Les’ Illustration Concepts Class

Pinocchio/The Dark Side June 30, 2009

“Number 3 Chris Slipknot mask is an official licensed mask from Morbid Industries. … (the) mask is a bondage style Pinocchio latex mask, …  The nose on this slipknot mask is approximately 4.5 inches long”

A Giant (Pinocchio?) skeleton at The Palazzo Reale in Milan by artist Gino De Dominicus  titled  “Calamita Cosmica”

Pinocchio’s death- an installation at the Guggenheim Museum in New York (2008)  by artist Maurizio Cattelan, (titled Daddy Daddy)

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(above) Zombie Pinocchio Tattoo ( courtesy of BMEzine.com)

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(above) Pinocchio’s Revenge , the 1996 horror film.  “…..Evil comes with strings attached”. You can’t beat that as a tagline.

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(above) Pinocchio Vampire Slayer A graphic novel coming September 2009 drawn by Dustin Higgins and written by Van Jensen.  Pinoke uses his nose as a wooden stake  to kill the undead.  If you look closely  at the bottom right hand panel  the vampire is  saying with his dying breath  ” Killed by a nose…how humiliating”.

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(above) Geppetto from the DC/Vertigo comic book Fables. The story as written by Bill Willingham  paints Pinocchio’s father as an deluded, tyrannical  despot.  I’ll save you the details of what has befallen the Blue Fairy at the hands of this monster.

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(above) Pinocchio: The Story of a Boy By Ausonia

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Where do I begin? The maggots on the cover should be a tip off of how dark this version of Pinocchio is.  Here the story of our hero is turned upside down. The world is inhabited by wooden people ,  Gepetto is a butcher who sews together a creature that loosely resembles a bag of meat.

I first saw mention of this book on frankensteinia, a wonderful blog of all things related to Frankenstein. Which does raise an interesting point. In many ways Pinocchio and Frankenstein are cousins. Two beings invested with life, yet not quite whole. They both search for their humanity and as they do so provide a sometimes terrible reflection of what and how  humanity can act towards the different and outsider.  Ausonia tackles these themes with beautifully drawn art, the imagery is shocking and graphic. Ausionia’s site for this particular book of his offers sketches, and finished art with the authors thoughts on pinocchio. The pages can be translated fromm the Italian through your browser. www.ausonia-pinocchio.com/

Another book that explores the connection between Pinoke and Frank (also written up in frankensteinia) is The Cobbler’s Monster by  Jeff Amano (writer), Craig Rousseau (pencils) and Wayne Faucher (Inks).  This book is more of a blending of the two stories.