I've been a massive fan of Sherlock Holmes and mystery novels for some years now and enjoy watching and reading the vast amount of adaptations that have been made of the books. One of the more famous adaptions of the Holmes Canon in recent years has been the Guy Richie films featuring Robert Downey Jr. as Sherlock Holmes and Jude Law as Dr. Watson. When watching this adaption in the cinema , I was taken aback by the End Credit Sequence which has now become one of my favorite bits of the entire film.

Jeorge Almeida and Chris Sanchez  were the illustrators responsible for  this magnificent title sequence , for which i believe he used pen and ink or graphite which were then put with photo filters and photoshop.

I really enjoy watching this sequence from  the fluid transition from film footage to drawing the the way that ink seems to move around and splatter across the scene , giving the images a gritty, almost olde world newspaper quality, the style of the illustrations reminds me of early story paper and illustrated newspapers which is probably why it appeals to me so much

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Illustrated Newpapers

Penny Dreadfuls and other “Story papers” and illustrated newspapers from the 19th century such as the Illustrated Police News  which combined text with illustrations of sensational stories and speculative fiction to capture the publics attention and interest. Some of the most well known stories and legends form this era are recorded within these papers and publications which could be purchased for a small fee such as a penny , Stories like Sweeny Todd ( named the “string of pearls”), Spring Heeled Jack and the infamous murders of Jack the Ripper are all recorded here and survived the test of time because of their “shock factor” which was all the more enhanced by  the illustrations 

example of one of the pages from Police Illustrated News which covered the Jack the ripper murders in detail

One of my favourite illustrations from the boy's standard, featuring the story of "Spring Heeled Jack" a Victorian Urban Legend about a mysterious being that terrorized london Citizens from 1837 onwards. This story is still well known today and is a prime example of English Folklore and speculation.

Sweeney Todd : The Demon Barber of Fleet Steet or "The string of pearls" is probably one of the most famous stories featured in the Penny Dreadfuls

 These images from illustrated newspapers and Story papers give us an insight into the media and views of the victorian era and i find this fascinating ,  the images are interesting to look at and incredibly detailed  and informative if not a tad surreal and i think this I why I find them interesting 

Max Ernst

" Une semaine de bonté" is one of Max Ernst's collage books/ graphic novels/ artists books.
The create the surreal and dark atmosphere of the images, Ernst cut up and rearranged illustrations from Victorian Books , Encyclopedias and other books.



To show how he did this , i will show an example:

This image os the original , an illustration by Alphonse d'Ennery for Illustration of Martyre which was made in 1885,

Wereas this is Ernst's image for "The Court of the Dragon" featured in "Une semaine de bonté" . As you can see , Ernst has chopped and edited the original image to mage it much more surreal and shocking for the audience . 

 

One of my favourite images from this book is the Vampire's Kiss , also from "The Court of the Dragon" this image is very poignant for me as the detail and texture of the piece echoes examples of victorian echings which Ernst has then altered to make a completly different and warped image but  still has the beauty and charm that the original possessed