adding to the collection

[egypturnash]

The day before yesterday, I got a package from my mother. Some hand-me-down clothes, some various snippets of things to read, and a couple books. A Cajun cookbook for Sammi, and a late Christmas present for me: the most obscenely complicated pop-up book I've ever seen.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, as adapted by Robert Sabuda.

Words can't do it justice; luckily there is a digital camera available. Photos with commentary are here.

I now have, um, four or five different editions of Alice. And occasional thoughts of doing my own. Do I have a Collection yet?

Comments

[shizouka.livejournal.com]

Yipes! A kid's book? Can't believe that the intricate cards there would be able to withstand ten minutes with someone below the age of 8...

but very lovely! pity Wonderland was the theme several FC's ago...

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Hey, kids can be careful with something Precious and Wonderful, you know. Once I was past, I dunno, six or so, I had some delicate things that I knew were delicate, and was careful with.

The little glass unicorns got knocked over at some point anyway, but something like this? I'd have kept it pretty safe. I had less elaborate pop-up books, and they were complex things of wonder to be gentle with. Nobody told me this; I just knew it.

[orb2069.livejournal.com]

I guess itt's possible that a kid might take care of this... but at the price it's going for (http://www.robertsabuda.com/store/product_info.php/products_id/63)(Don't look! You'll spoil the gift!), I think it's and adult/teenager purchase.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

If you want to be frightened by the cost of my collection, go look around for what the Ralph Steadman version goes for. Not the recent softcover reissue, the hardback from the Seventies of Wonderland, Looking-glass, and Snark...

[orb2069.livejournal.com]

I can't even imagine what Ralph's take on Alice looks like - I'm sure the Cheshire cat alone is worth whatever inhumanly evil price you paid for it. :)

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Ralph's take involves politics! Sort of.

Curiously enough, there's next to no splatters. There are, however, distorted checkerboard grids, soupy hatching, and insanely long, flowing hair on Alice. The drawing I did of Alice in bondage is somewhat inspired by his take. Somewhat.

[unciaa.livejournal.com]

The one with the cards at the end just made my jaw drop. Like creating complex origami for kids to destroy. :>

[paka.livejournal.com]

My god that's incredible stuff. That origami comment was spot on; I can figure out drawing, I can figure out sculpting stuff, but highly geometric thinking like this is totally out of my league.

[zeeth_kyrah]

It's basically engineering using only slides, levers, and hinges, with the occasional dial. The cardpile, for example: opening the page pulls this set of levers, causing the doll and cardpile to stand up. Either standing up pushes a lever or there's a lever for pulling, which causes the second and third cards to rise, and they in turn have levers which cause the next cards to rise, and so on through the pile.

The hardest part of designing that stack is making sure that it won't crush or tear when the process is reversed.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

The basic pop-up mechanism is actually a lot simpler than you suggest! Take a look at this page on Sabuda's site - it explains the basic mechanism that's behind something like 90% of all the pop-up books out there. Pull-tabs involve levers, but most dioramas like this are nothing more than the mechanism repeated again and again on those little examples - a piece of paper that spans the whole arch of what sticks out, glued down to the pages, and then folded down into the book as you close it for the first time.

Looking at the studio photographs on his site gives me a feeling that his process is very intuitive - he's learnt the five or six funamental pop-up mechanisms by heart, and just folds/cuts/glues paper to get the basic mechanism he wants, then finesses the shape and colors it.

The mechanics of pop-up books aren't too hard to understand, when you look at a couple in the flesh, seeing the way the thing transforms from paper folded flat in a book to something standing up on the table in front of you. Especially when a complicated mechanism sticks a little, and you have to figure out where to carefully prod it to get it to open. (In this case, one of the tea-cups on the Mad Tea Party's table sticks, causing the whole table to kinda jam when it's halfway inflated.)

[ultraken.livejournal.com]

Robert Sabuda's dinosaur book looks great too.

[alice-in-texas.livejournal.com]

I collect all kinds of Alice in Wonderland things. Books are one of the most interesting as so many have variations in art, and sometimes the story, as in Whoopie Goldberg's "Alice". But the pop up book is one of my favorite of all. It is incredible.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

I never set out to collect Alice stuff. It's just sort of accreted.

But that is definitely the most boggling pop-up book I've ever seen.

[delcan.livejournal.com]

Geezus. Page 6 is frightening, beautiful, and stunning, and for some reason I'm tempted to try to make something like it myself.