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.
