Mike Mignola and Lemony Snicket Team Up For a Gothic Take on PINOCCHIO
We’ve got a new Pinocchio project in development, but this one comes from Hellboy creator Mike Mignola and Lemony Snicket from A Series of Unfortunate Events fame. This will be an illustrated and annotated reimagining of Carlo Collodi’s classic novel about a wooden doll that wants to be a real boy. We also have some art to share with you from the project!
Mignola said in a statement: “This is a book I’ve loved since I read it when I was a young teenager. I really think between this and Dracula, this is what’s formed whatever the hell it is I do, my sensibilities.”
When talking about his vision for the story and character, Mignola said: “He’s just basically stupid. He means well, but he f**ks up endlessly. And there’s a charm to that, that wanting to not be a f**k-up. It’s that thing of having to make a million mistakes in order to go, ‘Oh, okay, now I get it. I burned my own feet off, the blue fairy died because I was an asshole, and I’m starting to see a pattern to this. Maybe if I start not being that guy, I can sort things out.'”
He went on to add: “It’s a gothic, almost Victorian-looking thing. That’s the kind of environment I was drawing, the kinds of buildings. I’d been drawing Hellboy and hell, which was made up of these cobbled-together buildings, and I was really enjoying drawing that kind of architecture. I thought, ‘Well, Pinocchio takes place in such a strange world. Why not have it take place in my world?'”
When talking about the challenges of adapting this story, Mignola said: “That was tough. Because again, there’s an illustrated edition of ‘Pinocchio’ that is almost a graphic novel. To me, because that’s a version I read a long time ago, it’s what Pinocchio is supposed to look like. The hardest thing was saying, ‘Well, okay, I can’t just copy that one. I got to come up with my own.'”
He then described his vision of Pinocchio, saying: “My Pinocchio is a bit more primitive. He’s a bit more simple, [with] limited facial expression, and that was a challenge. Just to come up with something that would read with some character, but still have this, ‘Oh, he’s just a block of wood,’ kind of a feel. I didn’t want him too animated. I wanted this odd clunkiness of a primitively carved piece of wood, or simply carved piece of wood.”
As for Snickett, he provided over 100 annotations for the project, which will be presented as slipped-in typewritten sheets, tucked into the hardcover work. The author said: “Pinocchio is a book of expressly peculiar power, a phrase which here means that everyone who has read Pinocchio all the way through and spent some time thinking about it, has become a raving lunatic.”
Also on board, is award-winning colorist Dave Stewart and Beehive Books will be publishing it. For more information, head on over to the project’s Kickstarter page.
Source: Variety