Alliteration and illustration pair magnificently in Graeme Base’s ANIMALIA, the classic book now celebrating 40 years of publication.
From armoured armadillos and angry alligators to zany zebras zigzagging in zinc zeppelins, the alphabetised menagerie is a detailed delight offering first glance gratification and continuing pleasure as graphic minutiae present, page after page, panel after panel.
ANIMALIA is a unique blend of intricate illustrations, wordplay and visual discovery. Cast your eyes over Crafty Crimson Cats carefully catching Crusty Crayfish and you will see not only five felines of scarlet hue hunting cautious crustaceans, but discover a foreground full of aquatic curiosities – C words not sea words, and a background of similar I Spy prompts.
The same is true for the entire twenty-six illustrations with animals real and mythic, from Beautiful Blue Butterflies basking by a Babbling Brook to Diabolic Dragons Daintily Devouring Delicious Delicacies and Unruly Unicorns Upending Urns of Ultramarine Umbrellas, ambitiously abstract and absurd, targeting text, font, detailed depiction and decoration and scoring a bullseye every time.
There’s an ingenious incorporation of iconography throughout this alphabet jungle, from primordial and primeval, the modern and medieval. There’s music hall tat with vaudevillian vultures, echoes of art deco with toff tigers taking the train to Timbuktu on the Trans Tanzani, and exotic and esoteric elephants expertly eating Easter eggs.
Larrikin iconography is given the OK with Kid Kookaburra and Kelly Kangaroo kidnapping Kitty Koala, a kit and caboodle kaleidoscope complete with kitty, a Kiwi, Kitchener, Akubra, and Keystone cops congregating on King Street!
This is smart art from the start, imaginative and inspiring, an invitation to look closer, think creatively, and immerse oneself into an incredible vista of pictorial splendour and hidden visual puzzles.
ANIMALIA received international acclaim when it was first published in 1986 and has achieved classic status with worldwide sales of more than five million copies. Forty years on, it continues to reward close observation and curiosity.
ANIMALIA 40th Anniversary edition is published by Penguin Random House Australia
