It's all in the gory details...

(Contributor-in-waiting Stacy just shot out her bambino numero duo, and so I thought I'd kind of dedicate this particular entry to her and the wee one. I realize what I'm talking about here today may not be the most suitable baby shower gift, but perhaps a few years down the road -- provided the kid has a mentally stable upbringing. You'll see what I'm talking about...)


So ya know, I don't really fancy myself much of an illustrator. Not at all, actually. Unlike the mega-talented friends and relatives that I grew up with who unknowingly induced feelings of crooked jealousy and inadequacy in me with their drawing capabilities, I was forever relegated to my stickmen renditions of Spider-Man and (waif-like) Martians.

And even nowadays, I grit my teeth with dreading incompetency whenever I have to storyboard my various projects.

"Umm, Benjie, how come in this scene this character has a protruding tumour?" my director of photography would often ask me.

"It's not a tumour! That's his fancy cowboy hat," I'd have to explain.

So I can somewhat appreciate the talent it takes to draw exceptionally well. And some of my favourite illustrative works have been by an illustrator by the name of Edward Gorey (who looks to have been separated at birth from fellow author Farley Mowat in his picture below).

I don't know if there's a particular category or name for his style, so I'd like to offer up my own made-up classification of "the macabre jeunesse". Why? Well, aside from sounding French enough to be a real style, his illustrations (which are primarily black & white) are certainly darkly sombre in tone, even hedging on the mildly grotesque at times. Furthermore, he tends to favour drawing children, depicting them in fairly harrowing circumstances. His subject matter is usually quite simple and to the point, even if those points tend to slant towards the bizarre. You see, the late Mr. Gorey (1925-2000) had quite the twisted sense of black humour as his drawings would indicate.

For example, take a look at these following excerpts from one of his (supposed) children's books, The Gashlycrumb Tinies...






A tad gruesome? Yes. Appropriate bedtime material for young tykes? Probably not. But damn if that man didn't have a wicked wit!

If you enjoy the films of Tim Burton (in particular his earlier movies from the 80's) or Burton's own illustrated books, Gorey's stuff will be right up your alley. Think of him as a more macabre Dr. Seuss. And with humour even darker than those Lemony Snicket books. In fact, Gorey's sensibilities are probably even better targeted at older audiences than younger. It's always filled with daring whimsy, albeit of the morbid kind.

Or sometimes his work is just wonderfully odd and peculiar. Like this Edward Gorey calendar that a friend of mine in Montréal sent me a couple years back. Each month brought another chapter in the odd misadventures of rascally siblings, Embley and Yewbert, from the story of The Epiplectic Bicycle. It made for a delightful year!

So go ahead and google more of his work...maybe you'll be a Gorey fan too!


Dent in your pay cheque:
around $15-20 for a Gorey book; around $12 for a Gorey calendar

Ideal for:
illustration junkies; gothy types; morbid humour fetishists;
children NOT preoccupied with the bogeyman that's underneath their bed

Look for it at:
Amazon.ca or many a fine local bookstore