Turning old poems into delightfully strange books
Macy Grove 
We are one week out for the Port Angeles Squatch Con! This will be Macy Grove Comics first Comic and Arts Convention and it a perfect inaugural event. Searching for Bigfoot and Hunting the Snark are fairly similar skill sets. (Whose to say which is more dangerous?) Here’s a sneak preview of the booth I’ll have set up. It’s going to be an amazing time.
Tonight I’ll be dreaming of booth setups…..
Poetry relies on rhythm and pacing. The meaning is felt, both with the words and there imagery and with the flow of each syllable; the positioning of each line and stanza; the hardness or softness of the consonants, and the selection of rhyme and pattern.
Graphic novels also demand their own pacing. Each page and panel requires enough text to pull the reader through the story line while allowing room for the artwork to stand on its own. Within those panels the number of boxes can guide the reader through larger chunks of artwork, or distract them entirely.
Blended together, these art forms can contend, contrast and complement each other, all at once. I wanted to see if it was possible for them to dance together.
Early in Fit the First, the text placement and pacing establishes that stanzas and even lines will be broken up. However, at this point, I tried to stay true the Lewis Carroll’s original intent for the flow of the poem—only breaking up text where the punctuation seemed to indicate that it was appropriate
This didn’t last long. By the time we get to Fit the Second, the Bellman’s demand for dramatic flair starts to break apart text into separate boxes within panels (indeed, he can’t even seem to contain himself inside a panel). In Fit the Third, his insistence on interruptions starts to take it even further.
And after our narrator seems to regain some modicum of control in Fits four and five, it all seems to fall apart again in the fragmented surrealism of the Barrister’s Dream.
But where the pacing really gets interesting, and where I’m particularly proud of this adaptation is Fit the Eighth. The excitement of the discovery moves quickly, then the pacing slows to a crawl in the final act. You can feel the slow deliberate agony of the waiting, searching, and finally resignation. I absolutely love the way this turned out.
For someone who “didn’t mean anything but nonsense!” Mr. Carroll certainly captured an profound number of truths about life in The Hunting of the Snark. One of the most pervasive of these themes is the sense that we have all the time in the world—as many months, weeks, and days as we could possibly want. We have time for jokes, stories, dreams, lessons, tea, and knitting. Then, suddenly, nightfall has arrived, and all our time is spent.
The need to catch the Snark before nightfall of this very day drives our characters onward through the poem. And nothing creates quite so beautiful a deadline as the transformation of the sky at twilight.
We start to see the transformation in Fit the Fifth. The valley seems to bring on the darkness faster than the rest of the island. Butcher and Beaver witness a moon rise well before dusk—and find themselves on the verge of complete darkness before they band together and leave the valley.
The sky continues to shift during Barrister’s Dream, and our crew finds themselves at the start of Fit the Seventh at the time of day when all the blue yields to menacing yellows, oranges, and reds. The Banker obviously should have heeded the sky’s warning—but it does seem like nothing and no one could persuade him to be more cautious in his zeal.
Finally, Fit the Eighth happens in those final moments of light, when we all know that the sky will soon be dark, but we have no idea what it will do between now and then. Some evenings the sky decides to visit every single color on the wheel before relinquishing to the night. Some evenings we blink—and the stars are out. It’s a time of incredible possibility, wonder, and anticipation.
“So you use an existing poem, you hire artists to do the artwork…what do you actually do then?”
In describing my projects to others, this is probably the most common question. It’s understandable. At first blush, it would seem like I’m more of a patron of the work than a creator. But please allow me to make the case that I actually do quite a bit more.
I like to start with world building.
I pick source material that gives me hints—but also gives me room.The vegetation, the animals, the climate, the terrain (‘in what furnace was thy brain?’ 😉). Figuring out what sort of environment the characters and story will move through helps me to think about the themes I want to present in that particular adaptation.
Which flows right into the next phase: “What’s the big idea?”
The source material I use is old (public domain and all), which means it typically has a huge trove of literary analysis and previous adaptation. I ignore all of it—at least at first. Instead I start with: What do I want this to be about? That becomes my anchor point, though a flexible one. Everything I do is iterative, including that core concept.
Once all these touchpoints are built, I build out specifications and storyboards. I take all the raw, chaotic idea and turn them into a coherent brief for my artists— a combination of example art, hilariously rough sketches, and paragraphs describing the big ideas.
Now it’s time to hire an artist and turn them lose right?
Wrong!
Now it’s time to “date” artists—not literally (unless that’s what you want), but creatively. I’m looking for someone who:
That’s a lot to ask, and unsurprisingly, finding a great long-term match can be tough.
But the responsibility is mutual. I have to be the right creative partner for them too. That means:
All of this turns into a revision cycle that usually looks like:
It’s a lot. And if you’re doing something similar, you’ll need a system to track it all—feedback, drafts, panel status, page progress, character sheets, everything. I use ClickUp (I already use it for a couple other businesses), but there are plenty of options.
Once all the artwork is done, then we get to assemble everything into a cohesive, polished work. This includes:
And probably several things I’m forgetting.
This last phase—the Build—is the one I always underestimate. It feels like an afterthought when I’m starting out, but in reality it takes 30–50% of the total time. It’s also the stage where it’s easiest to throw your hands up and quit.
If you ever find yourself stuck in this stage, remember something a very wise friend once told me:
“Of course this part sucks. It’s supposed to suck. If it sucks, everything is going according to plan. So do what you have to, and find whatever joy you can along the way.”
In no particular order, under the label of “creator,” I am:
Now… if only I could figure out how to compress that into a single sentence when someone asks…
“The Hunting of the Snark: An Agony in Eight Fits” is laden with Easter Eggs (hidden clues and treats that reveal layers of meaning in the book). Fit The Sixth: The Barrister’s Dream is no exception.
Some may prefer a perfect and absolute blank map when searching, but for those who prefer a few more waypoints here are some hints to get you started:
Good Luck!
For all the ink spilled on the Jabberwock, the Bandersnatch is truly terrifying.
Its attack is unprompted, coming from the shadows when you’re not paying attention. It doesn’t seek to kill, maim, or devour it’s prey—just to rob them of their humanity. Once it has you you can’t fight it, you can’t run from it and you can’t bargain with it—the best you can hope is to survive it (and hope to end up in better shape than our poor Banker).
So how to create a monster, worthy of that name?
As usual, the process starts with environment. For reasons that are still unclear to me, I instantly pictured Banker’s Fate taking place in a place of civilization. I’m not the only one—Mahendra Singh arrived at the same conclusion in his very clever adaptation. But whereas his Fit the Seventh takes place in a crowded market, I pictured the ruins of a fallen city.
Then came the question: Where in this city should our monster live? An improbably giant fountain, large enough to have ample dominion for a fearsome beast and convey the expanse of the fallen city. The water symbolizes our primal fears. Contained within a massive fountain, it represents our societal attempts to contain them.
Choosing a water dwelling monster has an added benefit: there are plenty of natural creatures in the sea that are ready-made-nightmare-fuel. After some searching around, I landed on the frilled shark. It’s over sized head, multiple rows of teeth, and powerful body were the ideal starting point.
First I worked with an artist that specialized in monster creation:
Then I gave that as a specification to my main artist to fold into our art style and storyline:
Finally, I tweaked the scene, adding distant ruins to the edge of the fountain to convey it’s size, and tweak the eyes to bring some terrifying personality to its face.
The Beaver spans both character and creature in “The Hunting of the Snark.” It is the Bellman’s pet, the Butcher’s foil, and the Barrister’s antagonist. It knits. It galumphs. It counts (poorly). It even debates insurance policies.
It is also a delicious double entendre — perfect for the many of the themes I wanted in the book.
So as imagination dust swirled and coalesced, the main idea started to emerge:
So first I decided that the Beaver needed clothes—but not too many. I started with a bow tie. Something about the excessive formality and professionalism on a furry buck-toothed creature called to me (also, my Black Lab looks quite handsome in a bow tie so I knew it could work). From there adding the Playboy Bunny Costume detached cuff links merged formality and innuendo perfectly. Throw in a monocle for comical studiousness, and we’re all set!
Off to AI (using Stable Diffusion with A1111) to generate some examples!
All of which are really bad: wonky proportions, grotesque hands, and utterly chaotic constructions.
But each one has elements that were workable: the upright posture, the proportions, the coloring on the bow tie and cuff links. So now I’ve got two options: a) continue refining prompts and models and in painting and masks until I get the perfect character built or b) work with a human artist.
Knowing that my end goal was to work with an artist to build a cohesive story, option B was a no-brainer; if I was focused on mastering AI artistry, I might have chosen option A. So ,after identifying the few salvageable elements, I condensed them into a clear brief for the artist:
One of the early signs that I had found a good collaborative partner with my artist were the clear and concise notes we could give each other.
Artist: “Ditch the monocle, we’ll get better facial expressions without it.”
Me: “The hands and feet are too leathery and frightening, give it a softer look.”
And that’s all the “prompt engineering” we humans had to do.
We’ve got the first printed proof from Kindle Direct Publishing and it’s super exciting!!!
