Happy birthday Edward Gorey !

[montrealfilmguy]

I was introduced to the work of Edward Gorey by the macabre little alphabet book known as The Gashlycrumb tinies.

 

 

From the Wiki page.

 

The Gashlycrumb Tinies: or, After the Outing is an abecedarian book written by Edward Gorey that was first published in 1963. Gorey tells the tale of 26 children (each representing a letter of the alphabet) and their untimely deaths in rhyming dactylic couplets, accompanied by the author's distinctive black and white illustrations. It is one of Edward Gorey's best-known books, and is the most notorious amongst his roughly half-dozen mock alphabets. It has been described as a "sarcastic rebellion against a view of childhood that is sunny, idyllic, and instructive". The morbid humor of the book comes in part from the mundane ways in which children die, such as falling down the stairs or choking on a peach. Far from illustrating the dramatic and fantastical childhood nightmares, these scenarios instead poke fun at the banal paranoias that come as a part of parenting.

 

Here is a page with the illustrations.

 

http://seanbonner.tumblr.com/post/2831768866/the-gashlycrumb-tinies

 

I found it so very good that i contacted Gorey's estate representative in 2003 to see if i could have the permission of doing a minimalist animated version of it.

A leaf blowing by.The sound of soft wind.That kind of stuff.

 

I was wondering at the time if the narration should be done by a basso profundo voice like Thurl Ravenscoft (Tony the tiger and one of the Haunted mansion's grim grinning ghosts )or a sweet innocent kid's voice to counterpoint the creepy events.

 

They refused.

 

One Youtuber did take it upon himself to invest many hours to create such a project.

 

But despite the great work,he decided to skip the narrative part plus,he actually showed every kid's demise.

 

So it lacks the delicious rhymes and our imagination is no longer needed as every gruesome bit is actually shown.

Thus removing anything grim we could conjure in our minds and feeling he wanted to add a laugh track.

 

Poor poor little Kate.Such a big axe.

 

 

 

 

The Wikipedia page is quite interesting to read.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Gorey