by Art Chantry ( art@artchantry.com)
EDWARD gorey is so famous at this point, that i hardly need to even mention him here. everybody already knows his work so well. he’s as universally admired as charles addams for his peculiar and often bizarre sentiments. however, not a lot of people are aware of his early career.
This is a direct shout out to jesse reyes, who turned me on to gorey’s early work. jesse (and his partner, amy) collect a LOT of cool stuff. among their cool junk is a rather extensive (attempting completist) collection of early gorey. apparently, a LOT of people collect gorey, judging from the prices on ebay. i’m not going to even attempt to give any sort of accurate or detailed history here.
AC:Look at that weird 'arrow/hinge' thing on the door. it's pointing directly at rumpelstiltskin, who is the bright red object. he's the only bright red object there, yet there is essentially a huge 'arrow' pointing at him to MAKE YOU SEE HIM! that is so completely not gorey's thinking. i assume it was insisted upon by the publisher so that the literal image of "R" could get spotted by drunks and morons. this cover just screams of 'client interference. ' sad, eh? here is a great example of damn genius illustrator and cultural icon being bullied around by some hack art director/publisher without an ounce of brains, being forced to fuck up his work in order to earn a buck - probably ONLY a buck. it's nice to know we're not alone out there.
Gorey, when he was a struggling young artist, spent time working at a publishing house (alongside a handful of other now-known designer/artists) cranking out book cover designs for all sorts of junky stuff. i’ve found covers, jackets, even title typography (adorning other folk’s illustrations) executed by gorey. i’ve even found books “art directed” by edward gorey that have none of his illustration of lettering in evidence. he was simply directing other folk’s work.
Hard to imagine, actually – edward gorey as a young struggling artist. he just seems to be such a huge icon that the thought of him taking on dang near any work to survive seems improbable. fame does not equal wealth, however. even the beatles and the stones and bowie were broke at the very peak of their careers. it’s a misnomer in our culture that fame=wealth.
Anyway, i gather this stuff and send these along to jesse and amy periodically to see if they can add them to their stash (jesse – do you have this?). this is my latest find. it’s a “children’s” book of rumpelstiltskin (no gorey book is entirely for children). it’s chock full of cool gorey interpretations of the story.
What i find interesting is that’s it’s in color. i don’t remember ever seeing a color gorey piece before. it’s kinda weird. sometimes color is not better. many times, i’ve designed a piece in b&w only to have the client get excited and decide that “color is better! color sells!” and destroy the whole design. this looks badly colorized, like one of those early colorized vintage movies that turner broadcasting did. yucky.
Frankly, if you can’t design in b&w, you can’t design. and color doesn’t really help much. it seldom is a solution by itself. even more rarely does it fix a bad image. and it can ruin a good image, especially if that image was intended by the creator as a b&w piece.
A great example is that recent movie “The Mist” (based on a stephen king novella). it was originally intended to be a b&w film. but the money interests (using that hoary old notion of ‘color=better’) insisted on shooting it in color. so, the director did both. the b&w white version is available only on a specific limited dvd version of the film as a “director’s cut”. but, it’s well worth hunting down. it’s really a completely different (and hugely better) movie in b&w. it was written as a b&w movie by a visual artist u
graphic design language. we all know this language, but we often over-ride it as suspect. dunno why. it’s a great and true language.
I think this gorey cover – executed in color – looks like crap. it’s a really great illustration ruined by the demands of the publisher – a publisher with enough vision to hire gorey int he first place, but not enough integrity of courage to allow him to actually do his work. sound familiar?
funny, huh? this is sorta “crappy gorey.”
ADDENDUM:
AC:back in the old daze, i think more guys drew “to size” than didn’t it was a way of composing in an appropriate proportional scale. not too dumb, actually.
i’ve even seen norman rockwell images (for hallmark) that were done “to size’ and he painted BIG. …
…don’t get me wrong, i know gorey did color work, but it was so MONOCHROMATIC. he thought that way. bright colors was not part of his aesthetic. that’s why i sorta went on about this cover above. for all i know it was entirely his thinking. but it was not his best thinking (if it was his.)
the color work of gorey’s that i’ve seen seems to come up in my memory as b&w. that’s how monochrome his palette was….
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