Down the rabbit-hole! (4 Steadman-based pics, plus a treasure trove from other books) : How Steadman blew up Tenniel across the "Alice" books. (part III)
Frankly my dear, this one's a no-contest. Because AFAIK, neither original artist John Tenniel nor writer / amateur artist Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) ever officially depicted this jarring, life-changing event for Alice. And yet weirdly, [Ralph Steadman did](https://www.abebooks.com/book-search/title/the-complete-alice/kw/ralph-steadman/first-edition/).
The opening pic is actually me cropping,
stretching, and adding sepia-tone to the original B&W art:
[(backup link)](https://preview.redd.it/214ewqagjmwg1.png?width=419&format=png&auto=webp&s=a3c41c179701984c65a185671a02646189589cdc) (right-click as needed)
And as usual, we have the typical 'unsettledness' of Steadman taking a story which is usually depicted as a bizarre, but fun and creative all-ages work, originally meant for a group of children, then mining the sharper and weirder angles lurking just underneath to yes... once again 'touch the madness.'
Of course, a much bigger point is the way in which this single scene spawned a wonderful [idiom for the ages](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_the_rabbit_hole) that has not only lasted 125+ years, but almost seems to *gain* additional momentum and versatile usage with every passing year(!)
Now TBH as an 'Alice-lover,' the above's not really something I think about much, but sometimes, upon reflection, it really does astonish me how Dodgson produced (or caricatured) so many cutting political and modernistic tropes in the 1860's that are *still* very relevant today, just that they tend to wear a light coating of Victorian dust, haha? (so that way they can be hand-waved away as "irrelevant" by modern politicos)
[(original link)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/42/The_White_Rabbit_%28Tenniel%29_-_The_Nursery_Alice_%281890%29_-_BL.jpg/960px-The_White_Rabbit_%28Tenniel%29_-_The_Nursery_Alice_%281890%29_-_BL.jpg)
"Here's looking at you, kid!"
Now feel free to hate on me here, but I just wanted to see what it might look like with some understated colors, using an AI tool (yes, I know, I know):
[(backup link)](https://preview.redd.it/ahfdllqijmwg1.jpg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3e58bdc1bf4cb1380df21acf6cc58a890c58dd0b)
And just for gits & shiggles, maybe let's see it as a 1951 Disney film still?
[(backup link)](https://preview.redd.it/xxbu1scjjmwg1.jpg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9d84d81e786f66c281b9f9bbf0bab3b4457b4e33)
***
Finally, I wanted to share the magnificent 'rabbit-hole' photo collection that u/Sydnee_Guy posted over at the evil empire. I did download those pics and was thinking about uploading them to Imgur (and that's always a future option), but no... just no. That Aussie bloke built up a personal, fabulous, amazing collection of Alice books, and kindly shared his photo-collection upon such. So... *no way* am I going to try to ripoff such awesome, original content:
[[HERE](https://www.reddit.com/r/aliceinwonderland/comments/1soy3r3/down_the_rabbit_hole_illustrations/)] then is that magnificent collection.
And a little reminder about our tag system:
https://piefed.social/c/eurographicnovels?tag=aliceinwonderland
The opening pic is actually me cropping,
stretching, and adding sepia-tone to the original B&W art:
[(backup link)](https://preview.redd.it/214ewqagjmwg1.png?width=419&format=png&auto=webp&s=a3c41c179701984c65a185671a02646189589cdc) (right-click as needed)
And as usual, we have the typical 'unsettledness' of Steadman taking a story which is usually depicted as a bizarre, but fun and creative all-ages work, originally meant for a group of children, then mining the sharper and weirder angles lurking just underneath to yes... once again 'touch the madness.'
Of course, a much bigger point is the way in which this single scene spawned a wonderful [idiom for the ages](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_the_rabbit_hole) that has not only lasted 125+ years, but almost seems to *gain* additional momentum and versatile usage with every passing year(!)
Now TBH as an 'Alice-lover,' the above's not really something I think about much, but sometimes, upon reflection, it really does astonish me how Dodgson produced (or caricatured) so many cutting political and modernistic tropes in the 1860's that are *still* very relevant today, just that they tend to wear a light coating of Victorian dust, haha? (so that way they can be hand-waved away as "irrelevant" by modern politicos)
[(original link)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/42/The_White_Rabbit_%28Tenniel%29_-_The_Nursery_Alice_%281890%29_-_BL.jpg/960px-The_White_Rabbit_%28Tenniel%29_-_The_Nursery_Alice_%281890%29_-_BL.jpg)
"Here's looking at you, kid!"
Now feel free to hate on me here, but I just wanted to see what it might look like with some understated colors, using an AI tool (yes, I know, I know):
[(backup link)](https://preview.redd.it/ahfdllqijmwg1.jpg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3e58bdc1bf4cb1380df21acf6cc58a890c58dd0b)
And just for gits & shiggles, maybe let's see it as a 1951 Disney film still?
[(backup link)](https://preview.redd.it/xxbu1scjjmwg1.jpg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9d84d81e786f66c281b9f9bbf0bab3b4457b4e33)
***
Finally, I wanted to share the magnificent 'rabbit-hole' photo collection that u/Sydnee_Guy posted over at the evil empire. I did download those pics and was thinking about uploading them to Imgur (and that's always a future option), but no... just no. That Aussie bloke built up a personal, fabulous, amazing collection of Alice books, and kindly shared his photo-collection upon such. So... *no way* am I going to try to ripoff such awesome, original content:
[[HERE](https://www.reddit.com/r/aliceinwonderland/comments/1soy3r3/down_the_rabbit_hole_illustrations/)] then is that magnificent collection.
And a little reminder about our tag system:
https://piefed.social/c/eurographicnovels?tag=aliceinwonderland