There Goes Bill

You already know that it’s hard for me to find time for drawing in the evenings since starting my new job so I won’t go through all that again. Still, this weekend I’ve managed to work through the block I’ve had on writing the next chapter of “Alice’s Adventures at the Pole”. I haven’t finished it yet, but I think about 1000 more words will do it and I know exactly what to write and how to get to the end of the chapter. I’m just not forcing it. I will possibly finish writing the chapter this evening.

In celebration I spent quite a bit of time yesterday working on an illustration. In my first illustration showing Alice’s features I spent a long time before getting it right and the final version was actually my third attempt. Well, yesterday I spent quite a long time on the first attempt at the next illustration, before realising that it wasn’t going to work. 

Yes, that is a Walrus, and yes, I am conscious that one of the most famous and beloved poems in the Alice books is “The Walrus and the Carpenter” recited by Tweedledum and Tweedledee in Looking Glass. Well, this is the same character. If it was good enough for Lewis Carroll to resurrect characters from the first book in the second, then it’s certainly good enough for me. I shan’t at the moment explain just how he features in the story though.

The connections with Tenniel’s Walrus are fairly obvious. Although my head is more detailed than Tenniel’s, the clothes he wears are very similar, with the spotted bow tie being the most obvious difference. Tenniel’s wears a plain bow tie. However I did do something different with the flippers. Tenniel’s walrus has front flippers that are rather more like a seal's. They are a little more elongated than a walrus’ flippers and they have little definition. With my walrus I exaggerated the qualities that make a walrus’ flippers different from a seal’s, shortening them a little and highlighting some of the detail.

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Well, that’s my Alice story and illustrations. On Friday I made some more copies. Last week I looked at the way some different illustrators chose to illustrate the Hatter. This week I wanted to look at another character who I think is difficult to be original with, namely, Bill the Lizard.

This is what Lewis Carroll wrote,

“she made out the words: “Where’s the other ladder?—Why, I hadn’t to bring but one; Bill’s got the other—Bill! fetch it here, lad!—Here, put ’em up at this corner—No, tie ’em together first—they don’t reach half high enough yet—Oh! they’ll do well enough; don’t be particular—Here, Bill! catch hold of this rope—Will the roof bear?—Mind that loose slate—Oh, it’s coming down! Heads below!” (a loud crash)—“Now, who did that?—It was Bill, I fancy—Who’s to go down the chimney?—Nay, I shan’t! You do it!—That I won’t, then!—Bill’s to go down—Here, Bill! the master says you’re to go down the chimney!”

“Oh! So Bill’s got to come down the chimney, has he?” said Alice to herself. “Shy, they seem to put everything upon Bill! I wouldn’t be in Bill’s place for a good deal: this fireplace is narrow, to be sure; but I think I can kick a little!”

She drew her foot as far down the chimney as she could, and waited till she heard a little animal (she couldn’t guess of what sort it was) scratching and scrambling about in the chimney close above her: then, saying to herself “This is Bill,” she gave one sharp kick, and waited to see what would happen next.

The first thing she heard was a general chorus of “There goes Bill!” 

This little episode where giant Alice boots Bill the Lizard back up out of the chimney has proved a very attractive one to illustrators through the years. Now, I do think that a lot of illustrators have drawn on Tenniel’s illustration of Bill. However, I also believe that Tenniel himself drew on Lewis Carroll’s original.

If you’ve followed my blog posts on the illustrations of the Alice books, then you’ll probably know that Lewis Carroll first wrote some of his stories down at the urging of Alice Liddell, and presented the handwritten manuscript to her as a gift for Christmas 1864. The manuscript contained over 30 of Carroll’s own illustrations to the story. It is now in the British Library.

Carroll took advice about publishing the story with his own illustrations after which he engaged John Tenniel to provide the illustrations. So before we look at any of Carroll’s illustrations let’s accept a couple of facts.

Lewis Carroll never claimed to be an artist or an illustrator.

The first facsimile of Carroll’s original manuscript was never published until a relatively short while ago, so during his lifetime only a handful of people would ever have seen his illustrations.

So, bearing that in mind, here’s my copy of Carroll’s own Bill illustration.

I’ve never copied one of his illustrations before, partly because he was an amateur, and I’ve been afraid that my amateurish deficiencies might magnify his. I think that the Bill illustration is one of his better ones. For one thing the mathematician clearly knew a bit about perspective, from the way he drew the roof and chimneys. It looks to me as if, like many young men of his class and background, he probably had lessons in drawing when he was growing up, as he does use some shading and I’ve already mentioned the perspective.

Okay, now let’s have a look at Tenniel’s –

So one glance comparing the two shows that this is the work of a very accomplished masterful illustrator, while Carroll’s is the work of an amateur. Tenniel’s Bill is more lizard like as you’d expect. He was a master of shading and uses it far more effectively and extensively than Carroll could. He knows that Bill and the chimney are what’s important to the scene so doesn’t include any more than this.

Now look again and see just how Tenniel has drawn (pardon the pun) from Carroll. Both Bills are in pretty similar positions. The shape of the tail makes me think of a snake rising from a snake charmer’s basket. Carroll’s Bill seems to hover in mid-air, while the only thing about Tenniel’s illustration to suggest any movement at all is the smoke rising from the pot underneath him.

Compare this with the copy I’ve recently made of Harry Rountree’s Bill.

The composition to me draws on Tenniel’s which as we’ve seen draws on Carroll’s. Like Tenniel, we see the chimney pot and Bill coming out of it, just as with Tenniel. As fine an illustrator as Harry Rountree, though, wouldn’t just largely copy Tenniel. So he has Bill upside down, which to my mind works really well. Harry Rountree was renowned through his life as a great illustrator of animals and birds, and his Bill is even more convincingly Saurian than Tenniel’s. Unlike Tenniel, Rountree uses motion lines and has soot rather than smoke being expelled with Bill. This gives it a really explosive quality. It’s my favourite illustration of the scene.

We’ve seen before that one of the illustrators who often got further away from Tenniel than most others was Mervyn Peake. Here’s his Bill.

Like Rountree he chooses to use motion lines, but doesn’t depict the chimney. Bill’s whole body is curved sinuously and he’s fully clothed. It’s an interesting choice, but for me it’s a rare occasion when one of Mervyn Peake’s illustrations doesn’t somehow give the scene the movement that you’d expect based on what he achieved with other scenes from the story.

So I’ll finish this post with a look at my copy of what Ralph Steadman did with this scene.

It’s very easy to look at Ralph Steadman’s illustrations of both Alice books and say, well, they’re nothing like Tenniel’s. And of course when you put them side by side it’s far easier to see the differences than the similarities. But it’s still Bill rising head first out of the chimney – and that’s what Tenniel drew. This has far more of an explosive quality than Tenniel’s – like Harry Rountree he uses motion lines underneath Bill, and there’s soot being expelled along with the lizard. The originality of this sketch, apart from the comical expression on Bill’s face, is the way his cap is rising faster than he is, suggested by the motion lines. I’m intrigued that Ralph Steadman gave him a cap – was he possibly influenced in this by the depiction of Bill in the Disney film of the fifties?