The hardest question for a collector of different Alice artwork must be - what's your favorite edition? Or: what is the perfect representation of Alice for you? It might be or seem impossible to answer that kind of question, simply because there are so many wonderful yet completely different editions out there, and it does happen that taste changes within days. One illustrator has managed though to capture most of what I think the essence of the books are; the mood, the subliminal and mad elements - Benjamin Lacombe. I found his edition by accident in the book store one or two years ago and it's hard not to get excited and stunned when first browsing through this book. His vision is very extraordinary to me as we don't actually have many Alice books where each and every illustration can stand by itself; can be seen as a piece of art. One can't deny the influence of the Burton film on his pictures but (thankfully) there are basically everything the film wasn't able to achieve and Burton could only wish to have had a Wonderland like Lacombe's. I'm desperately waiting for the day that these will finally be released in English; simply because the German translations chosen for the German edition are good, but not the best. The Wonderland translation used, is by Antonie Zimmermann; a rather famous one as it was not only the first one in Germany only a few years after the original was released, but also Carroll worked with Zimmermann on some details of her translation. Let me put it frankly - it's dusty, not funny and it doesn't really work anymore today. I think there are more heavily reworked Zimmermann translations on the German book market than her original one; so if publishers didn't get it yet, I hope they will from now on. But I'm also not fond of the fact that they decided to go for Helene-Scheu-Riesz's translation of the Looking Glass; which is actually one of the best we have (I wish we would have gotten Scheu's Wonderland too); but so we have Wonderland and Looking Glass not matching in translation quality - and it's a shame. I really think that Lacombe's Alice, together with the original text, would be something of an "ultimate Alice edition". At least for me.
His wonderland is more nightmarish and though some of his creatures are marvelously cute, they seem even more off because of the dark environment they inhabit. Especially Alice struck me; her porcelain doll appeal is both beautiful and creepy at the same time and it's a really interesting that she always seems like the author's marionette; like she doesn't really want to be there. It does bring a very unique, dark mood to the story and it was hard for me not to think about the Carroll Myth while reading this the first time and I'm pretty sure Lacombe was fascinated by some of the rumors and wonders of Alice Liddell and Charles Dodgson. The color pages are simply stunning; the quality of the print even more and this is the first time I've seen such beautiful pictures literally growing out of the book whenever Alice transforms, into these foldout pages. I also love that he went for red details in all b/w illustrations; something he kept the same for Looking Glass (which will get its own blog entry). These editions are brilliant and I'm really happy that I see them in every bookstore, meaning that this might be to go-to edition for people when they try to find the book for their kids or themselves!
More pictures after the jump break.
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