Now the author has brought her ideas to paper and the result is this book. It was printed in 2011 and since I liked the ideas and the style of the videos, I purchased it. It´s a quick read (about 270 pages), it´s illustrated and it´s... genuienly entertaining, adorable, and exciting and the intended message is solid and conveyed wonderfully. 

There is little to complain about the book, since it know what it wants: The characters are charming and relateable and they have their strenghts and flaws. There have been times when I rolled my eyes at all four of the main characters, though this did not stem from BAD writing, but from GOOD writing. They were portrayed as children who have yet to find their place in the world and make mistakes because of it. All motivations were comprehensible.

The story is not ashamed to become dark and edgy while still having its cute and nice moments. It´s not complex, but also not banal. It has style and a goal. It´s simply a enjoyable, gloomy adventure.

An illustration from the book

My only real problem with the book is... it´s illustrations. It´s not like the author did not try, the pictures are a huge step upward from the animation. But - and I know I´m being full of myself here - if you can count the mistakes that you used to make just a few years ago in every illustration, it kind of takes you out of the experience. Buuut: It´s always clear what is meant to be expressed and for someone less nitpicky than me, the illustrations might not be a problem at all.

I recommend the book especially to adolescents and children that are into vampires, werewolfs and gothis culture anyways (provided they can read English) and to adults who can appreciate a lovely told, eerie, little story. Apart from that you can get a first impression with the animations, of course. If you like what you´ve seen there, you will love the book.

- Nekromantenhase

Copyright to "Skary Childrin and the Carousel of Sorrow" and all related pictures shown in this entry belong to Katy Towell and the Knopf Books for Young Readers.
Said pictures are hosted and shown under the right of review.

SOIL

Erst einmal habe ich nicht so gute Nachrichten:
Das diesjährige Schattenspiele wird leider das letzte sein.
Auch wenn wir gerne miteinander arbeiten, gehen unsere Vorstellungen für das Projekt zu stark auseinander, um weiterhin Bestand zu haben. Wir arbeiten prima in Dous, aber aus irgend einem Grund nicht in Trios *mit den Schultern zuckt* Cést la vie!

Aus diesem Grund und anderen bin ich (Nekromantenhase) nun Leiterin des Projekts und der letzen Ausgabe, während die anderen auf freiwilliger Basis mitmachen können.
Bisher habe ich Zusagen von drei Comic-Zeichnern, dass sie gerne ein Werk beisteuern würden.
Das Werk steht auf etwas wackeligeren Beinen als sonst, aber es steht, ist, was ich sagen will.

Aber weiter zum Comic:

"Soil" was intended as a stylistic take on the artstyle "Art Nouveau" or "Jugendstil" of the 1920´s. A horror story that is chilling, but also beautiful to look at. It was also the first comic to be drawn for Schattenspiele 2012. The Comic, unfortunately, fell flat on different levels, in my opinion: 

First, I should have looked at Art Nouveau and it´s stylistic elements more closely before starting to draw, as the similarities start out at zero percent and reach maye 10% at best on the latter pages. 

Second: I should have added text, since the pictures alone can´t carry it on it´s own, at least not the way I portrayed it, it´s too abstract. 

Basically, what´s up is this: The white cherry trees shown start bleeding when rain falls unto them and said blood sips through the skin of creatures that rest below it, infecting them. The woman stands up, but falls down quickly and seemingly dies, when in reality, she turns into a tree herself. Years later a couple shows up and picks some cherries, only for the woman to realize, that they taste like blood and the man to cut one up to see the silhouette of a baby instead of a pit inside. 

The story is not designed to make sense on a narrative level, it´s more a contemplation on the merging of two pictures: The tree and the woman. Blood streams that are twigs, (the third panel of page four is trying to emulate upside-down lungs growing out of her chest (GETIT?)), tree sap as blood and fruits as... well... embryoes.

Fun fact: There is tree called "blood cherry" in German :D

Artist Spotlight: Toyen

 

Marie Cerminova, who took on the pseudonym Toyen when she was 21, is, in my opinion, the most important woman in Czech Surrealism. And yet she is shockingly unknown even among Art Historians (at least in Germany), it seems. Let´s change that, shall we?

I apologize to all Czechs in advance for the oversimplified letters. I would use the correct ones - if I could find them…

Phantom object 1937

She was born 1902 in Prag and joined the Avantgarde-Group “Devetsil” in 1923 which later became the Czech Surrealist movement. She was in contact with the French Surrealists as well and took part in almost all the most important events and exhibitions. Even during  the occupation by the Nazis from 1939-1946 she still created paintings and even hid her colleague Heisler in her home. She was calling herself a Surrealist even after the disbanding of the movement in 1969 and until her death in 1980.

Shooting Gallery 1940

While, as I already wrote, she is in fact not a Horror-Artist, but a Surrealist, her paintings and drawings definitely have an element of “spooky calmness” to them, since – among other things – it was the intention of the Surrealist movement to alienate or even shock the viewer with what s/he sees, plus, her main motives are the war and sexuality. Something shocking is bound to be found.

Paravent 1966

After the performance 1943

Message of the forest 1936

Sources: 

Weiss, Judith Elisabeth; Byzovska, Lenka a.o.: "Chronologie Paris-Prag 1919-1969"

Debatin, Sarah; Guntrum, Anja a.o.:"Biografien"

in: "Gegen jede Vernunft, Surrealismus Paris-Prag"

Wikipainting.org

Mrs Two-Face Work-in-Progress

A work-in-progress where I took a scan about every 10 to 20 minutes

First I sketch the overall outline of the upper body, position of the hand and position of where the mirror is supposed to be. I use a 1:8 head to body ratio and sketch the middle line to keep the position of the body in check.

 Aaand I add the arms. It´s important to note that the ellebows are in line with the navel. I use a circle-construction to understand what needs to be where.

 Adding the hat and detailing the body further. I also use lines on the legs once again to determine the middle and to better understand the 3rd dimension.

 Adding more details like the clothes. The cloth follows the rules of gravity, of course, as seen with the sleeves. Still it is a rather thight-fitting suit and the cloth is rather stiff, making little wrinkles. The face is symmetrical. Yet.

 And there comes the monstrous/fun part: Next to detailing the clothes by adding buttons and the blouse underneath, I differenciate the two sides by making the hair more messy, adding a structure to the face and oversubscribe the expression. Note the corner of the mouth reaching way up on the one side but not the other. I also emphasize the knuckles.

 Drawing the outlines... nothing special. Adding a few wrinkles here and there, especially on the blouse,since it´s made of lighter and softer material. It´s also sensible to vary the thickness of the lines depending on the shading. It just makes the outlines more vivid.

 Dubidubidah, structures! ... I don´t really know what to add, to be honest...

 Starting to shade. There are different techniques to shading, of course, the one I am using here is rather stylized. I first draw the outlines of the shadow itself while in real life this is something you would not see, of course. The light source is in the upper left corner.

 To really drive the point home, I use different ways of shading for the two halves. Clean and orderly lines for the left, sketchy and scratchy ones for the right side. The impression that I want to convey is that the left half is made of silk while the right one is made of velvet that is partly covered in mold. But as I said, it´s stylized. Also I decide to make the suit and blouse the opposite color respectively.

 Lah lah lah, shadiiing...

 Moar shadiiiing...

And done!
What a lovely lady :D

PS: This work-in-progress is not up to date with my expertise,
One can see that my anatomical knowledge is rather limited, as such I do advise anyone not to use the same method. Look into anatomy, sketch bones, then muscles, the the skin, if you aim for a realistic looking human being.

Junji Ito

A great Horror-Mangaka and a great inspiration to us all.

Instead of counting down the steps of his life à la Wikipedia, I shall do something different:

Junji Ito has published over 30 books full of manga stories already and since he tends to focus on short stories from 20 to 40 pages he covered a wide variety of topics to make into horror stories. So I´ll instead count down the

"Top 5 most ridiculous sounding things that Junji Ito made a terrifying horror story of"

or

"Top 5 pretty harmless things that Ito Junji will ruin for you"

Yo, ho, ho, pirates! Spoilers ahead! Also disgusting pictures. You have been warned.

***

(Of course this top 5 is purely subjective. The places where chosen on the base of the biggest gap between how harmless/ridiculous the topic and how terrifying the results are)

No 5 - Snails

Okay, this one only ranks so low because there are a lot of people that - even though not necessarily afraid of snails, they find them pretty icky. Now take that and multiply it with the mind of a former dentist - yes he used to be a dentist and no-one is surprised - and you get stories like "slug girl" or some chapters of Uzumaki. Now you might think: Oh well, it´s still just a snail. No matter if you make it big or extra disgusting or acid sweating or anything, you can always outrun it, oh WAIT...

Hey, fun fact: The story is 16 pages long, this is page 9. It only gets worse from there :D

No 4 - Balloons

At first, something as unthreatening as a balloon seems rather crappy material for a horror story unless you throw in some creepy clowns. One of the great qualitys of his horror stories though, is, that he manages to fuse two thoughts into one: In "The hanging balloons", mysterious floating balloon-heads with nooses are out to get the person that shares their face. The image of a gallow combined with a balloon. While the story itself is not that scary, which is also why I ranked it so low, the imaginary feat is quite impressive. Also: Junji Ito first drew comedy before switching to horror. Sometimes it shows.

*snicker* Look at them balloons. They´re so happy :D

No 3 - Red thread

One of his other great qualities is the ability to explore one idea thoroughly. "Red string" is a great example for that: A boy, after his girlfirend broke up with him, discovers a read thread being sewn through his skin. Where does it come from? Is it a rash? Is it because his ancestors are sewing it through him for his own protection? Or is it the "thread of faith" growing through his body since the girlfriend was his destined one?

And when will it stop? Or will it? 

I´m not gonna lie. This story does give me the creeps, probably because I used to have huge problems with syringes... D: Still it´s one of the funniest so far (not counting the Cat Diary). 

Gotta love the nonchalance... 

No 2 - Ice cream

"Ice cream bus". It´s a story about a recently divorced father and his child, living in an area where there´s a nice man who allows children to eat as much ice cream as they want :D. Neat, right? Yeah, this story is not about obesity, though (even though it would be an option). Rather, the twist is a bit different: After a while, the child´s toys become sticky, the father sees two children licking each others skin off, while proclaiming: "It´s sweet, right?" and in the end... well, you are what you eat. Quite literally.

Junji Ito really knows how to make the reader feel and explore the circumstances. Take the picture above, for example: It´s just so... graphic. You can almost feel the head splosh off like a popsicle breaks through on a hot summer day. Yikes.

No 1 - Spirals

Well, of course this had to be number one, I guess. Not only is "Uzumaki", the 3-Volume-story and one of his longest works, making you fear spirals - it makes you fear them in about 20 different ways. It´s a masterpiece because it´s a showcase of his imagination, the exploration of the theme on very different levels and smaller topics and his DRAWING ABILITY.

How did I get here without mentioning his incredible art?! While his people, while drawn realistically and quite pretty, are nothing, NOTHING compared to when he shows off. And boy, does he ever. It´s really gorgeous, in a way.

***

So if you are into Horror and haven´t checked him out already, I would really recommend it. He has so much stuff, there will be something that you will like and give you the chills. So if you have to possibility 

Honorable mention goes to the "Cat Diary". 

No, it´s not horror. It´s comedy. 

It´s about Junji Ito getting two cats and the misadventures he has with them. 

It is drawn like one of his horror stories, though.

AND IT IS HILARIOUS!!! XDDD

What? It´s just a normal person kissing and cuddling his cat!

***

Itou Junji Kyoufu Manga Collection not purchaseable in English yet

Itou Junji no Neko Nikki, Yon & Muu not purchaseable in English yet

Itou Junji´s Uzumaki purchaseable from VIZ Media LLC

Manga Pages are hosted on Mangafox.com, names of the scanlation-teams were not available, unfortunately.

The Conquerer Worm

Whoops, people. The holidays screwed with my perception of time. Sorry
Anyways, have a Poem! By Poe!

The Conquerer Worm

by Edgar Allan Poe

illustrated by Maike Gerstenkorn

Lo! ´tis a gala night

Within the lonesome latter years!

An angel throng, bewinged, bedight

In veils, and drowned in tears

Sit in a theatre, to see

A play of hopes and fears,

While the orchestra breathes fitfully

The music of the spheres

Mimes, in the form of God on high,

Mutter and mumble low,

And hither and thither fly -

Mere puppets they, who come and gp

At bidding of vast formless things

That shift the scenery to and fro,

Flapping from our their Condor wings

Invisible Woe!

That motley drama - oh, be sure

It shall not be forgot!

With its Phantom chased for evermore,

By a crowd that seize it not,

Through a circle that ever returneth in

To the self-same spot,

And much of Madness and more of Sin

And Horror the soul of the plot.

But see, amid the mimic rout

A crawling shape intrude!

A blood-red thing that writhes from out

The scenic solitude!

It writhes! - it writhes! - with mortal pangs

The mimes become its food,

And seraphs sob at vermin fangs

In human gore imbued.

Out - out are the lights - out all!

And, over each quivering form,

The curtain, a funeral pall,

Comes down with the rush of a storm,

While the angels, all pallif and wan,

Uprising, unveiling, affirm

That the play is the tragedy, "Man",

And its hero the Conqueror Worm.

VIY

 

 For all those who do not know: The comic is based on a movie that is based on a short story:

This is a scene from the movie... you might see a parallel or two :)