Comparison with Peake

Yesterday I copied Tenniel's illustration of Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

By way of comparison I sketched a copy of Mervyn Peake’s rendition of Tweedledum and Tweedledee this morning. Looking at it, I think it’s an interesting illustration (see what I did there?) of the similarities and differences between Tenniel’s renditions of the characters in the book, and Peake’s.

Like Tenniel, Peake shows the two as twins, with their arms around each other’s shoulders. Like Tenniel, Peake distinguishes between them through the names embroided on the collar – although this is actually specified in the description in Chapter IV of Through the Looking Glass”. So much for the similarities. I think it’s worth comparing the faces. In Tenniel’s illustration, although the pair are wearing schoolboy’s caps, they look like grownups. Back in the 70s and 80s the comic actor Terry Scott would often dress up as a schoolboy for comic effect – he had a novelty record called “My brother” a well. Well, the faces of Tenniel’s twins remind me of Terry Scott as a schoolboy. They don’t look like kids. While Peake’s twins really are a pair of cheeky urchins.

I do think that Tenniel’s static pair do fit Carroll’s description, “they stood so still that she quite forgot they were alive, and she was looking round to see if the word “TWEEDLE” was written at the back of each collar, when she was startled by a voice coming from the one marked ‘DUM’.

‘If you think we’re wax-works,” he said,”you ought to pay, you know” One other notable difference as well is the fact that Peake doesn't include Alice in this illustration, which is also true of the Mad Hatter and March Hare illustration that I copied last week. Peake's Alice is very different from Teniel's, her dark hair being one obvious difference.