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Twitter Interview with Stickfiguratively Speaking creator Jamison Odone

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Your Far-Flung bloggers used Twitter to conduct an interview with Jamison Odone, who illustrated and retold Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland with his stylish stick figure art. (Stickfiguratively Speaking is available for $14.95 from Publishing Works.) We reckoned that text messages to discuss Stick Figures vs. 3D was appropriately 2010. The full interview follows (I’ve tried to replicate the feel of Twitter for non-users: starting a tweet with an ampersand means its an open conversation to that person.)

AliceAmerica We’re about to have a Twitter conversation with@JamisonOdone, creator of Stickfiguratively Speaking.#AliceinWonderland #LewisCarroll
about 11 hours ago from web

jamisonodone @AliceAmerica ahoy!
about 11 hours ago from web



AliceAmerica Hello @JamisonOdone This is the Lewis Carroll Society of North America’s first ever interview conducted in 140 characters.
about 11 hours ago from web


jamisonodone @AliceAmerica This is The Jamison Odone Society’s first 140 character interview ever as well! Glad to take part:)
about 11 hours ago from web


AliceAmerica @JamisonOdone WHO ARE YOU?
about 11 hours ago from web


jamisonodone @AliceAmerica HI! I’m jamison odone. author and illustrator of children’s books, raconteur and all around funny guy. Redsox fan, new dad…
about 11 hours ago from web


AliceAmerica @JamisonOdone It looks a bit to us like your Caterpillar resembles your own drawings of yourself. Is he a deliberate self-portrait?
about 11 hours ago from web


jamisonodone @AliceAmerica Yes he is. No reason exactly why I did that. Perhaps his glib wisdom is just something that I aspire to.
about 10 hours ago from web


AliceAmerica @JamisonOdone How old were you when you first found Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and what brought you to it as an adult?#LewisCarrollabout
10 hours ago from web


jamisonodone @AliceAmerica Not exactly sure quite how old I first was..it’s always been around. As an adult, on the development of this series-it emerged
about 10 hours ago from web


jamisonodone Also, Jeremy at @publishingworks was hot on the idea of this story to kick off my Stickfiguratively Speaking series.
about 10 hours ago from web


AliceAmerica @JamisonOdone Did you have Sir John Tenniel or any other illustrators’ art in the back of your brain while you were working?
about 10 hours ago from web


jamisonodone @AliceAmerica Always! Tenniel is a hero of mine! It was difficult for me to draw so simply when all I wanted to do was copy his perfection.
about 10 hours ago from web


AliceAmerica @JamisonOdone You chose to release your book the same day as the Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland opening. Did the huge shadow help or hurt?
about 10 hours ago from web

jamisonodone @AliceAmerica The date was chosen by @publishingworksand it only helped. There was no shadow for me really–I’m an island without trees:)
about 10 hours ago from web


AliceAmerica @JamisonOdone And whereas Burton’s visions are dense, detailed, and 3D, yours are simple pen drawings on white paper, 1D.
about 10 hours ago from web


AliceAmerica @JamisonOdone How do you resist the temptation to fill in all that negative space?
about 10 hours ago from web


jamisonodone @AliceAmerica Well I really like the artistic notion of deconstruction. We are always trying to make things MORE MORE MORE. I’m like Thoreau
about 10 hours ago from web


jamisonodone Simplify Simplify
about 10 hours ago from web


AliceAmerica @JamisonOdone Thoreau it away! There’s a moral in that. Our interviewing moral has always been that it’s done by minding your own business.
about 10 hours ago from web


jamisonodone @AliceAmerica It is kind of tough to do. I kept telling myself that the next book I will illustrate will look like the sistine chapel!
about 10 hours ago from web


AliceAmerica @JamisonOdone Lewis Carroll himself had simple (even childish) drawings for his original Alice’s Adventure’s Under Ground.
about 10 hours ago from web


jamisonodone @AliceAmerica I know–I’ve seen a scanned version of the entire book online. I wish I could hold it…but no luck with that I suppose.
about 10 hours ago from web


AliceAmerica @JamisonOdone My friend suggested that your drawings might inspire children that they could illustrate stories themselves.
about 10 hours ago from web

jamisonodone @AliceAmerica I do lots of school visits with my books. I have been speaking to kids about that exact notion lately. Your friend is smart.
about 10 hours ago from web


AliceAmerica @JamisonOdone You & Mr Carroll have totally different senses of humor, side by side in the same book. Any favorite Carrollian shticks?
about 10 hours ago from web


jamisonodone @AliceAmerica Tough one…my real admiration for Carroll is how created such a brilliant world with so many different layers and meanings.
about 10 hours ago from web

AliceAmerica @JamisonOdone AND what the world demands to know: Do you intend a Stickfiguratively Speaking Through the Looking-Glass?
about 10 hours ago from web


jamisonodone @AliceAmerica If people like this book then I’d think about Looking Glass. If people dislike what I’ve done, I would not want to go further.
about 10 hours ago from web


AliceAmerica @JamisonOdone Your public might demand it! Thanks you Mr Odone for charming conversation! Best of luck with the book, with fatherhood, &c.
about 10 hours ago from web


jamisonodone @AliceAmerica Thanks! Look out for Iparty’s Classes in Wonderland–featuring lil’ ol me
about 10 hours ago from web

jamisonodone @AliceAmerica It was a true pleasure interviewing with you. I have a true respect for Carroll and for literary groups that keep it all going
about 10 hours ago from web


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Disney’s 1957 Mock Turtle

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This cartoon cel of Disney’s Mock Turtle is from LCSNA member Matt Crandall’s collection (featured in an interesting article on the “official” Disney fan site, D23.) Although the Mock Turtle is an important character in the book, he didn’t make it into either the 1951 or 2010 Disney movie. This frame is from a Disney animation for a 1957 Jell-O commercial – oddly fitting that they used the calf’s head (like in the original Tenniel illustration). Was Jell-O the mock turtle soup of the 1950s (and should a turtle with the head of a soybean be doing TV spots today singing “Beau–ootiful To–fuuurkey”…?) We’re told the 1957 commercial will be a special feature on the upcoming DVD release of Disney’s 1951 Alice in Wonderland.

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Announcing: Twitter Interview with AAIW Illustrator Jamison Odone, Monday at 18:00 GMT

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A scene from Jamison Odone’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Please join the Far-Flung bloggers on Twitter tomorrow morning for a short interview in short format (140 characters) with Jamison Odone, who has recently issued an Alice’s Adventures  in Wonderland (Publishing Works, $14.95) illustrated and “retold” with stick figure drawings – the original text is intact, but he has added his own humor alongside in the comics. The conversation will take place at 11am Pacific, 2pm Eastern (18.00 GMT). To receive it, follow both the Far-Flung twitter (which we recommend anyway) @AliceAmerica, & Mr Odone @JamisonOdone. Subscribe to both of us on SMS text and get the whole thing texted to your phone! See you then…

A scene from Jamison Odone's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
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Susan Sanford’s Dreaming Alice

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"Through the Looking-Glass #2" by Susan Stanford, from Dreaming Alice

Susan Sanford, an artist from Oakland, California, has a lovely book out called Dreaming Alice. Her humble biography: “The author has read many books and looked at many pictures, and now she has made her own little book of pictures.” To celebrate, Ms. Sanford has been putting up Alice images on her blog, artsparktheatre.blogspot.com, throughout March. (She’s made it through AAiW and is now starting TTLG.)

There is a fancy preview of Dreaming Alice up here at Blurb.com.

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Study Visit to Guildford with the Lewis Carroll Society UK

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Places are still available on the Lewis Carroll Society UK (LCS) study visit to Guildford. The four-day trip will take place 15-18 July, 2010.

Members of the LCS and guests are invited to take part in this comprehensive study visit to Guildford in the South of England.

The four-day event will include a mini-seminar with lectures exploring the later years of Dodgson’s life.

Although the LCS has visited Guildford several times over the years, this will be a more comprehensive event which includes lectures and short talks presenting the results of new research and visits to places we have not been to before as a Society.

Bookings are now being taken … there are still a number of places left.

Dodgson was a frequent visitor to his sisters’ Guildford home in the final years of his life, and died there in 1898. Guildford is a market town with Saxon roots, located about 30 miles from central London, easily accessible from London airports. For anyone with a spare pot of cash and no existing summer vacation plans, this looks like the foundation of an excellent trip.

Further details about the study visit and a booking form are available from the LCS website.

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Nursery curtains or crazy shirts? New Alice fabrics

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“Playing Cards” from Windham Fabrics
"Playing Cards" from Windham Fabrics

Windham Fabrics have recently released a good complimentary set of cotton prints with patterns inspired by Tenniel’s illustrations for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The designs were created in collaboration with the Bridgeman Art Library and the Mary Evans Picture Library. Whether you are designing the nursery furnishings or want to make a really craaaazy shirt for your next trip to Vegas, they are definitely worth a look. There are enough pattern variations for a really spectacular quilt, too.

Different combinations of the fabrics are available online from Quilting Treasures and Baum Textile Mills.

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Help Alice solve puzzles, wait tables in new computer games

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Alice needs your help! The the type of help, however, varies from game to game. Help her fall down the rabbit hole! Help her avoid death by playing cards! Help her wait tables in a poorly-managed Wonderland cafe! These are some of the many choices available in recent games for your Mac, PC, or iPhone.

First up is the inevitable Disney/Tim Burton spin-off game, available for iPhone/iPod Touch, Wii™ and DS™ systems.  “Alice in Wonderland – An Adventure Beyond the Mirror” is a 2D platform puzzle in which players are invited to “explore a world filled with whimsical settings, optical illusions, challenging puzzles, and formidable adversaries.” According to reviewers it is ok:

“Alice in Wonderland makes a very good candidate for the videogame treatment. After all, she discovered how to shrink and grow large a century before Mario ate his first mushroom, and the Lewis Carroll stories are filled with memorable allies and enemies. … a puzzle game, with some clunky and imperfect platforming between puzzles…We were surprised that Alice in Wonderland contains some genuinely clever puzzles and Hollywood production values.” Andrew Podolsky, Slide To Play

"Alice's Teacup Madness"

Whether Alice is searching for points or hard cash, Wonderland seems to have discovered wage society. Take “Alice’s Teacup Madness,” available for Mac and PC; in this game Alice has to earn her way out of Wonderland by serving tea and pastries to difficult customers. Suddenly the question of who stole the tarts becomes one of petty larceny and it’s Alice’s job on the line.

Despite the excitement, reviews have been a little lukewarm:

“A lackluster presentation … not worth recommending except to the most die-hard of time management game fans… While the comic strips at the beginning of each location are cute, the characters who actually visit your cafe during a level remain one-dimensional and do not differ notably in tipping habits, patience levels or other behaviour.” David Becker, Gamzebo

"Alice Free Fall"

“Alice Free Fall” is an iPhone/iPod download in which players guide a tumbling Alice to collect points in the form of roses and avoid death in the form of collision with playing cards. It has recently been updated and improved and the developers are promising new levels, new magical items and better visuals. If you have dismissed it in the past it might be worth another look.

And finally, we can’t omit the iPhone app “Alice’s Adventures: Rabbit Hole of Death.” As far as I can tell it takes the same basic premise as “Alice Free Fall” – “help Alice fall down a hole,” but this time Alice has been to see those nice plastic surgeons and invested in some fishnet stockings. One reviewer described it as your basic “move the limbs to fit through body-shaped holes” game. Basically, players must contort nubile Alice, as she falls through space, in order to prevent her colliding with pots of marmalade etc. Charles Dodgson please look away now.

"Alice's Adventures: Rabbit Hole of Death"
"Alice's Adventures: Rabbit Hole of Death"

I am sure there are many more out there. Additions and reviews below please!

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A few Carroll letters at the Rosenbach: “a very small portion of brain”

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The website Letters of Note has two Lewis Carroll correspondences up today, both to Isabel Seymour in 1869. They are part of the Rosenbach Museum & Library’s collection in Philadelphia, where the Lewis Carroll Society of North America will be holding its spring meeting on April 24th, 2010. (There’s also an installation by Sue Johnson inspired by Carroll and poet Marianne Moore at the Rosenbach up thru June.) The first letter is an apology for stealing Isabel’s train ticket:

The Chestnuts,
Guildford
May 15, 1869

My dear Isabel,

Words cannot tell how horrified, terrified, petrified (everything ending with “fied,” including all my sisters here saying “fie!” when they heard of it) I was when I found that I had carried off your ticket to Guildford. I enquired directly I got there whether anything could be done, but found you must have arrived in London some time before I got here. So there was nothing to be done but tear my hair (there is almost none left now), weep, and surrender myself to the police.

I do hope you didn’t suffer any inconvenience on account of my forgetfulness, but you see you would talk so all the way (though I begged you not) that you drove everything out of my head, including the very small portion of brain that is usually to be found there.

Miss Lloyd will never forgive me for it—of that I feel certain. But I have some hope that after many years, when you see me, an aged man on crutches, hobbling to your door, the sternness of your features may relax for a moment, and, holding out the forefinger of your left hand, you may bring yourself to say, “All is forgotten and forgiven.”

I hardly dare ask what really happened at Paddington, whether the gentleman and lady, who were in the carriage, helped you out of the difficulty, or whether your maid had money enough, or whether you had to go to prison. If so, never mind: I’ll do my best to get you out, and at any rate you shant be executed.

Seriously, I am so sorry for it, and with all sorts of apologies, I am sincerely yours,

C. L. Dodgson

And there’s a second one at Letters of Note. Thank you Melissa Brice of Canary Promotion + Design for the tip.

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“Algebra in Wonderland” in Sunday’s New York Times

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Illustration from the Sunday New York Times by Sophia Martineck

Illustration by Sophia Martineck on the New York Times Opinion Page, Sunday March 7th, 2010

I’m curious what members of the LCSNA think of this article on the Sunday New York Times Opinion Page, “Algebra in Wonderland” by Melanie Bayley. The author is a “doctoral candidate in English literature at Oxford University.” The article goes thru the various vignettes of AAiW explaining declaratively how each scene stands as a parody of the new mathematics emerging in the 19th century. After a scene-by-scene breakdown of the book (the pig baby is a comment on topology, naturally), she wraps up:

Alice will go on to meet the Queen of Hearts, a “blind and aimless Fury,” who probably represents an irrational number. (Her keenness to execute everyone comes from a ghastly pun on axes — the plural of axis on a graph.)

How do we know for sure that “Alice” was making fun of the new math? The author never explained the symbolism in his story. But Dodgson rarely wrote amusing nonsense for children: his best humor was directed at adults. In addition to the “Alice” stories, he produced two hilarious pamphlets for colleagues, both in the style of mathematical papers, ridiculing life at Oxford.

It’s a good article to alert the newspaper reading public that Carroll was also a mathematician, but I’m nervous about all of this “probably represents” business, as if she finally figured out the true meanings in Carroll’s book. And what’s with statements like “Dodgson rarely wrote amusing nonsense for children”?

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Disney Japanese Pocket Puzzle to enrage and delight

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Japanese Pocket Puzzle from ThinkGeek.com

And now for something completely different: drive yourself mad with a Disney-themed interlocking pocket puzzle, sold online at ThinkGeek.com. The puzzles are based on the classic mechanical games involving two interlocking pieces which must be separated – only this time you are offered motivation from the Magic Kingdom: help Alice navigate the Red Queen’s maze, extract Winnie the Pooh from Rabbit’s hole, separate Minnie and Mickey (?…).

The vendors says that the puzzles are intended for adults – “kids might be pretty frustrated,” by which I think they mean they will be quiet for hours (good), right until the point they pitch the thing through the passenger side window (bad).

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