When Alice in Sunderland came out a few years back, I always intended to pick it up. After all, it’s by Brian Talbot (Luther Arkwright, Tale of One Bad Rat, Sandman), a comics luminary every bit as brilliant as Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore (but who, since he draws his own stuff, is far less prolific). Plus it clearly references one of my (and everyone else’s) favorite classic stories, Alice in Wonderland. For whatever reason, I never picked it up at its release, but with all the new Alice in Wonderland posters around town promoting the movie, I was suddenly reminded of this book’s existence. However Tim Burton’s Alice turns out, I have it to thank for getting me to pick up Sunderland.
Only tangentially about Carrol’s book, Alice in Sunderland is the biography not of a person, but of a place. It spins a web of facts, legends and coincidences that show the wonderful way that history and geographical identity are born. The Alice portion involves the importance of Alice Liddel’s (the “historical” Alice) family in Sunderland’s history, Carrol’s long stint living there and the things that might of inspired him, and the way that Carrol’s classic novels have had a profound impact on so many aspects of art and culture since their publication.
The book is also an amazing use of the comics medium, with Talbot blending B&W drawings, painting, collage and fumetti to tell his very meta tale. The artist himself takes the form of several narrators, playing with time and toying with the reader, while the subject of his unusual biography toys with him. The closest thing to it I’ve encountered in book form would be Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics, and in fact, Talbot takes the occasional detour from the Sunderland/Alice stream to comment on the history and form of comics, or just appropriate others’ styles out of sheer whimsy. But no matter how much Talbot strays, everything manages to turn back in on itself. This is a comics masterwork.
Whether you’re a fan of all things Lewis Carrol, interested in groundbreaking comics, or just find the idea of history as a living thing to be cool, please do yourself a favor and check out Alice in Sunderland. It’s a demanding read, but well worth your time!
Stumble Upon
Del.icio.us
Buzz
This does look really cool, I think I might have to pick it up (I am a big Carrol fan, no matter what people might say about him as a person) They had a big display of Alice In Wonderland books in things in honor of the film when I was at Barnes & Noble last weekend, but I did not see this one on there. I did see an interesting graphic novel about a character called Mad Hatter who was a murderer or crime detective or something (I was in a bit of a hurry so I just flipped through it to check out the cool graphics) Also, how do you think the movie will be? And this is a question directed at everyone, I’m interested to hear more opinions on it. As a Burton fan I think it’ll be really bizarre, but what does everyone else think?