Alice in Sunderland: An Entertainment
by Bryan Talbot
Dark Horse, 319 pp., $29.95
In this epic tale, writer/artist Bryan Talbot draws on centuries of European history and graphic storytelling to pen this complex, interlocking story of the Sunderland area of England, Lewis Carroll, and Alice, both fictional and real. Talbot, a comic-book artist veteran of some 40 years, creates his most ambitious project to date.Talbot, as a multiple-identity narrator, uses the legendary Sunderland Empire theatre – Laurel & Hardy, Charlie Chaplin, W.C. Fields, Marlene Dietrich, and the Beatles all performed there – as a backdrop and himself to recount the history of Sunderland and through it the major British events of the previous 3,000 years intertwined within the lives of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, the author and mathematician. Contrary to popular belief, Dodgson, better know as Lewis Carroll, conceived of his book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in Sunderland rather than Oxford. Talbot spends a goodly portion of the book supporting this fact while leading the reader through various aspects of Sunderland, Great Britain, and the myth of Alice.
Related in a nonlinear style, Talbot uses a stream-of-consciousness method owing more to William S. Burroughs than to traditional comics. To further enhance the telling, he employs a mixed-media approach, combining a variety of techniques like photographs, collage, paintings, and drawing in a wide range of visual styles. The combined effect enables Talbot to jump from historical period to historical period and from scene to scene without losing his reader and/or having to explain the dramatic changes. The final project offers a beautifully unique graphic novel.
While Alice in Sunderland represents a visual high point of Talbot’s storied career, the author occasionally meanders, causing the reader’s interest to waver. His attempts to illustrate the contemporary importance of Sunderland often fall flat.
Ultimately, Talbot succeeds in producing a fascinating, insightful, and entertaining history of Sunderland, its environs, and the troubled story of Alice and her creator, Lewis Carroll. Alice in Sunderland ushers in a new epoch in visual storytelling, solidifying theories espoused by Scott McCloud and others while expanding on the works of artists such as Dave McKean.
This article appears in June 1 • 2007.