Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2022 April 7

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April 7

Looking for a picture book or comic book

I'm looking for a picture book or comic book that I read a lot when I was little, back in the 1980s. I would guess the book was published in something like the 70s or 80s (or maybe earlier?), and maybe was British. I do remember it was probably a hardcover book.

From the clothes of the characters that I remember, I would guess the story took place sometime between c. 1870-1930. It was all about a little boy who so wanted to join the circus, but his evil aunt/granny/mom doesn't allow it, always condescendingly calling it "circus shmircus". The boy runs away and does join the circus. I remember there was a huge epic, scenic panel or illustration that showed the beach with what looked like an entire fleet of dirigibles all the way to the horizon, but I don't remember if that was the "circus" or something else. --2003:DA:CF20:DA00:352E:684:3B03:54E3 (talk) 14:45, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

The whatsthatbook subreddit can answer questions like this (with about a 1 in 3 success rate). You would do well to search your memory for any extra clues. For instance, was it more juvenile in tone, or more young adult? What words would describe the atmosphere of the story - for instance, exuberant, creepy, anarchic, wholesome, surreal? Can you remember any other event or image from the story? Can you remember a cover image? Did it have "circus" in the title, or can you remember anything at all about the title? Was it colorful or monochrome? Can you remember the dimensions, as in, was it tall (like most books) or wide, or square, and was it large (like picture books often are) or small (like a paperback novel)? Did the art style involve line drawings, painting, realism or caricature? Were the pictures generally dark or light? How did it end? Can you remember the name of any character, or any place? Were the dirigibles like zeppelins, or more like hot air balloons? Any idea why they were part of it? Was there magic involved? And so on.  Card Zero  (talk) 18:51, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

I literally know nothing more about the plot or even the title. The book was tall, big, and hardcover. It had both day scenes and night scenes, and I think the boy also flying with the dirigibles was part of the story. I *THINK* he returns home at the end. I also remember it had what seemed a pretty long, epic story back then. The illustrations or panels were all in color (dark rapidograph(?) lines, with the colors maybe being watercolor or gouache?), and at least the drawings had a both Victorian, Edwardian, or interwar *AND* ornate, surreal, and/or psychedelic air to them, maybe remotely a bit like a cross between Winsor McCay and Edward Gorey (but it definitely had more text or speech balloons than Little Nemo, and no cross-hatching like Gorey usually has; basically, how Virgil Finlay's style often looks different whether he draws color or b/w in how he replaces the kind of cross-hatching from his b/w images with a certain way of color transitions in his color drawings). Those watercolor or gouache colors were basically somewhere between McCay, Finlay, and Mordillo. The dirigibles definitely looked like zeppelins, and the same image or panel on the beach also had huge ships, like the size of battlecruisers. As for a cover image...I remember the background was a kinda darkish blue-greenish, with a very ornate, complex, organic, entangled yellow frame (like, the organic kind of frames that were popular during Art Noveau or so, here would be a few good references from the Art Noveau article for how this yellow frame looked like in style: [1], [2], [3], [4]), inside which several scenes from the book were depicted, with the title either in the center or lower middle. --2003:EF:1706:3233:AC52:21D5:F8C5:6C68 (talk) 21:11, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

I think the style of this panel[5] by McCay also looks a lot like the style I remember from the book. --2003:EF:1706:3233:AC52:21D5:F8C5:6C68 (talk) 21:47, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

It sounds highly probably to be art nouveau era, then. Unless it's one of the absurdly skilled illustrators we had in the 70s and 80s (e.g. 1, 2, 3) riffing off the art nouveau stuff. But I see commons has five years worth of scans of Little Nemo so I may now be slightly distracted from your question.

Coincidentally, I see the last illustrator I linked to there (Froud) was involved in a Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland animation, which had a circus and dirigibles in, released in Japan in 1989. Hayao Miyazaki was also involved in this (and apparently hated every minute). I was going to mention him, as well: because of all the giant aircraft and battlecruisers, your book has a definite Studio Ghibli vibe about it, even though it's not an animation. (Here's a dirigible on a beach, a frame from Kiki's Delivery Service).

Shm-reduplication is Yiddish, which suggests this might not be a British book. It would be a good fit for New York (where Little Nemo lived), however.

The Little Nemo animation was written by Jean "Mœbius" Giraud, whose artwork is legendary. He released a book, Little Nemo, tome 1 : Le Bon Roi (also in German), which probably follows the same plot, but that wasn't until 1994, and the cover doesn't have any art nouveau decorations. His artwork seems to fit the style you describe. (Oh but I don't think he illustrated the book, either - that was fr:Bruno Marchand (dessinateur).) I seem to have found one actual Mœbius Little Nemo illustration, but that's just a random Pinterest image so I have no idea what book or comic it's from, if any.  Card Zero  (talk) 23:19, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

Here the illustration is called "Concept art for the 1989 film".  --Lambiam 16:03, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

In 1910 Little Nemo arrives by dirigible in New York, and the welcoming committee consists of a large number of other airships, over the bay, with the horizon visible. So I really wanted the answer to be some 80s reworking of the story (other comic artists have produced later works with titles such as The Return of Little Nemo), which would have all the required plot elements and 1910s stylings, but I can't discover one that fits in terms of the look of the cover and the quote. The only book I can find with "circus, shmircus" in it is a sketchily drawn little story about a lion by Shel Silverstein.  Card Zero  (talk) 20:50, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

Could someone with interwiki skills fix the link to Bruno Marchand in the (English) Jean Giraud article. The French and English articles refers to different people. Doug butler (talk) 22:24, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

Heh. It was linking to a Canadian politician. Good catch.  Card Zero  (talk) 23:00, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

And nicely fixed. Merci bien Doug butler (talk) 23:07, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

Actually I did it wrong, they'd used a fancy template that gives an English red link and a French blue link at the same time, so I've installed that now. Apparently if he ever gets an English article a bot will change the link to point at it.  Card Zero  (talk) 23:12, 9 April 2022 (UTC)