My only other contender for “T” was Tom Bombadil–and I guess I could have done him since I could technically have claimed that my earlier drawing of Gimli was from The Lord of the Rings and Bombadil was from The Adventures of Tom Bombadil… but that’s kinda cheating. So instead, I did this guy:
T is for The Time Traveler — From The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
Yes, he’s just referred to as “The Time Traveler” throughout the book, and I couldn’t even find a physical description of him. I’m a big fan of this book and of Wells in general and had initially wanted to do Weena (also from The Time Machine–and probably a lot more interesting as a drawing) but I’ve got a key favorite author I’ve got to hit with my “W” entry.
Anyway, this is an OK drawing–I think the pose/gesture is the strongest part–but guys’ clothing is pretty boring and not very visually descriptive as far as being definitely from a particular era. In retrospect, I probably should have put him in a jacket that would place him definitely in the late 1800s.
Much as people tend to be either Stones or Beatles fans (the correct answer is “The Beach Boys”), folks tend to be either Wells or Jules Verne fans. With me it’s definitely Wells. Verne is more of a “hard SF” guy, with lots of focus on having technology be realistic–or at least theoretically viable. Wells, on the other hand, uses SF as a way to comment on (then-current) society and doesn’t really sweat the nuts and bolts. While Verne will go on and on about things like Nemo’s submarine (submarines being among the many things Verne predicted fairly accurately), something like the time machine is mainly interesting for Wells because it forwards the action of the story in a way that allows social commentary. On the other hand, I’m not usually a fan of allegory as a literary device, but Wells usually keeps it in check and doesn’t beat you over the head with it.
On a side note: I’m getting kind of worried about the rest of this project. I currently have candidates only for “W” and “V” for the rest of the alphabet.
Next week: “U”…
You can find all the AlphaBooks entries to-date at the AlphaBooks tumblr: http://alphabooks.tumblr.com. You can also follow many of the entries as they’re posted in real-time by following the #AlphaBooks hashtag on Twitter on Mondays.
Recent Comments