How this started: In voice training (vocal feminization), I needed some material that wasn’t the rainbow passage (F*!k that passage). My loving partner took it upon themself to get me some books of poetry to help me on my journey. Within Jabberwocky and other Nonsense, I found The Hunting of the Snark and fell in love with the characters, the story, and the lessons along the way.
What this is: As I continued to recite the tale, images started to form in my mind. A much more diverse array of characters and creatures emerged, and I wanted to bring this world to life. This has been done several (at least two) times before — check out the versions created by Henry Holiday and Mahendra Singh to see other perspectives — but they’re quite different from what I had in mind.
How it’s made: I work as a web developer (trans-woman works in tech cliche), and have a long history a failing in artistic endeavors. I really wanted to make something good, so here’s the process I came up with:
- I create rough sketches of the scenes, and long form descriptions of the characters.
- I research through internet image searches, and generative AI, and digital drawing software (I prefer GIMP), to get the ideas as “workable” as possible.
- I work with artists (paid) to refine these idea into actual characters and scenes.
- I do the final touch up and image editing to get it just so (collaborators can only be subject to my pickiness for so long)
The result is something I’m genuinely happy with, and thrilled to be able to put out into the world. It’s still a work in progress, but we’ve got enough of a backlog built up that I can start to publish some segments.
Long term, I’d really like to get the full thing in print and — in my wilder dreams — would like to sold in a bookstore (nudge, nudge, @acivildawn). In parallel, I’m already starting work on Lewis Carroll’s famous Jabberwocky and want to tackle The White Rabbit’s Evidence as a third project. All in due time.
For now, I hope you enjoy as much as I have.