Playing Cards

The Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carroll illustrated by Oleg Lipchenko

Format: Hardcover, dust-jacket Published: 2011 Dimensions: 48 Pages, 8.22 x 11.67 x 0.5 IN ISBN: 978-0-9783613-2-7 Published by Treasure Studio, Toronto, Canada Printed in China Limited Edition of 100 copies, each copy is numbered Signed by illustrator Oleg Lipchenko

. "...Lipchenko has much more success with this new version of The Hunting of the Snark, an anti-epic poem that shares DNA (as well as a few creatures and portmanteau words) with Carroll’s “Jabberwocky.” In eight sections called “fits,” the verse tells the story of a voyage by nine men and a beaver to a mysterious land. They are there, ostensibly, to capture a Snark, which is never really defined other than as a creature that may have whiskers or feathers and (wisely) “always looks grave at a pun.” The poem is more about inertia than adventure – the hunt doesn’t really begin until the tale is more than half over. Lipchenko responds to this lack of action by making his illustrations flow around the text like a dream. Or rather, a nightmare: as the party gets closer to its prey, the images darken forbiddingly, until we finally encounter the deadly Snark/Boojum/Bandersnatch, which looks like something H.R. Giger might’ve dreamed up in a whimsical mood. Of all Carroll’s best-known works, The Hunting of the Snark, with its highly cerebral twists and literary puzzles, may be the least kid-friendly. In Lipchenko’s hands, that barely matters: kids will get sucked in by the visuals alone. Best of all, his images provide enough fodder to inspire a hundred alternate stories.”

IRE review