The Frogs Who Asked for a King
This is an adaptation of an Aesop's fable which has been retold by La Fontaine, the Russian animator Ladislaw Starewicz and numerous others.
I have used the story as a teacher, as a cantastoria, a comic and now as a book.
Why the obsession? I find the fable a nice fit for the Spinozian quandry of Why do the people accept their slavery as if it were their freedom? Especially after the recent elections, the story of these frogs who demand a tyrant seemed painfully relevant, although bleak in its redictions.
Page from The Frogs Who Asked for a King
Media:
I
work in the medium of linoleum prints. A choice based partly on a ludditish
rejection of the convenient. So I carve each page and print them by "hand",
using a manual vandercook press, and then bind the books by hand.
El Ratón
Misifú (Misifú the Mouse)
This is the story of a mouse who can only speak in the language of the
cats.
I
wrote this story after having moved to Puerto Rico and realizing that
my Spanish was, uhm, horrible.
El Ratón Misifú (Misifú the Mouse)
When he wants to wax poetic about the moon, or offer a piece of cheese, the other mice hear MEOW and run away in fear.
La
Boda de la Mangosta (The Mongoose's Wedding)
This is a story from India that was included in Diane Tong's excellent book Gypsy Folk Tales, which I adapted and changed the ending.
I have always
been interested in oral cultures and their "literature." This
story includes magic transformations and a cataloguing of nature's powers
which brings us full circle to the power inherent in the smallest of us.
La Boda de la Mangosta (The Mongoose's Wedding)
I
started making books after moving to Puerto Rico and
finding myself in artistic and linguistic crisis.
I had worked in theater till then, with a group from Chicago, Theater Oobleck, that is very text based. In Puerto Rico, I found my Spanish manageable to eat and greet but not to spin a story of workers devolving into ants on a ship captained by a Conrad spouting pompous buffoon, for example.
And
so I began to print books. I had for years printed posters and calendars,
but books, and "children's books" no less, offered me the chance
to work with a minimum of words, that could be proofread, and could stand
in for much more complex ideas.
Book Artist: Dave Buchen who lives in Puerto Rico, email: hello@davebuchen.com
links to more of Dave's work on the web:
www.davebuchen.com
Home Page- http://homepage.mac.com/bucachon/index.htm
Theater Oobleck- http://theateroobleck.com/posters.html
Historia Natural- http://theateroobleck.com/historianatural.htm
The Miniature Book Library- http://www.thepiz.org/teenybooks/thw.html