The TB Faeries.

Oh Wikipedia - How do I love thee....let me count the ways!


"Before the Industrial Revolution, tuberculosis may sometimes have been regarded as vampirism. When one member of a family died from it, the other members that were infected would lose their health slowly. People believed that this was caused by the original victim draining the life from the other family members.

Furthermore, people who had TB exhibited symptoms similar to what people considered to be vampire traits. People with TB often have symptoms such as red, swollen eyes (which also creates a sensitivity to bright light), pale skin, extremely low body heat, a weak heart and coughing blood, suggesting the idea that the only way for the afflicted to replenish this loss of blood was by sucking blood.

Another folk belief attributed it to being forced, nightly, to attend fairy revels, so that the victim wasted away owing to lack of rest; this belief was most common when a strong connection was seen between the fairies and the dead. Similarly, but less commonly, it was attributed to the victims being "hagridden"—being transformed into horses by witches (hags) to travel to their nightly meetings, again resulting in a lack of rest."




~Roslyn

Why I Tilt

After Natalie's amazing post I thought I should say a bit about why I took up the challange of being involved with Tilt.

Tilt was an idea before I got to it - I believe. It's so very long ago now. Two children both mad as hatters...but I remember little else about the idea, terrible of me I know.

I grew up - as far as memory serves...on a wild beach. Not the beach you go to on holiday with gold sand and blue water...no. This beach was rocks and grey waters, mangroves and the skeltons of boats.
I technically must have gone to school...but my memory of childhood is climbing trees, scaling rocks and picking my way through bushland...always bare foot.

On that beach my grandfather taught me to listen to the sea sing. "But the sea doesn't sing, grandpa"....but it did, and I learnt to hear it and spent hours collecting sea-worn treasures and catching up crabs with quick little child-fingers in it's ever-changing company.

It's strange but when I hear a good story - that's the feeling it gives me, bare-foot-windy-beach feeling. I started writing when I was young...the first story I remember writing was very highly praised (it was from the point of view of a playtpus) but rarely after that did I show my stories to anyone...I don't really write to be popular (though they seem to be becoming increasingly so, even to the point where spontanious tales are becoming something of an on-command party trick) - I write to get that beach feeling.

And since my family sold the house on the hill overlooking that grey and windy heaven? Since then the stories have doubled, tripled and...I only just realised that then. I think perhaps I should take a trip down there if for no other reason than to stop the writers cramp!

But to Tilt specifically I think the inspiration to take on the project is a little selfishly motivated. I remember a long time ago saying I didn't want to write a modern fantasy - but the more I thought of it, the more I realised that I didn't want to write a modern fantasy world...I wanted to write THIS world and really highlight the fantastical things about it with 'fantasy'.
This world, with it's gritty puddles and reflected rainbows...on my way to work today I drove past a tower - perhaps for water or power, but around it were arched 'windows' in a way I imagined Rapunzel (or the many other tower-involved stories in folk legends) would look...right near a main road - I see these things everywhere and that to me is far more fun to write.

If monsters exist don't just plonk big teeth on a shapeless furry body...give it reason, history...as a bear has, as an accountant has, as a rock or a building has - make it twined into the world and not just click and dragged there.

And that fact that I wrote that rant without even thinking is why I think I took on Tilt...because I'm in love with monsters.

~ Roslyn

Why Tilt?

Conceptual art and rough colour test for on of the Tilt cast....

I turned down an apprenticeship with Disney many years ago to pursue my own direction. A choice vaguely criticised when I made it, though never regretted for a minute, for despite the 'opportunities' and shiny possibilities offered with it, it simply wasn't the raw creative, passion driven life I envisioned for myself.

Years passed and the shiny bauble of animation that had so fascinated me and first attracted me to the path of an artist at eight years old started to dull and the more intricate, complicated neusances of comic art made me pack up that childhood toy (though still fondly loved) and move from video dreams to illustrated page.

And then I met Tilt, and I decided this was the thing I had been looking for when i turned down Disney. But what was it that made it so attractive?

The alternative comic scene is stagnating.

A real example of this is simply asking yourself to name five well known alternative comic writers (Not counting personal favourites well know to you and your friends alone). Neil Gaiman. Alan Moore. Jhonen Vaquez... and... and...
Look at the shelves of the big comic book stores and find the shelves flooded but only a few creators are represented. The big local deamon has ten or so shelves...four for Neil, four for Alan...and a handful of sundry tucked to the left.
That handful is heartbreaking....that handful should be fists full - swelling with new ideas, compelling and tugging at sleeves to pull people in to new realms.

My personal heartbreak is the art. The art is either edgy, angular and oh so Gothic in the manner of Vaquez, or hails back to the rounded, mannish and still, unfortunately, live and kicking classic western style started by superman and slavishly repeated and updated by everyone who could pick up a "How to draw comics" book.

This is what I want to break. It's a cycle that needs a breath of fresh air and as ambitious, possibly even arrogant as it sounds, that's what I strive to be. That's what I want to represent in my artwork for Tilt.

Myth and Fairytale is always dangerous ground. It's ripe and fertile for stories, and has been ploughed, sewn and harvested countless times, but because of that the yield is often wilted, dry and flavourless, the stories oh so done and the style of art cliche. "Modernized" fairytale is even more over harvested then classic. How many feminist Snow Whites can you have? How many pictures of blood soaked, axe wielding Red Riding Hood?

So. How does one make this poor, starved resource tempting fodder again? Certainly not by digging in the classics, but by stopping to look at what fairytale really means.
Fairytale isn't a label exclusively owned by a specific set of stories. It's actually a genre tag, like fantasy, crime or thriller. You don't need to re write old tales, you simply need to examine them for what makes them a fairytale...and perhaps dig a little further than the surface of tales. Suddenly the ground is new again, fresh threads to weave with - and more importantly, new design ideas to interpret.

Tilt is the crop grown in this ground. A fresh fairytale and a damned exciting project for any artist to bend their talents to.

This is why I chose Tilt to work on....this is why I'm looking forward to years of work with the glimmer of a child promised candy. I have boundaries to push....

Natalie

Ever After?

http://www.jpgmag.com/stories/11918 has a rather interesting photo set that grabs Disney Princesses (and for some strange reason - Little Red Riding Hood) and sticks them in scenes of 'challanges facing modern women'.

While I really like the concept I think I do tend to feel that the princess could have been matched to the issue a little better in some cases (however the cosmetic surgery Beauty/Belle is obvious indicator that this doesn't apply to every image) - for example while I think it's clever that the 'eaten' little Red Riding Hood is now suffering an eating disorder I would have liked to have seen something a little more rubbing against the grain of the more common theme of the tale.

While Disney has populated the 'princess syndrome' we can't exactly pretend that they are wholey responsible for the masses of girls waiting for a dashing prince to come in and save the day - indeed it seems as if the collective history of humanity has done this and as with everything else it shows up brightest in the tales we tell our children.

So what do we do?

Tell different tales? Adapt the old ones? I'm not a huge fan of modernising fairytales simply for the sake of moral rights - convincing kids that the world is totally free of unreasonable expectations is perhaps not the best thing, but instead discussing the history of the tale, or mixing it up with more empowering stories. It would be a shame to totally ditch Cinderella just because she is portrayed with a perfect prince who swept her off her feet - she has such interesting history behind her.

P.S. Apologies for not posting this past few weeks - Illness and death (not my own death though) prevented me.

~Roslyn