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Kyle Baker 1990: Classics Illustrated #3: Through the Looking Glass
Long before Eric Shanower’s and Skottie Young’s brilliant adaptation, Baker paired his expressive cartoony style with classic children’s literature for his first Classics Illustrated book.
He discusses the process of adapting the classics with Modern Masters:
One of the things that always bugged me about Classics Illustrated is that they had to edit these things. I mean, Bill Sienkiewicz did Moby Dick. If you’re doing a 44-page adaptation of Moby Dick, you’re going to have to cut something. [laughter]
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The editor — a guy by the name of Larry Doyle — was familiar with my style and said he thought I wold do a good job on Alice in Wonderland. I said “I think Alice in Wonderland has been done way too many times, so let’s do Through the Looking Glass.
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This book was only about a hundred pages long, and so what I did was just crossed out all the stage direction, because I could put that in the drawing.
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Because the drawings were public domain, and very good drawings, I copied the ones that I could, like the Jabberwocky. I drew it in my own style, but I pretty much too the same layout and design from the original Tenniel drawing.