Papery poppets

Emma Ridgway (c) Copyright 2010

Meet my new assistant, le typewriter. As a child I used to draw pictures with a typewriter (I remember using @ signs for eyes and creating wavy hair with rows of alternating brackets) so it was very exciting to find this beauty hidden in the loft. It is mysteriously without a "1" key, an exclamation mark, or any sign of an asterisk, but that's not really an issue when its primary function now is to create patterns and textures for illustrations (and love letters to a certain boy in Amsterdam)

The split pin puppet reclining on this marvellous contraption is none other than Cap'n Quote Man, who was dreampt up by Pip Chorley and I in our first year at Falmouth and grew into a graphic novel called The Paper Shredder Person which we continue to work on.

Pip and I have recently joined forces with Line Lorna Grytvik Tessem and Beth Hague to form The Little Egg Collective - do have a peek at some of our combined efforts on the Little Egg blog: http://thelittleegg.blogspot.com/ 

Ida Tweedle

The engine owl

We cut to an excavation scene, in the icy tundras of MOUNT MOD MOON MONO TUTU...

...where a rather large bum is sticking up in the air...
...the bottom of a certain Sir Hugo Clarence Washington-Smythe.

ASSISTANT (IDA TWEEDLE)

Sir, look, I think... I cannot say for sure, but I do believe I have unearthed the mythical Engine Owl of Ancient Zion!

SIR HUGO CLARENCE WASHINGTON-SMYTHE

Oh, that! I discovered that, back in uh... back in uh... the day...

Sir Hugo: give it here, right this minute, or I'll have you tried for high treason and perverting the course of justice!
Sir Hugo: I'll have your wages cut, and other things cut that you wouldn't care to be... cut.

ZOLUMBOO (Narrator)

Now I'm no detective... oh wait! I am!... but I think that guy's a phoney! Wait, something important's happening, let's get back to the story!

ASSISTANT (IDA TWEEDLE)

With all due respect, Sir, you can't claim every victory!

Ida Tweedle: I found that owl fair and square, and you've spent the whole day sitting on your oversized rump, hogging the hot water bottles and moaning about the cold! From now on I will be working for myself. Hmph!

SIR HUGO CLARENCE WASHINGTON-SMYTHE

Don't talk to me like that! I'll decide how this story ends!

He takes a large dark starry book from his coat and and unlocks it with a rusty key.

Ida turns slowly, and sees the open pages like mirrors.
We see her face reflected in the mirrors and then the empty space where she once stood.


Washington-Smythe holds the book up triumphantly.

SIR HUGO CLARENCE WASHINGTON SMYTHE

Now I've trapped you, you'll never steal from me again.

Sir Hugo: You're nothing but a fictional character, doomed to spend the rest of your days in writing.

IDA TWEEDLE

[HER WORDS APPEARING AS TEXT ON THE PAGE OF THE BOOK] You can take that smug look off your face.

Ida Tweedle: Your precious artefact is with me, Washington-Smythe. The engine-owl is fictional too now.

More Paper Shredding...

(The next installment of storyboards...)

Generations later, on another dark and misty night, across the land echoes the haunting sounds of a wailing baby - or is it? Lets follow those echoes to the maternity ward of the Slice Splice and Dice Hospital where something out of the ordinary has just been born...

(*LOGO: Meat cleaver and samurai sword in a cross shape hover over a pair of cupped hands holding the Dice of Fate ('Dice of Fate' written in a scroll above them). Skull speared on top. MOTTO: 'Will this visit be your last?' All the doctors are skeletons, pirates and ghosts in white coats.)

Doctor Clive McDougal, Captain of the Hack Trap Belle:

Don't you worry Mrsh Crumble, you're in good handsh! Tell me aboot your diet if you pleash...Och, jusht wait a wee shecond there

Dr Clive McDougal: Ahh, thah's behtter, been troubling me for weeks! Now, have you consumed anything oot o' the ordinary during your pregnancy?

Mrs Crumble: Out of the ordinary you say? Why... no, not at all, only our traditional meal of shredded paper each night... It's been in the family for generations!

Mrs Crumble:...ever since Great Great Grandfather Crumble invented it accidentally in a serendipitous stroke-of-genius cookery/craft book mix-up!

Dr Clive McDougal: Ehhh. You do realise thah paper is completely devoid o' the slightest nuance o' nutrition?


Mrs Crumble: You cannot question tradition, Doctor McDougal! Traditions must be revered and respected-

Dr Clive McDougal:I am sorry to inform you that this is nae o' of them!

Dr Clive McDougal: It appears your son has...
...evolved.
Dr Clive McDougal: I hypothesise that your traditional dish o' Papier Mache a la Mode has altered the very genetics o' your child,


really rather...
radically!
Dr Clive McDougal: This child is a hopeless case!
Dr Clive McDougal: All the boy will be good for is doing away with your unwanted confidential papers.

On this note, the Doctor presents Mrs Crumble with her product - a whirring, mechanical beast of a thing!

Dr Clive McDougal: Your child, Mrs Crumble. What are you intending to call him?

Mrs Crumble: Well, we were thinking a nice respectable name like...Edwin Horatio Issac the Third. [pause]

Mrs Crumble: Ahh... but that doesn't seem appropriate now, does it dear...?

Mr Crumble: No, absolutely not, no, no. I think we have to allow the technology to guide us here, so it seems to me, we only have one option. The Paper Shredder Person it is!