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Speaker 1: Rapunzel and the Evil Witch is officially available right now.

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It is not in pre sale, it is not a

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pre order, It is in the warehouse. You can just

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go to rapunzelbook dot com and you get the book.

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We have a new distribution system which has just been amazing.

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People are getting their books in a few days. All

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the pre sale and pre order books have already been shipped.

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People already have them. And so this is the third

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book where a lot of the symbolism is going to

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come out. It's our celebratory tone, the third book in

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the series of the Tales for Once and Ever, illustrated

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by Heather Pollington. This is where the symbolism is going

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to start to show, where the characters are going to

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are going to repeat. So I'm particularly excited about this

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book and the continuation of this series. And so go

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to rapunzelbook dot com now and you can just get

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the book. Get it in a few days. So thanks everyone.

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Hello everyone, I'm here with Heather Pollington. As many of

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you know, we are getting ready to put out our

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third fairy tale book. We've already sent it to people

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in a kind of quick presale and the reactions have

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been really great. We're quite excited because in some ways

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it feels like this book has been the culmination of

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the last two in terms of storytelling, but also in

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terms of the art. Heather is the one who's illustrated it,

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and it feels like snow White was like practice for

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this one. It's hard to believe because snow White was

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so beautiful, but people are just being are amazed. I

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have been just amazed at what has been going on

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in the art of this book. So we're quite excited

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to present it to you. And so Heather, thanks for

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thanks for coming to talk about it with me.

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Speaker 2: It's good to be here.

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Speaker 1: This is Jonathan Pejel, Welcome to the Symbolic World.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm really excited it's coming out because I think

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I worked on it for about a year on and off,

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so it's been a long time coming. So it's good

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to see now that we're here and we can share

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it with everybody.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean, one of the things we're trying

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to do, and people I think can see in the

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images is we're really trying to be deliberate about what

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we're doing about the images, and so that's why obviously

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it means that we can't just put these out every

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month or something. We have to put out one or

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two a month. But it's because we also want them

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to be to be absolutely excellent in every way, and

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so we spent a lot of time talking about how

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to Let's say, one of my dreams from the very

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beginning of the art that I was making wasn't in

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some ways to integrate medieval and Byzantine style tropes into

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popular culture. And so I was doing that, you know,

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making t shirts, trying to figure out how to do that.

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We did that a little bit in the first God's

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Dog Cord, trying to have a few tropes and stuff.

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And when I met Heather, I found an amazing partner

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in this particular crime like she was all in and

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she also had this she was able to see things

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almost like through my eyes, and I could. I was

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always amazed at what she was coming up with. And

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in this particular book we really hit I think a

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high note on that and I think it's going to

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be an example for people of how to how to

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do that in some ways. So we thought we would

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go through some of the work that she's done, some

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of the you know, some of the decisions that she's made,

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and we're going to show you a lot of the

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illustrations of the books. It's going to be great.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, And so just before I show the images, I

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just wanted to talk a little bit about my journey

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to Rapunzel. So it was it was in twenty thirteen

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when I was working for Disney and I did this

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film called Into the Woods, and that was the main

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set that I worked on, and I really fell in

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love with the Rapunzel story as an hour because obviously

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I'd read it as a child, came back to it

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and got really interested in the design of the tower

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and things like that. And then shortly after that, I

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had my daughter and when she was about five, we

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were reading Rapunzel together from the library, but it was like.

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Speaker 2: A new edition.

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Speaker 3: And the ending of that book, I think I told

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you about it. Jonathan had the prince and Rapunzel not

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getting married, but Rapunzel lived next door as his engineer

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at the end, So I think, we know, that's kind

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of an extreme, you know, solution. But what I was

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finding I was kind of asking myself, why is this

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happening in culture? Why are these fairy tales being messed

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around with? And I think there was a couple of reasons.

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I think the sort of the feminist criticism of these stories,

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they did kind of have some justification in the way

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that the stories were presented in the twentieth century, because

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they tended to.

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Speaker 2: Be, you know, the princess weren't very well rounded.

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Speaker 3: They tended to be presented sort of through the male gaze,

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as they would say. But I also found that a

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lot of the other versions of Rapunzel that had been

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around for the last ten years were kind of had

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been kind of emptied out. And I had this vague

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memory of childhood where the prince actually became blind and

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it seemed to disappear. So there was two aspects that

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were missing for me in this is around kind of

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five ten years ago. The prince going blind had disappeared,

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and the cabbage had kind of disappeared and remoplaced with

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a flower or you know.

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Speaker 2: Through various versions of the tale.

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Speaker 3: And then surely after reading that the Rapunzel as engineer

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I happened to on one of your videos called the

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Symbolism of Hair, and I was just really impressed with

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how you'd managed to recover the sort of traditional tale

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but also kind of answer to the modern can concerns

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with some of the fairy tales, and I thought.

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Speaker 2: That was really enlightened.

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Speaker 3: So I was I was intrigued by your reading of Rapunzel,

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and then obviously when we started working together, this opportunity

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came up, and I really wanted to see if I

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could kind of speak to what you were doing in

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a visual way, therefore kind of uncovering like traditional ways

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of presenting story, you know, from from medieval artists, from

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my iconography, and see if that could answer to some

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of the kind of issues today in the sort of

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in the visual landscape that we find ourselves in.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, it's funny because I think that your

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concern is really the same concern that I have, which is,

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I do think that some of the feminists and postmodern

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critiques of the twentieth century version, like you said, like

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some of the even some of the Disney stuff, wasn't

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completely off. You know, those movies are still beautiful, but

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they do have a tendency, and the fairy tales are

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far more subtle. I think the old fairy tales are

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far more subtle, And in our version of Rapunzel, we

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really have the two characters going on their own transformational arc,

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and they both in some ways have something lacking in

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the way that they're being and the way that they're acting,

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and they have to kind of recover. They kind of

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spend and the princes even more in this version. In

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some ways, the prince in our version is a little

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weak and is a little and isn't really doing what

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he should be doing, and for that reason, he kind

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of has to He has to learn a pretty rough lesson,

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you know, before they're able to be together. And that's

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why both both it's like as if they both have

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to learn a lesson before before they come together. And

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so yeah, yeah, yeah, it's I mean, I I didn't.

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It's funny because the story of Rapunzel, the Disney version,

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the Tangled version, you know, they there are some things

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they did in that which were which were good. There

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were some ideas that they had in order to kind

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of make the story makes sense that we're fine, but

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there are also a lot of decisions that made it irrelevant.

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Like the question of hair in the story was just

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lost its meaning. You didn't even know what the meaning

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of her hair was. In the Tangle version, they kind

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of use it as a plot device. You know, she

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does all these funny things with it, but it lose it,

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It lost it's it lost its sense because the prince

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isn't even there because he's attracted to her. He's there

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for accidental reasons, and he's there because he wants to

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steal the crown all this stuff, and and so what

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what's going on? Like what is the hair? Actually? Yeah?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 3: I was also interested because one of my favorite novels

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is called it's called Jane Eyre and it's seen as

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a kind of early feminist novel in English literature, and

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that has actually the same pattern in it that the

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male protagonist has to become blind before he can actually

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marry the female protagonist. So it's interested in this idea

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that seems to be elsewhere, you know, in the kind

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of psychology and the storytelling and how that might relate

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to Rapunzel. So I just noticed that and thought there

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is a connection, and you seem to you seem to

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answer to all of these things. So that was really exciting.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's I mean, and it's like this story

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just it just tags on in some ways to the

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Snow White story in a really interesting way. It's like

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the opposite of Snow White, but a lot of the

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same tropes and questions are being dealt with, like the

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question of superficial beauty or the question of external beauty

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and the difference between internal beauty. And there's also the

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fall and the thorns. Like there's just so much going on.

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Yeah that you know, we in some ways people will

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see when they read it, they'll see it. I even

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treated the story of Rapunzel and snow White almost as opposites,

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almost as here's an excess on one side, here are

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excesses on the other side, and how they they answer

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each other. Definitely excited to see how people people reading

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it and seeing what they think.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't think that you explicitly explain that to me,

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but we kind of instinctively did some things in the

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visuals that that helped that association.

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Speaker 2: So hopefully people will find that as we go along.

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Speaker 1: Shall we have a look at some right, Yeah, some

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of the images.

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Speaker 2: So here's our title.

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Speaker 3: As you can see, it's in the same style as

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the as the Snow White book.

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Speaker 2: We did. It was important we had that continuity, and I.

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Speaker 3: Just wanted to share these really early sketches that I did.

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I don't normally show sketches, but I think it's important

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to see the the you know, the narrative of making

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a book like this, because people always see the finished version,

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but things can start quite loose, and I think my

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intention here was really just to find the characters. You know,

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we see now Rapunzel here as she is in the tower,

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and then I was figuring out how she might look

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at the end of her arc. And then also you know,

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just doing some samples on the prince's hair and his

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crown that has some other details from snow White Stress

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because he's actually her son, So figuring out all those

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details without worrying too much about the sort of illustration compositions.

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And the biggest challenge in this book was developing the witch,

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because she's obviously a character that's come from the snow

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White Book, but we're seeing her many years later and

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she's very much transformed, and just very loosely thinking about

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how she might have changed, how her kind of vanity

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and love of jewelry might be transformed into you know,

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new styles by her situation because now she's a witch

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living in a cottage. She doesn't have access to duels anymore,

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so she's making necklaces from bones. She still has her

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head dress, but it's it's a different shape and it

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has it's ornamented with like a spider's web.

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Speaker 2: So we're just trying out.

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Speaker 3: All those ideas at the beginning in a in a

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very loose way.

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Speaker 2: And then, like I.

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Speaker 3: Said before, I definitely wanted to look into the same

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kind of styles that we've we've used in snow White,

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and largely because you know, in the style of iconography

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offers you a series of device that is for telling

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stories in a very direct way. Like you know, you've

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talked many times about how you know, perception is primary

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and iconogally tends to lend itself to kind of an

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aesthetic of perception. So we can we can play around

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with scale, we can play around with color, we can

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play around with different perspectives to tell our tale.

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Speaker 2: But obviously, with the icon tradition.

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Speaker 3: That is intended for a particular purpose, and we needed

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to find something that would work in the world of

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fairy tales. So in my research I have and upon

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the Palek tradition. And I told you about it straight away,

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didn't I It was very exciting to discover and I'm sure,

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if there's any any listeners who familiar with Russian art

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will be very familiar to them. But the story of

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Pelek is that it was a place in Russia that

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had a huge history of icon painting, an amazing tradition,

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but in the twentieth century, for various weeks or political reasons,

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they weren't able to make icons anymore. So they turned

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their skills to making lack of boxes with these incredible

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fairy tale illustrations on and there's many, many beautiful examples.

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So I looked to that initially because it was the

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same rules as iconography, but it was a much more

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kind of florid and whimsical style that was suitable for

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a kind of much more fantastical universe that we were

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trying to create.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, there was. In some ways it took the basic

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tropes of iconography, the way that space is laid out,

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you know, the way that the clothing has done, lighting

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is done, but almost as if it was in a dream.

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You know, there there is this, you can see it

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in the images that you picked. There's there's a whimsic

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and there's an excess that which is made possible. You know,

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all of these mountains ranges also all all of a

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sudden become like stretched out. You know, there's there's all

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this smoke and the clouds and it's really beautiful. You know,

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some of the some of the solutions that these artists

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came to or are really quite stunning, and so how

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can we integrate it? And it was for me it

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was important that we tried to integrate as much as

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we could from that style, but also keeping some of

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the best aspects of nineteenth early twentieth century illustration, you know,

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more sensitive faces, because in icons there's less emotion that

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can be read in faces. We're so so used to

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reading emotions and faces in Western art that I thought

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we it's sessly for children's books, we kind of need

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to still see something in the faces. And you'll see,

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I mean, Heather, it came to some pretty some pretty

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beautiful synthesis here. Also, the thing we need to say

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is that from the moment of snow White to Rapunzel,

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you started studying actual icon painting, and it made a

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difference in terms of some of the solutions you were

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able to tap into because you started to master some

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of the especially some of the clothing tropes. You know

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some of the folds because it's very complex, It's not

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it takes a while to be able to master those

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those those styles.

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Speaker 2: That's right.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I've been studying for nearly three years now with

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Aiden Hart, and yeah, I mean it's it's been an

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amazing experience and like you say, just a much through

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that course, a much better understanding now of and getting

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familiar with the language.

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Speaker 2: It just made it easier to draw.

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Speaker 3: So yeah, I've been a bit on a bit on

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a bit of a journey myself. So but I'll show

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you the first piece I did. So each of these

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books has what we call a frontispiece, and I wanted

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to start with that because again it's it's it's the

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first thing that you see in the book, and it

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kind of establishes the tone of the book, the character,

300
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and it was a way for me to, you know,

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see what's the style of this thing. And you'll see

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on the left is like my first sketch for the

303
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frontis piece. And I've been looking at lots of perleect

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books and I almost made her hair into ornament and

305
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then afterwards I realized that actually the ornamentation went too far,

306
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and I kind of lost a little bit of her character.

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So what you see on the right is a solution

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of that, and it's it's it's somewhere between mannerism and

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naturalism in terms of the figures.

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Speaker 2: And then we've got.

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Speaker 3: More stylized ornament on the outside, because as Jonathan was saying,

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it was kind of important to keep the figurative aspect

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to the actual characters in there in terms of their

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facial expression, but in terms of what was surrounding it.

315
00:17:00,919 --> 00:17:03,159
But we could go really stylized. So that was the

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first image that I made, and Jonathan really liked it, so.

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Speaker 2: I basically carried on.

318
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and I love how we went to the to

319
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the kind of anthropomorphic sun and moon too. That's a

320
00:17:17,319 --> 00:17:20,400
great that's such a great thing in the Palaque images.

321
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I mean it's there in icons, but in the Palaque

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images it's quite remarkable.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.

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Speaker 3: I really loved those, and I was able to integrate

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them into most of the images. So you see that

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how the sun had been change over through the different scenes.

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Speaker 1: And I love how you did this intertwining of thorns

328
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and hair. It's such a great it's such a great

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Sometimes Heather comes up with these solutions that I never

330
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would have thought of, and when I see them, I'm like, oh,

331
00:17:47,839 --> 00:17:50,480
this is so right. It's just like it's just perfect.

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Speaker 3: Okay. So this is the opening page, and I was

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00:17:56,599 --> 00:17:58,960
looking at this this morning and remembered actually that the

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00:17:59,039 --> 00:18:02,240
image that you see on the left here was actually

335
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taken from a mosaic in Sicily of Adam and Eve

336
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after the Fall. And obviously, like I don't know how

337
00:18:11,559 --> 00:18:14,200
conscious you were of this, Jonathan, but I think when

338
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I read this opening passage, I couldn't help thinking about it,

339
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because you've obviously got a situation where you've got a woodsman,

340
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they're poor, she's pregnant. You know, it's it's it's exactly

341
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like Adam and Eve after the Fall. So I look

342
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to that, to that image, and then you know, you've

343
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obviously also got a garden, a snake in the form

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of the witch, and.

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Speaker 2: Like a fruit in the form of the cabbage.

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Speaker 3: So even though there wasn't there was an echo of it,

347
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if you know what I mean of that scenario that

348
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I that I wanted to kind of hint at, maybe

349
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in a subtle way. So and obviously here as well,

350
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you see the witch for the first time and so

351
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this is moving on from sketch how she's how she's

352
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transformed through time.

353
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Speaker 1: And some of the things to call out, because at

354
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first we don't say it straight out who she is.

355
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We kind of if you're paying attention, you'll discover who

356
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she is as you read the story. But you know

357
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some of the visual decisions, for example, to use the belt,

358
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like the belt was one of the things you said

359
00:19:21,279 --> 00:19:23,960
you decided to do to If you paid attention to

360
00:19:24,000 --> 00:19:26,559
the snow White book, you recognize that kind of free

361
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flowing belt from one of the from one of the

362
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queen images. So and the same with the little the

363
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little cabin at the top, you know, the little Dwarf's cabin,

364
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and so again we don't say that it's the dwarves

365
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cabin in the story. But for the children, we're hoping

366
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that the kids that are attentive will start to pick up.

367
00:19:43,839 --> 00:19:48,599
I already saw someone on x posting images of their family.

368
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They read Rapunzel and they said, we finished for Punzele,

369
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and we all immediately went back. And you can see

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00:19:54,079 --> 00:19:56,759
the kids, you know, with like puzzled looks, going through

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snow White and through Jack trying to trying to because

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I guess they had this sense that there was something

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going on, and then going back and finding all the details.

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Speaker 2: So it's fun so good to know.

375
00:20:06,960 --> 00:20:09,359
Speaker 3: Yeah, people are actually looking for it because there is

376
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quite a lot there, I think, between the books. Okay,

377
00:20:13,759 --> 00:20:16,759
so the next image, so this is kind of like

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the eating of the fruit moment where he's picking the

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00:20:20,799 --> 00:20:23,599
cabbage and at this point we got the witch in

380
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the background as a shadow because he can't really see her,

381
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and then his wife dreaming of the cabbage, and we

382
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see the little baby that's growing inside her. So this

383
00:20:37,880 --> 00:20:42,839
I think this one was influenced by more by medieval manuscripts,

384
00:20:42,880 --> 00:20:45,640
you know, because it's got that decorative border and I want,

385
00:20:45,359 --> 00:20:49,880
I really wanted to show the garden kind of elevated

386
00:20:50,079 --> 00:20:51,599
and flat here behind him.

387
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Speaker 2: So it's quite a weird composition.

388
00:20:53,440 --> 00:20:57,200
Speaker 1: But it's such a great solution. I mean, people looking

389
00:20:57,279 --> 00:21:00,720
you can see the border of the garden comes down

390
00:21:01,000 --> 00:21:03,720
and then becomes in some ways, you know, kind of

391
00:21:03,720 --> 00:21:08,240
flips and then becomes horizontal and then becomes the bed

392
00:21:08,279 --> 00:21:10,559
in which he's sleeping. It's such a such a simple,

393
00:21:10,839 --> 00:21:16,440
elegant solution, but it's quite it's quite powerful. Yeah, and

394
00:21:16,480 --> 00:21:18,559
so and then the trope is the trope for us

395
00:21:18,720 --> 00:21:22,039
was really emphasizing in some ways the fact that it

396
00:21:22,160 --> 00:21:25,359
really is a sin that the that the man and

397
00:21:25,400 --> 00:21:27,720
the woman are engaging in, and a sin in the

398
00:21:27,720 --> 00:21:30,480
technical sense, in the sense that the woman in some

399
00:21:30,519 --> 00:21:33,759
ways has this desire for the cabbage, and even though

400
00:21:33,799 --> 00:21:37,160
they start to see the consequences, they start to understand

401
00:21:37,200 --> 00:21:40,759
what the consequences might be of them taking this cabbage,

402
00:21:40,920 --> 00:21:43,160
they do it anyways, and then they kind of have

403
00:21:43,200 --> 00:21:43,920
to pay the price.

404
00:21:44,839 --> 00:21:45,400
Speaker 2: That's right.

405
00:21:45,440 --> 00:21:47,720
Speaker 3: And I think if you look at the flowers on

406
00:21:47,759 --> 00:21:50,200
the outside, I drew them in a way that kind

407
00:21:50,200 --> 00:21:53,359
of suggested alarm, like they're kind of prickly and like

408
00:21:53,640 --> 00:21:57,160
spreading out because something uncomfortable and bad is happening.

409
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Speaker 1: Yeah, And one of the things I wanted to catching this,

410
00:22:00,920 --> 00:22:04,920
which you know, when you read these stories often there

411
00:22:04,920 --> 00:22:08,039
are some narrative elements that aren't to me, that are

412
00:22:08,079 --> 00:22:10,480
there hidden in the story, but they're not made explicit,

413
00:22:10,519 --> 00:22:13,119
and so sometimes for modern readers you can't actually see

414
00:22:13,400 --> 00:22:17,160
the narrative, the narrative logic. So one of the things

415
00:22:17,160 --> 00:22:20,240
that I did in my book is basically the witch

416
00:22:20,279 --> 00:22:22,960
when she says, if you take my cabbage. I'm going

417
00:22:23,000 --> 00:22:26,160
to steal your child. It's as if she doesn't totally

418
00:22:26,200 --> 00:22:29,480
mean it. At the beginning. She's just saying that to say, like,

419
00:22:29,559 --> 00:22:32,000
get away from my cabbage patch, and if I see

420
00:22:32,000 --> 00:22:34,880
you again, I'll take your child. But then he comes back,

421
00:22:35,720 --> 00:22:38,559
and then she thinks, what this guy's willing to trade

422
00:22:38,599 --> 00:22:40,880
his child for a cabbage. What a horrible parent, So

423
00:22:41,319 --> 00:22:43,000
I should take their child. I should take the child.

424
00:22:43,039 --> 00:22:45,200
I would make up much better parent than that. Obviously

425
00:22:45,319 --> 00:22:48,400
she's wrong, but you can almost see there's I wanted

426
00:22:48,440 --> 00:22:50,359
to like, I wanted you to be able to see

427
00:22:51,000 --> 00:22:53,480
how in her from her point of view, the logic

428
00:22:53,519 --> 00:22:56,160
of taking her child was arrived at you know.

429
00:22:56,720 --> 00:22:57,039
Speaker 2: Yeah.

430
00:22:57,599 --> 00:23:05,799
Speaker 3: Yeah. The next one is her eating the cabbage. And

431
00:23:06,400 --> 00:23:08,839
I think I mentioned to you I was drawing this

432
00:23:08,880 --> 00:23:11,480
when it was lent and I was and I was fasting,

433
00:23:12,200 --> 00:23:15,160
so I was really thinking about that when I was

434
00:23:15,240 --> 00:23:19,839
drawing her just like laying into these cabbages, and I

435
00:23:19,880 --> 00:23:22,240
tried to put that look on her face, you know,

436
00:23:22,359 --> 00:23:24,599
like she wasn't really aware of what she was doing.

437
00:23:27,000 --> 00:23:31,640
And and we have the detail of her covering the

438
00:23:31,640 --> 00:23:34,640
the bump with with the cabbage because it's almost like

439
00:23:34,680 --> 00:23:36,240
she's forgotten about the pregnancy.

440
00:23:36,799 --> 00:23:40,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's great because with the previous image you see

441
00:23:40,200 --> 00:23:42,720
the baby kind of through her belly, which is a

442
00:23:42,880 --> 00:23:47,480
which is a iconographic trope that you see often in

443
00:23:47,880 --> 00:23:53,480
some of the images, especially at the when when Mother

444
00:23:53,519 --> 00:23:55,440
of God meets her cousin and you see like the

445
00:23:55,440 --> 00:23:57,920
two babies kind of greeting each other. And so I

446
00:23:57,920 --> 00:23:59,359
thought it was a great It was a great idea.

447
00:23:59,400 --> 00:24:01,880
And this is so simple. Just show the cabbage in

448
00:24:01,920 --> 00:24:04,400
front of the baby and it says everything you need

449
00:24:04,480 --> 00:24:10,200
to say about what her decision is. Yeah, this is

450
00:24:10,279 --> 00:24:13,480
one of my favorite images. I have to confess I.

451
00:24:15,559 --> 00:24:17,160
Speaker 2: Did this about four times.

452
00:24:17,319 --> 00:24:19,160
Speaker 3: This is about the Yeah, this is about the fourth

453
00:24:19,160 --> 00:24:23,160
attempt I think to get it right. And I think

454
00:24:23,480 --> 00:24:27,799
you had asked me to get the balance right between

455
00:24:27,920 --> 00:24:33,559
kind of creepiness and tenderness, which is quite difficult. But yeah,

456
00:24:33,559 --> 00:24:39,240
I wanted her to be, you know, nurturing that baby

457
00:24:39,279 --> 00:24:39,720
in a way.

458
00:24:39,799 --> 00:24:41,880
Speaker 2: But if you look at the the.

459
00:24:41,799 --> 00:24:45,079
Speaker 3: Witch herself, you know, the baby is playing with this

460
00:24:45,240 --> 00:24:51,039
bone necklace which is pretty sinister, and then you've got

461
00:24:51,039 --> 00:24:53,559
this owl in the background, which is obviously pretty terrifying

462
00:24:53,640 --> 00:24:54,440
coming towards you.

463
00:24:54,960 --> 00:24:58,039
Speaker 1: Yeah, and with the blonde hair that it just works

464
00:24:58,039 --> 00:25:00,559
so well. You just really see she does look like

465
00:25:00,799 --> 00:25:04,200
she's holding this little golden cabbage, because that's how she

466
00:25:04,279 --> 00:25:07,240
kind of cause her like my precious golden flower, and

467
00:25:07,279 --> 00:25:11,279
she kind of plays with the Rapunzel name and the

468
00:25:11,319 --> 00:25:13,680
way you did the hair, and this one really really

469
00:25:13,759 --> 00:25:14,599
works well.

470
00:25:14,680 --> 00:25:17,519
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you've got these cabbages in the border, and

471
00:25:17,559 --> 00:25:21,400
then so you've got one, two, and then three is

472
00:25:21,400 --> 00:25:25,119
the actual hair itself. They're almost like the same motif triangleing.

473
00:25:25,240 --> 00:25:30,720
And this is also the introduction of a Rapunzel really

474
00:25:30,720 --> 00:25:33,720
being just seen for her hair, because that's what's going

475
00:25:33,720 --> 00:25:36,000
to happen in the story. And the witch starts that

476
00:25:36,599 --> 00:25:40,200
she sees the golden hair and that's what she's looking at,

477
00:25:40,279 --> 00:25:45,279
and then you know, the prince continues seeing the hair.

478
00:25:45,519 --> 00:25:48,400
So yeah, I wanted to establish that idea early on.

479
00:25:49,680 --> 00:25:51,839
So the next one is the one thing I.

480
00:25:51,799 --> 00:25:53,839
Speaker 1: Want to say maybe for people to notice, is that

481
00:25:54,240 --> 00:25:56,680
this in this book, Heather really tried to make an

482
00:25:56,720 --> 00:26:00,799
effort to integrate the pages together. You know, in the

483
00:26:00,839 --> 00:26:03,400
snow White Book we had sometimes little details on the

484
00:26:03,400 --> 00:26:06,599
text page, but for this one, there really is a

485
00:26:07,200 --> 00:26:09,279
thought of how the ornament on the left page and

486
00:26:09,319 --> 00:26:12,359
the ornament and the image on the right page go together.

487
00:26:13,160 --> 00:26:15,000
You'll see in some of them that it's actually quite

488
00:26:15,039 --> 00:26:19,559
integrated in really interesting ways. So yeah, that's also one

489
00:26:19,640 --> 00:26:22,640
aspect that really increases this book.

490
00:26:23,839 --> 00:26:26,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think I really tried to do that.

491
00:26:26,680 --> 00:26:29,359
Speaker 3: In fact, I think I really learned from what Elouise

492
00:26:29,400 --> 00:26:31,960
did in Jack, you know, because she's so good at

493
00:26:32,039 --> 00:26:36,680
doing spreads, and I really wanted to continue that into

494
00:26:36,720 --> 00:26:39,160
this book in a slightly different way, in a more

495
00:26:39,240 --> 00:26:42,319
kind of ornamental way, but in an approach it was

496
00:26:42,359 --> 00:26:43,079
more holistic.

497
00:26:45,559 --> 00:26:48,079
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so this is this is for people. So

498
00:26:48,279 --> 00:26:50,519
in some ways, what we have this progress in the

499
00:26:50,559 --> 00:26:53,319
story where in some ways the witch obviously keeps taking

500
00:26:54,000 --> 00:26:57,079
Rapunzel more and more into the forest, kind of more

501
00:26:57,119 --> 00:26:59,799
and more hidden, and we kind of have it in

502
00:27:00,079 --> 00:27:03,160
apps where she builds this this this little tower at

503
00:27:03,160 --> 00:27:05,559
the beginning, this little kind of tall house at the

504
00:27:05,640 --> 00:27:08,359
at the outset, and this is the this is the

505
00:27:08,400 --> 00:27:11,200
first one, and she she creates this circle of magic,

506
00:27:11,240 --> 00:27:14,319
circle of protection around the house, which is what makes

507
00:27:14,359 --> 00:27:16,640
her hair grow. Because that's also an issue with the

508
00:27:16,720 --> 00:27:19,680
story in Rapunzels that obviously fair tales are great because

509
00:27:19,720 --> 00:27:21,079
they don't have to you don't have to explain it.

510
00:27:21,119 --> 00:27:23,960
But for modern readers, like why does she have long hair?

511
00:27:24,039 --> 00:27:27,240
For goodness sake? You know, And so we kind of

512
00:27:27,240 --> 00:27:30,119
made the fact that she's the witch is trying to

513
00:27:30,160 --> 00:27:33,319
protect her with this dark magic, is also making her

514
00:27:33,359 --> 00:27:36,599
hair grow, which analogically makes sense because that's what hairs for, right.

515
00:27:36,640 --> 00:27:39,240
Hair is there to protect you. It's there to protect

516
00:27:39,319 --> 00:27:42,519
your your your body, and so it makes sense that

517
00:27:42,599 --> 00:27:44,920
her hair would be would be growing, you know. And

518
00:27:44,960 --> 00:27:48,599
in some ways, the fact that she's trying to isolate

519
00:27:48,640 --> 00:27:50,880
her and protect her is creating this thing that she

520
00:27:51,000 --> 00:27:54,039
has which is also going to attract at the same time,

521
00:27:54,400 --> 00:27:56,200
you know, it's doing both at the same time. So

522
00:27:56,279 --> 00:27:57,319
it's quite deep.

523
00:27:57,319 --> 00:27:59,720
Speaker 2: Right, and it's cooled the circle of protection.

524
00:28:00,039 --> 00:28:04,160
Speaker 3: But we see also the witch's belt is going around

525
00:28:04,200 --> 00:28:07,160
the circle, and that's another reference to snow White, isn't it,

526
00:28:07,200 --> 00:28:09,119
because the belt was one of the things that.

527
00:28:09,519 --> 00:28:12,039
Speaker 2: You know, kind of strangled her.

528
00:28:12,440 --> 00:28:17,799
Speaker 3: Yeah, And so it's that thing how protection can be oppressive.

529
00:28:20,480 --> 00:28:22,880
So it's it's it's it's a kind of guys, isn't it?

530
00:28:22,880 --> 00:28:23,839
The circle of protection?

531
00:28:23,880 --> 00:28:26,240
Speaker 1: And I love this image I love this image. There's

532
00:28:26,400 --> 00:28:29,359
there's something also with the colors in this particular book.

533
00:28:29,400 --> 00:28:33,799
I think the color is the coloring is it's more subtle,

534
00:28:33,839 --> 00:28:37,440
like there's a subtlety to the coloring. And yeah, this

535
00:28:37,559 --> 00:28:40,640
is really beautiful. And I think the fact that you've

536
00:28:40,640 --> 00:28:46,319
also mastered a lot of the iconographic flowers and iconographic

537
00:28:46,440 --> 00:28:50,799
leaves and everything, it makes all of the all of

538
00:28:50,839 --> 00:28:54,519
the trees more like ornamentation than even in a way.

539
00:28:54,680 --> 00:28:57,279
Speaker 2: So yeah, so here's another tree.

540
00:28:57,599 --> 00:29:00,119
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love this image. This is Yeah, I love that.

541
00:29:00,240 --> 00:29:03,200
When my daughter saw this particular image, they really I

542
00:29:03,200 --> 00:29:06,240
don't know why. I mean for me, I mean, it's

543
00:29:06,240 --> 00:29:09,759
a beautiful image, but I've shown several my both daughters

544
00:29:09,839 --> 00:29:13,720
really love this image. They really kind of wow. And

545
00:29:13,759 --> 00:29:16,759
there's something dreamy about about what's going on here too.

546
00:29:17,640 --> 00:29:21,279
Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe it's a lesson more thing because with this

547
00:29:21,359 --> 00:29:26,000
particular passage, we meet a boy called Zoran, who's not

548
00:29:26,640 --> 00:29:29,440
he's not a really big part of the story, so

549
00:29:29,480 --> 00:29:31,160
I didn't really want to show him because we're going

550
00:29:31,200 --> 00:29:33,759
to see the prince later. So it was a bit like,

551
00:29:33,799 --> 00:29:37,279
how can I illustrate something without really showing it? So

552
00:29:37,359 --> 00:29:39,799
my solution was it's to kind of portrait of a

553
00:29:39,839 --> 00:29:43,039
tree and have the characters just kind of tiny and silhouette.

554
00:29:44,680 --> 00:29:48,680
So so yeah, I'm kind of surprised people like it

555
00:29:48,720 --> 00:29:52,319
because it doesn't it doesn't really show the action that much.

556
00:29:52,319 --> 00:29:54,920
But maybe it's more intriguing in that.

557
00:29:55,000 --> 00:29:57,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there's something. There's something about it, and I

558
00:29:57,480 --> 00:29:59,559
think it's also I mean, it comes close to what

559
00:29:59,640 --> 00:30:02,640
it is I wanted to suggest in the book, because

560
00:30:02,920 --> 00:30:04,599
one of the things I wanted to suggest in the

561
00:30:04,599 --> 00:30:09,720
book is in some ways, Rapunzel has this moment with

562
00:30:09,759 --> 00:30:11,960
this boy who takes her up into a tree, and

563
00:30:12,000 --> 00:30:14,759
so she kind of goes up high and then she

564
00:30:14,799 --> 00:30:17,279
also has but she experiences it as a kind of freedom,

565
00:30:17,720 --> 00:30:20,160
you know, a little taste of freedom, and then the

566
00:30:20,200 --> 00:30:24,839
Witch basically uses that and then turns it into a prison.

567
00:30:25,000 --> 00:30:27,480
She's like, oh, like, you like going up in the tree,

568
00:30:27,519 --> 00:30:30,240
did you. Well, I'll put you up somewhere, you know,

569
00:30:30,359 --> 00:30:32,599
where you'll always get to have the same view. It'll

570
00:30:32,640 --> 00:30:35,720
be wonderful, you'll be you know, And so she kind

571
00:30:35,720 --> 00:30:38,920
of flips her her desire for freedom and that experience

572
00:30:38,920 --> 00:30:41,400
of elation into a prison.

573
00:30:42,400 --> 00:30:46,359
Speaker 3: That's right, So now we're seeing the inside of the prison,

574
00:30:48,599 --> 00:30:52,599
and yeah, I think this one started. It's obviously an

575
00:30:52,839 --> 00:30:56,599
iconic image from Rapunzel. You've got to show inside the tower,

576
00:30:58,039 --> 00:31:00,400
But originally I did it in the daytime. And then

577
00:31:00,640 --> 00:31:02,839
I think when I was coloring in I was listening

578
00:31:02,880 --> 00:31:06,680
to a Martin Schure book Martin Shaw, and it was

579
00:31:06,720 --> 00:31:09,839
called I Think Smoke Hole, and he was talking about

580
00:31:09,839 --> 00:31:13,039
this mythology of something called the moon Palace, and he

581
00:31:13,119 --> 00:31:16,160
described it as a place where you can see everything,

582
00:31:16,440 --> 00:31:19,799
but there's no connection, and there is something about that

583
00:31:19,799 --> 00:31:21,960
that I just thought, well, that's what I'm drawing. So

584
00:31:22,000 --> 00:31:24,480
I decided to turn it into the moon Tower, and

585
00:31:24,519 --> 00:31:28,079
I changed it into kind of nighttime, and I think

586
00:31:28,119 --> 00:31:32,079
it really suited the mood that she's isolated and lonely.

587
00:31:34,519 --> 00:31:37,880
And it's also a portrait of, you know, an inclination

588
00:31:38,000 --> 00:31:41,480
that you see a lot these days, where people want

589
00:31:41,480 --> 00:31:46,200
to raise their daughters, you know, in isolation, you know,

590
00:31:46,279 --> 00:31:49,039
with an emphasis on the intellect and reading, but not

591
00:31:49,079 --> 00:31:54,799
actually giving them access to life experience. And so I

592
00:31:54,839 --> 00:31:56,400
definitely wanted that to come across.

593
00:31:56,920 --> 00:31:59,359
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is really I think where you start

594
00:31:59,400 --> 00:32:01,839
to see there's an image in the snow White Book

595
00:32:01,880 --> 00:32:05,200
where you see snow White, you know, as she's being punished,

596
00:32:05,200 --> 00:32:07,680
you could say, like her punishment is to be cast out.

597
00:32:07,720 --> 00:32:10,599
And you see her in the house of the Dwarfs,

598
00:32:10,960 --> 00:32:13,519
you know, in kind of rag type clothing, and she's

599
00:32:13,640 --> 00:32:16,440
cleaning the house. So she's working hard. She's in this

600
00:32:16,559 --> 00:32:21,200
little kind of dwarf prison, and it's so wonderful to

601
00:32:21,279 --> 00:32:24,400
see how it's the opposite of this, you know, in

602
00:32:24,480 --> 00:32:27,559
this one. You know, she's basically she's been now put

603
00:32:27,599 --> 00:32:29,920
because she's not a princess, right, Rapunzel's not a princess.

604
00:32:29,960 --> 00:32:33,839
She's a commoner. But now she's put in this beautiful

605
00:32:34,039 --> 00:32:36,559
you know tower, you know, everything she wants, you know,

606
00:32:36,599 --> 00:32:39,519
she's in this beautiful kind of castle like tower. Uh,

607
00:32:39,559 --> 00:32:41,680
and she has you know, she has all of these

608
00:32:41,880 --> 00:32:45,799
these externals, but she's she's lonely and so and she

609
00:32:46,079 --> 00:32:49,039
has nothing to do, and so she's like the really,

610
00:32:49,079 --> 00:32:51,319
it's just I just find it fascinating. And she she's

611
00:32:51,319 --> 00:32:54,160
wearing beautiful clothing and she's got her beautiful hair. So

612
00:32:54,279 --> 00:32:56,000
it's yeah, yeah.

613
00:32:55,759 --> 00:32:57,640
Speaker 3: And I think that's a really good point about snow

614
00:32:57,680 --> 00:32:58,799
White because.

615
00:33:00,119 --> 00:33:01,400
Speaker 2: That connection to the earth.

616
00:33:01,440 --> 00:33:04,640
Speaker 3: And so in this case, I drew a Punzel with

617
00:33:04,799 --> 00:33:08,200
she's not even touching the ground, like she's actually got

618
00:33:08,200 --> 00:33:12,079
her feet on her own hair. Yeah, and she's she's

619
00:33:12,119 --> 00:33:14,759
elevated up away from the world.

620
00:33:14,839 --> 00:33:15,400
Speaker 2: Basically.

621
00:33:16,240 --> 00:33:18,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love it. Just simple solutions that you've done

622
00:33:18,480 --> 00:33:21,240
where you have at the bottom of the image people

623
00:33:21,279 --> 00:33:24,759
can look you kind of have the hair swirling around her,

624
00:33:25,079 --> 00:33:27,000
and then you actually put the trees there as if

625
00:33:27,119 --> 00:33:30,160
like her her hair is like on top of the trees,

626
00:33:30,200 --> 00:33:33,119
and so it's this is I mean, these that's why

627
00:33:34,279 --> 00:33:38,720
iconographic type images, you know, especially if you use them

628
00:33:38,720 --> 00:33:41,759
with a little more fantastical you know. I mean, if

629
00:33:41,799 --> 00:33:44,799
you're making images of for religious purposes, there's a limit

630
00:33:44,839 --> 00:33:46,759
to what you can do. But if you use the

631
00:33:47,039 --> 00:33:50,000
logic of the iconographic image and then you push it

632
00:33:50,039 --> 00:33:52,960
a little more, you can come to some really wonderful

633
00:33:54,200 --> 00:33:57,519
formal solutions that are have so much narrative depth.

634
00:33:58,119 --> 00:34:00,440
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I mean it's just as a lang, which it's

635
00:34:00,480 --> 00:34:03,559
just really a gift to work with, which is why

636
00:34:03,880 --> 00:34:05,680
I love drawing in it.

637
00:34:06,240 --> 00:34:07,920
Speaker 1: You know, which is why we people. I mean, I

638
00:34:07,920 --> 00:34:10,320
think most people watching this are already convinced of this.

639
00:34:10,440 --> 00:34:14,760
But you know, when I sometimes describe the Renaissance as

640
00:34:14,960 --> 00:34:18,400
almost like an artistic decadence. This is what I mean

641
00:34:18,519 --> 00:34:21,960
is that it's actually quite limiting. It limits what's possible

642
00:34:22,360 --> 00:34:26,880
instead of opening it up. Whereas the Medieval style had

643
00:34:27,039 --> 00:34:30,000
so much possibility in terms of how you could use

644
00:34:30,039 --> 00:34:34,079
images in order to render something, and then the Renaissance

645
00:34:34,239 --> 00:34:38,199
just like narrows it to the snapshot type of composition.

646
00:34:38,639 --> 00:34:38,760
Speaker 3: One.

647
00:34:39,559 --> 00:34:42,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's it's all completely story driven.

648
00:34:42,400 --> 00:34:44,119
Speaker 3: So any point you want to make, you really have

649
00:34:44,199 --> 00:34:46,480
the tools there to do it, and you're not limited

650
00:34:46,480 --> 00:34:50,199
by naturalism. I mean people will have noticed seeing all

651
00:34:50,239 --> 00:34:54,840
of these images. Really, I don't largely use naturalistic color.

652
00:34:55,239 --> 00:35:00,480
The color tends to be more driven by emotion or drama.

653
00:35:00,639 --> 00:35:05,760
Some some of it's naturalistic, but but but yeah, not much that.

654
00:35:05,880 --> 00:35:07,960
The next one I think is probably the most naturalistic

655
00:35:08,000 --> 00:35:12,159
image that I did, and that's the green forest.

656
00:35:12,199 --> 00:35:16,960
Speaker 2: And this here we see there the external.

657
00:35:16,400 --> 00:35:19,880
Speaker 3: Tower for the first time, and this is really drawn

658
00:35:19,920 --> 00:35:21,320
as the prince's point of view.

659
00:35:21,800 --> 00:35:23,599
Speaker 2: So he's encountering Rapunzel.

660
00:35:24,119 --> 00:35:26,599
Speaker 3: He's in the he's in the forest, and all he's

661
00:35:26,639 --> 00:35:29,880
seeing really is the hair and the witch and the tower,

662
00:35:30,760 --> 00:35:33,639
and he's hearing her voice. And so I've done some

663
00:35:35,079 --> 00:35:38,320
musical notes there too, to indicate that he can hear

664
00:35:38,360 --> 00:35:42,519
the music. And the design of the tower took it again,

665
00:35:42,599 --> 00:35:46,719
took a few goes, because the Rapunzel tower is quite

666
00:35:46,920 --> 00:35:50,039
iconic in this kind of timber, you know, German design.

667
00:35:50,119 --> 00:35:52,000
We see it in lots of places, and I didn't

668
00:35:52,039 --> 00:35:56,480
want to do that, and we we discussed it and

669
00:35:56,519 --> 00:36:01,280
I ended up doing like a mother of pearl room.

670
00:36:01,039 --> 00:36:01,559
Speaker 2: At the top.

671
00:36:02,239 --> 00:36:05,280
Speaker 3: But I think the whole actual, the whole design was

672
00:36:05,320 --> 00:36:09,400
influenced by the Jack and the Giants book, because you've

673
00:36:09,400 --> 00:36:13,000
got like three steps there of articulation. You've got like

674
00:36:13,079 --> 00:36:16,800
the rough rocks, and then you've got the stones, and

675
00:36:16,840 --> 00:36:20,800
then you've got the kind of you know, articulated mother

676
00:36:20,880 --> 00:36:23,760
of pearl part of the top.

677
00:36:24,440 --> 00:36:26,840
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's so amazing because we didn't talk about

678
00:36:26,840 --> 00:36:28,840
this at all, Like I didn't say, hey, why don't

679
00:36:28,880 --> 00:36:32,039
you make the tower using the same structure as in

680
00:36:32,079 --> 00:36:34,840
the Jack book as these three tiered kind of heavens.

681
00:36:36,039 --> 00:36:38,480
And then but then it makes so much sense, like

682
00:36:38,920 --> 00:36:41,000
because for those who haven't read the Jack Book, the

683
00:36:41,039 --> 00:36:44,119
final castle that he goes to is like this golden

684
00:36:44,159 --> 00:36:48,119
mother of pearl crystal castle, and so you can see it,

685
00:36:48,199 --> 00:36:50,480
especially in the image you showed before and the next

686
00:36:50,480 --> 00:36:53,079
one we'll see, like you really get this sense that

687
00:36:53,159 --> 00:36:55,880
this is what's what's going on here. So it's because

688
00:36:56,000 --> 00:36:59,880
I also make in the Rapunzel book, you know, I

689
00:37:00,199 --> 00:37:04,519
make a reference. I connect the harp to Rapunzel, and

690
00:37:04,559 --> 00:37:07,079
so there's a little bit where in some ways there's

691
00:37:07,119 --> 00:37:09,559
the story of Jack is being told in the Rapunzel book,

692
00:37:09,719 --> 00:37:13,199
and you realize that there's a connection between the Singing

693
00:37:13,239 --> 00:37:16,400
Harp and Rapunzel. So it all just makes so much,

694
00:37:16,599 --> 00:37:17,800
so much sense that you did this.

695
00:37:18,480 --> 00:37:21,679
Speaker 3: Yeah, and yeah, interesting you say about the singing Heart

696
00:37:21,760 --> 00:37:24,800
because the window there, which is a circular window, is

697
00:37:24,880 --> 00:37:28,039
kind of like the voice, you know, like a mouth,

698
00:37:28,559 --> 00:37:33,800
and so that explained the design of the window as well.

699
00:37:35,519 --> 00:37:41,239
So it's really about music and height and hair. So

700
00:37:41,400 --> 00:37:47,159
in the next image we it's when the Prince encounters

701
00:37:47,239 --> 00:37:50,119
Rapunzel for the first time. And I had a feeling

702
00:37:50,159 --> 00:37:52,440
here that I wanted to do a kind of repeat

703
00:37:52,440 --> 00:37:54,519
image of the one I did in snow White, where

704
00:37:55,400 --> 00:37:58,159
snow White encountered the Prince in the palace and they

705
00:37:58,280 --> 00:38:00,360
met each other and you saw different narratives. He was

706
00:38:00,360 --> 00:38:03,360
climbing up the ivy they were meeting in her room,

707
00:38:04,960 --> 00:38:07,400
and I wanted to do I loved the format of

708
00:38:07,400 --> 00:38:09,199
that and thought, wouldn't it be great to do something

709
00:38:09,239 --> 00:38:13,480
like that and Rapunzel. But with the Rapunzel tower, it's

710
00:38:13,519 --> 00:38:15,800
so small. I felt like I had to kind of

711
00:38:15,880 --> 00:38:18,679
expand the architecture and kind of like a net like

712
00:38:18,760 --> 00:38:21,800
pull it out, and then also make that window much

713
00:38:21,840 --> 00:38:24,039
bigger so you could really see what was going on.

714
00:38:25,079 --> 00:38:29,800
So this is quite a fantastical layout really, and showing

715
00:38:29,920 --> 00:38:33,960
the kind of simultaneous narrative of them meeting maybe over

716
00:38:34,480 --> 00:38:37,480
you know, twenty four hours, and they encounter each other,

717
00:38:37,599 --> 00:38:40,880
then they meet, and then in the last one it's

718
00:38:40,880 --> 00:38:43,760
obviously they've fallen in love. And Rapunzel at that point

719
00:38:44,400 --> 00:38:47,280
you can't can hardly see any of her except her hair,

720
00:38:47,840 --> 00:38:51,559
and that's really what she becomes to the Prince from

721
00:38:51,559 --> 00:38:52,119
this point on.

722
00:38:53,039 --> 00:38:54,320
Speaker 2: That's what involves in love.

723
00:38:54,119 --> 00:38:57,239
Speaker 1: With Yeah, and I mean I love how again. In

724
00:38:57,400 --> 00:39:00,639
terms of the difference between Rapunzel and snow White. In

725
00:39:00,679 --> 00:39:04,320
some ways, snow White, you know, she warns the Prince

726
00:39:04,719 --> 00:39:07,960
that it's not the time like this is this is

727
00:39:08,000 --> 00:39:11,360
too soon when he tries to kiss her, but Rapunzel

728
00:39:11,519 --> 00:39:14,920
in some ways, you know, she's so alone, like it's

729
00:39:15,000 --> 00:39:18,599
just so hungry. You know, the Witch has made has

730
00:39:18,920 --> 00:39:22,159
put her by trying to overprotect her in some ways,

731
00:39:22,199 --> 00:39:25,599
she's put her in more danger of the very thing

732
00:39:25,679 --> 00:39:26,880
that she doesn't want to happen.

733
00:39:27,199 --> 00:39:29,239
Speaker 3: That's why she falls in love with the first man

734
00:39:29,280 --> 00:39:31,559
who comes away, and she's got no tools to discern

735
00:39:31,679 --> 00:39:35,320
whether he's suitable or not or what his intentions might be.

736
00:39:37,159 --> 00:39:40,280
So yeah, she's she's she's more vulnerable than she would

737
00:39:40,320 --> 00:39:41,000
have been otherwise.

738
00:39:41,039 --> 00:39:43,559
Speaker 2: I think the next one is.

739
00:39:43,519 --> 00:39:46,119
Speaker 1: By the way that image, it's that's the most the

740
00:39:46,119 --> 00:39:48,119
one before that, it is the most It's like the

741
00:39:48,119 --> 00:39:50,599
most Disney. It's the most Disney one, like in the

742
00:39:50,679 --> 00:39:53,639
sense that it is like I think, I think I

743
00:39:53,679 --> 00:39:55,800
love in some ways how because we know in the

744
00:39:55,920 --> 00:39:58,960
story that we also show the negative elements of this

745
00:39:59,039 --> 00:40:02,039
kind of romantic moment. We both show how it comes

746
00:40:02,039 --> 00:40:04,199
together at the end, but it's also there are some

747
00:40:04,559 --> 00:40:07,559
challenges and difficulties. I think it means that it was

748
00:40:07,840 --> 00:40:10,079
it was great to show it though, Like there is

749
00:40:10,119 --> 00:40:13,400
something that every eleven, like ten eleven year old girl

750
00:40:13,400 --> 00:40:15,679
will look at this and be like, oh wow, like.

751
00:40:15,760 --> 00:40:17,239
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good point.

752
00:40:17,480 --> 00:40:19,480
Speaker 3: I think when I first read the story, I knew

753
00:40:19,480 --> 00:40:21,679
there was some dark moments, and I did really want

754
00:40:21,719 --> 00:40:25,000
to grasp the opportunity of doing something that was light

755
00:40:25,079 --> 00:40:29,199
and romantic, and you know, just for the contrast, but

756
00:40:29,239 --> 00:40:32,320
also to have that moment, because you know, many of

757
00:40:32,400 --> 00:40:35,280
us have a romantic soul and want to see that.

758
00:40:35,480 --> 00:40:39,400
Speaker 1: So yeah, I think that's okay. I think that's what's

759
00:40:39,400 --> 00:40:42,159
great about these stories that in some ways you you

760
00:40:42,679 --> 00:40:46,559
you can show something in its fullest sense and then

761
00:40:46,679 --> 00:40:49,920
also then show the consequences in the fullest sense, and

762
00:40:50,280 --> 00:40:52,519
like you can. I think that's what's great about it.

763
00:40:52,519 --> 00:40:54,559
It's it's not just one thing. There are all these

764
00:40:54,559 --> 00:40:58,599
things happening in the story. And even you could think

765
00:40:58,639 --> 00:41:02,039
that a child or even adult reading it in different

766
00:41:02,079 --> 00:41:06,639
moments or different moods would pick out certain things more like,

767
00:41:06,719 --> 00:41:09,320
would would be attentive to certain things more than others

768
00:41:09,719 --> 00:41:12,039
and would come at the end and like my wife

769
00:41:12,119 --> 00:41:15,519
read it, it was super interesting and she said, oh,

770
00:41:15,559 --> 00:41:17,960
there's some elements in the story that are kind of

771
00:41:17,960 --> 00:41:20,679
similar to our relationship, let's say, And I thought, yeah,

772
00:41:20,719 --> 00:41:22,119
I think you're right, and she told me what it

773
00:41:22,159 --> 00:41:23,880
was and I'm like, oh, that's not the same as

774
00:41:23,920 --> 00:41:26,719
what I thought. You know, I had other other tracks

775
00:41:26,719 --> 00:41:28,440
that I thought it was similar to our relationship, but

776
00:41:28,480 --> 00:41:30,159
I didn't like, I didn't push it because I thought

777
00:41:30,280 --> 00:41:32,280
it's all there, like there's all these things that you

778
00:41:32,320 --> 00:41:34,519
can that you can pull and you can see as

779
00:41:34,920 --> 00:41:38,079
reflecting and the same could happen with snow White or

780
00:41:38,119 --> 00:41:40,199
with Jack. You know, there there are these threads that

781
00:41:40,239 --> 00:41:43,119
you can notice that they connect to your to your life.

782
00:41:43,159 --> 00:41:44,960
So I love that absolutely.

783
00:41:45,079 --> 00:41:48,239
Speaker 2: Yeah.

784
00:41:48,400 --> 00:41:52,239
Speaker 3: The next one is I mean that that the composition

785
00:41:52,280 --> 00:41:54,440
of this is quite bonkers, but I just knew.

786
00:41:55,840 --> 00:41:57,880
Speaker 2: New elements that I needed to have in there.

787
00:41:57,920 --> 00:42:01,760
Speaker 3: And so the idea is, it's the it's the Prince's dream,

788
00:42:01,840 --> 00:42:04,199
and you can see again like he's grasping the hair

789
00:42:04,320 --> 00:42:07,000
and he's covered by the hair because that's how he's

790
00:42:07,000 --> 00:42:10,400
perceiving Rapunzel. But the reality of what's happening in that

791
00:42:10,480 --> 00:42:13,920
window is quite different. And she's obviously on the threat

792
00:42:13,960 --> 00:42:14,599
from the witch.

793
00:42:14,880 --> 00:42:15,480
Speaker 2: The witch is.

794
00:42:15,440 --> 00:42:19,559
Speaker 3: Closing in on her and so are the thorns, but

795
00:42:19,639 --> 00:42:23,199
he's not done anything about it yet. So yeah, I

796
00:42:23,320 --> 00:42:25,079
was bringing all those two things together and the other

797
00:42:25,119 --> 00:42:27,440
thing for those that are attentive. Is that he you'll

798
00:42:27,480 --> 00:42:29,840
notice he's sleeping in the snow white castle.

799
00:42:30,880 --> 00:42:34,559
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, see I didn't even totally catch that, okually.

800
00:42:35,199 --> 00:42:38,639
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you might recognize that that set up from

801
00:42:39,400 --> 00:42:40,039
my white book.

802
00:42:40,159 --> 00:42:44,400
Speaker 1: So yes, yeah, and that's for us that it's all

803
00:42:44,440 --> 00:42:47,239
there in the story. What's wonderful in the Rapunzel story

804
00:42:47,360 --> 00:42:51,800
is that you can also show the image of the

805
00:42:52,000 --> 00:42:55,360
of the man who is a little too taken up

806
00:42:55,400 --> 00:42:59,039
by externals and then also isn't willing to make the

807
00:42:59,119 --> 00:43:01,320
right sacrifice is you know, And so that's how we

808
00:43:01,320 --> 00:43:05,079
present him that he should have rescued her from the tower,

809
00:43:05,239 --> 00:43:07,079
like he should have figured out a way to do that.

810
00:43:07,480 --> 00:43:10,519
And he is a prince, after all, he probably has

811
00:43:10,559 --> 00:43:13,440
the means to get her out of the tower, but

812
00:43:13,599 --> 00:43:16,039
he just kind of just keeps going to see her,

813
00:43:16,199 --> 00:43:20,480
you know, and then is yeah, and so so then

814
00:43:20,519 --> 00:43:21,920
he has he's going to have to pay the price

815
00:43:21,960 --> 00:43:22,199
for that.

816
00:43:22,360 --> 00:43:23,599
Speaker 2: So that's right.

817
00:43:23,679 --> 00:43:28,840
Speaker 3: So this is just before the prince is full, but

818
00:43:28,960 --> 00:43:30,440
he goes on a bit of a journey and I

819
00:43:30,480 --> 00:43:33,480
think this was an interesting aspect that you introduced to

820
00:43:33,519 --> 00:43:36,920
the story that we may not know from the original.

821
00:43:37,760 --> 00:43:40,320
And that's his interaction with a hermit.

822
00:43:41,239 --> 00:43:45,400
Speaker 1: And something I've completely added to completely added to the story.

823
00:43:45,440 --> 00:43:48,480
But it's because we have this hermit character who is

824
00:43:48,519 --> 00:43:50,760
there in the Jack story, you know, who's the in

825
00:43:50,800 --> 00:43:53,960
some ways the kind of puzzling, the puzzling character that

826
00:43:54,440 --> 00:43:56,840
asked the riddles of Jack and also sells in the

827
00:43:56,840 --> 00:43:59,280
beans and everything. And this character is going to continue on.

828
00:44:00,119 --> 00:44:02,960
Wanted him in some ways to meet you. I mean,

829
00:44:03,000 --> 00:44:04,400
if it was a woman, it would have been like

830
00:44:04,440 --> 00:44:07,159
an Old Crone type character. And in some ways, that's

831
00:44:07,159 --> 00:44:10,079
what the hermit is acting as, you know, as someone

832
00:44:10,119 --> 00:44:13,239
who is helping the prince reflect on his decisions and

833
00:44:13,800 --> 00:44:19,079
kind of see what's actually going on. That's right, And

834
00:44:19,119 --> 00:44:21,320
I love how you have that, Like I don't say

835
00:44:21,400 --> 00:44:23,800
that because he's blind, so the prince doesn't see what

836
00:44:23,840 --> 00:44:26,079
the hermit's doing. He just hears what the hermit's doing,

837
00:44:26,440 --> 00:44:29,760
and he just hears the flax being transformed into thread,

838
00:44:30,400 --> 00:44:33,719
and so you know, in the image you see what

839
00:44:33,840 --> 00:44:36,119
he's actually doing. And I just I just love those

840
00:44:36,159 --> 00:44:38,719
little details where if you're not paying attention, you can

841
00:44:38,800 --> 00:44:41,039
miss it, you know, and then later in the next

842
00:44:41,119 --> 00:44:43,760
in the future stories, you might remember, wait a minute,

843
00:44:44,360 --> 00:44:46,719
there was something going on in this early story that

844
00:44:47,039 --> 00:44:52,440
we didn't say, what is happening? So good stuff. Oh

845
00:44:52,480 --> 00:44:53,840
and by the way, let's go go back to that

846
00:44:53,880 --> 00:44:56,199
one too, And this is this is actually one of

847
00:44:56,199 --> 00:45:00,840
the examples where that where Heather really fell in love

848
00:45:00,840 --> 00:45:04,199
with kind of the cave iconography that you see in

849
00:45:04,320 --> 00:45:07,000
the in the Pallex style, but also just in icons

850
00:45:07,000 --> 00:45:09,480
in general. And there were some really beautiful images of

851
00:45:09,840 --> 00:45:13,719
people in caves that had this little little encompassed sense

852
00:45:13,880 --> 00:45:16,639
with the opening and h and so she said, look,

853
00:45:16,679 --> 00:45:18,880
because in the original version I wrote it as like

854
00:45:18,960 --> 00:45:21,280
a cabin and she's like, oh, we have to make

855
00:45:21,320 --> 00:45:23,199
it a cave. And when she said it, I'm like, yeah,

856
00:45:23,239 --> 00:45:25,719
obviously we have to make it a cave. It's so

857
00:45:25,880 --> 00:45:28,599
much better. And so we just went and made it

858
00:45:28,639 --> 00:45:30,559
a cave. And I love how you did it because

859
00:45:30,960 --> 00:45:34,440
you also add a little bit of naturalism through the

860
00:45:34,440 --> 00:45:37,559
way the light appears on the inside of the of

861
00:45:37,599 --> 00:45:40,480
the cave opening, which which just adds just a little

862
00:45:40,480 --> 00:45:44,000
bit of magic to the image, which which I love.

863
00:45:44,280 --> 00:45:46,639
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you for changing that. I think because I'd

864
00:45:46,639 --> 00:45:50,400
already drawn two cabins. I saw the I saw the

865
00:45:50,400 --> 00:45:53,119
cave reference and just thought, I really got to do that,

866
00:45:53,199 --> 00:45:55,840
so it was really lovely to draw.

867
00:45:56,079 --> 00:45:58,559
Speaker 1: So yeah, now this cave is gonna is going to

868
00:45:58,760 --> 00:46:01,000
continue on in the store, so that's great.

869
00:46:03,480 --> 00:46:07,239
Speaker 3: So this is a sort of resolution image, and this

870
00:46:07,320 --> 00:46:11,840
is the Prince finding Rapunzel again. He hears her voice

871
00:46:12,000 --> 00:46:18,840
once more and he finds her behind the cabin, and yeah,

872
00:46:18,880 --> 00:46:21,480
I just absolutely love drawing this. I think one thing

873
00:46:21,519 --> 00:46:25,559
to mention is how Rapunzel has been transformed from the

874
00:46:25,599 --> 00:46:30,079
early images. So in the frontispiece, for example, you know,

875
00:46:30,159 --> 00:46:33,320
she's very idealized, she's very young, she's got tiny feet,

876
00:46:33,480 --> 00:46:36,519
and I wanted to joy a different version of a

877
00:46:36,519 --> 00:46:39,599
Punzel here. She's older, she's been through childbirth, she's become

878
00:46:39,599 --> 00:46:43,039
a mother, she's sort of she understands what it is

879
00:46:43,079 --> 00:46:46,039
to be kind of grounded and you know, involved in

880
00:46:46,079 --> 00:46:49,039
the earthly tasks. And so her feet are actually bigger

881
00:46:49,079 --> 00:46:52,440
on purpose here, and that there's two reasons obviously, to

882
00:46:52,480 --> 00:46:54,320
make her look more connected to the earth. But the

883
00:46:54,360 --> 00:46:58,519
other thing is that after pregnancy, especially if you have twins,

884
00:46:58,679 --> 00:47:02,119
your feet actually slightly bigger physically as well, because the

885
00:47:02,119 --> 00:47:07,039
bones have to spread to carry the weight. So I

886
00:47:07,079 --> 00:47:10,840
wanted to draw her just as a much rounder figure,

887
00:47:11,199 --> 00:47:15,400
you know, much more real character at this point after

888
00:47:15,440 --> 00:47:16,320
her transformation.

889
00:47:16,599 --> 00:47:18,320
Speaker 2: So that was important from my side.

890
00:47:18,800 --> 00:47:22,519
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it was. It was interesting because this is

891
00:47:22,559 --> 00:47:25,320
a great, great suggestion that you made. Also, so people

892
00:47:25,360 --> 00:47:26,920
know how we kind of do this because I do

893
00:47:26,960 --> 00:47:29,000
write the story, but then we look at it together,

894
00:47:29,119 --> 00:47:31,119
Heather and I and and she sometimes she'll give me

895
00:47:31,199 --> 00:47:35,800
these suggestions. And so what I wanted was in some

896
00:47:35,880 --> 00:47:39,400
ways the prince. So my vision of the Rapunzel story

897
00:47:39,440 --> 00:47:43,599
is that the prince is too seduced by her external appearance. Obviously,

898
00:47:43,679 --> 00:47:46,000
you know, she's beautiful. You know she's up there in

899
00:47:46,039 --> 00:47:47,880
the tower. She can just go see her and get

900
00:47:47,920 --> 00:47:52,239
everything he wants. And it's like he basically is blinded already,

901
00:47:52,440 --> 00:47:56,280
you know, by by he can't really see her. And

902
00:47:56,320 --> 00:47:59,639
there's the scene where the witch is behind the hair,

903
00:47:59,719 --> 00:48:02,159
so she cuts the hair off and now she's when

904
00:48:02,199 --> 00:48:05,440
he goes up the tower, he sees the witch and

905
00:48:05,480 --> 00:48:08,440
then he falls. And I really had this intuition that

906
00:48:08,519 --> 00:48:11,440
in some ways that's actually something that can happen to

907
00:48:11,480 --> 00:48:14,360
any everyone, Like it's something if you're not careful, like

908
00:48:14,400 --> 00:48:16,760
if you, let's say, a man who falls in love

909
00:48:16,880 --> 00:48:19,519
with a woman and then doesn't get to know her

910
00:48:19,960 --> 00:48:22,199
for who she is, like, doesn't love her for the

911
00:48:22,199 --> 00:48:24,199
person that she is. At some point he is going

912
00:48:24,280 --> 00:48:25,960
to face an old woman, Like, at some point he's

913
00:48:26,000 --> 00:48:28,400
going to come face to face with someone that has

914
00:48:28,440 --> 00:48:33,639
lost that beauty, and if you haven't dealt with it properly,

915
00:48:33,760 --> 00:48:36,599
then you're going to fall like, you won't be able,

916
00:48:37,119 --> 00:48:40,719
you'll in some ways be in a difficult situation. So

917
00:48:42,280 --> 00:48:44,440
what I wanted is that when he finally comes and

918
00:48:44,480 --> 00:48:47,440
sees her in some way, she's lost some of the

919
00:48:47,519 --> 00:48:52,119
external beauty, and but then he loves her nonetheless because

920
00:48:52,159 --> 00:48:55,199
he's also been through this whole this whole process, and

921
00:48:55,239 --> 00:48:57,239
a lot of people, that's what happens a lot of

922
00:48:57,280 --> 00:49:00,800
men like when their wife has a child because of

923
00:49:00,840 --> 00:49:02,920
everything that it puts her through and all of the

924
00:49:02,920 --> 00:49:05,719
difficulty that it brings, and in some ways seeing their

925
00:49:06,360 --> 00:49:11,320
wife in more difficult, vulnerable situations. You know, it's obviously

926
00:49:11,360 --> 00:49:15,119
when a woman has a child, she doesn't she can't

927
00:49:15,159 --> 00:49:17,320
take care of herself as much. She's not as you know.

928
00:49:17,920 --> 00:49:20,039
And so I thought, like, this is something that happens

929
00:49:20,039 --> 00:49:21,480
to a lot of guys, So it has to be

930
00:49:21,480 --> 00:49:24,280
in the story, right, he can't see her. He's blind.

931
00:49:24,280 --> 00:49:27,679
He can't see her for actually too long. She has

932
00:49:27,679 --> 00:49:31,199
these children, and he can't interact with her anyway. So

933
00:49:31,239 --> 00:49:32,800
I wanted him to kind of come to her and

934
00:49:32,880 --> 00:49:35,719
see her as this woman that in some ways has

935
00:49:35,800 --> 00:49:38,119
lost some of her beauty but he still loves her.

936
00:49:38,639 --> 00:49:41,159
And Heather was like, yeah, but you know, we need

937
00:49:41,199 --> 00:49:43,119
to add a little detail, and so she said, you

938
00:49:43,280 --> 00:49:46,280
need to say that he can see her like beautiful

939
00:49:46,360 --> 00:49:50,360
green eyes. And I thought, oh, that's a great idea, Like,

940
00:49:50,360 --> 00:49:53,320
it's such a simple idea because it connects. It connects

941
00:49:53,360 --> 00:49:57,440
to her voice too, because that's how he finds her again.

942
00:49:57,480 --> 00:50:01,199
It's hearing her voice again instead of her hair. So anyway,

943
00:50:01,239 --> 00:50:02,840
so I just thought it was an interesting idea. And

944
00:50:02,840 --> 00:50:04,679
then I went back in the story and then we

945
00:50:05,039 --> 00:50:07,639
added i think the green eyes in the story in

946
00:50:07,679 --> 00:50:10,480
certain parts to kind of tie it together so that

947
00:50:10,519 --> 00:50:12,960
when he sees her her emerald kind of green eyes,

948
00:50:13,519 --> 00:50:14,719
you know, he recognizes her.

949
00:50:14,800 --> 00:50:17,000
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, that's right.

950
00:50:17,320 --> 00:50:19,159
Speaker 3: Kind of connects to the cabbages as well, I like

951
00:50:19,159 --> 00:50:24,440
to post, doesn't it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

952
00:50:22,880 --> 00:50:24,199
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was important that it.

953
00:50:24,840 --> 00:50:26,840
Speaker 3: I think the first reading I felt I felt a

954
00:50:26,840 --> 00:50:28,880
bit sorry for a punzol. I thought there's got to

955
00:50:28,920 --> 00:50:31,880
be something there that's, you know, that he can grab onto.

956
00:50:34,119 --> 00:50:36,480
Speaker 1: But it's it's I think, I think it's super interesting.

957
00:50:36,559 --> 00:50:38,679
I think from a woman's point of view, you've been

958
00:50:38,719 --> 00:50:40,800
able to help me think about things that I wouldn't

959
00:50:40,840 --> 00:50:43,840
have completely because in some ways you you brought up

960
00:50:43,920 --> 00:50:48,039
in our conversations in some ways, how is it that

961
00:50:48,599 --> 00:50:51,800
because we have the old hag right as you and

962
00:50:51,840 --> 00:50:54,400
she's and I remember you kept saying like, is there

963
00:50:54,440 --> 00:50:57,599
some beauty that we can find in an older woman?

964
00:50:57,719 --> 00:50:59,880
Like you know, it does an older woman just becoming

965
00:51:01,000 --> 00:51:03,199
And that's something that we've in some ways worked into

966
00:51:03,199 --> 00:51:05,159
the story. People will see in the future. How we

967
00:51:05,239 --> 00:51:07,639
try to work that back into the story. How there

968
00:51:07,719 --> 00:51:08,679
is in some ways that.

969
00:51:08,800 --> 00:51:11,239
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I'm trying to answer to the accusation

970
00:51:11,400 --> 00:51:14,079
that these things are first of all, is too simplistic.

971
00:51:14,280 --> 00:51:16,639
And second of all, you know, I do hear friends

972
00:51:16,639 --> 00:51:19,880
of mine, female friends will say it's either the maiden

973
00:51:20,239 --> 00:51:20,840
or the witch.

974
00:51:21,320 --> 00:51:23,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, and that's the problem for women in.

975
00:51:23,880 --> 00:51:27,159
Speaker 3: Fairy tales, that you've got these two extremes, and you know,

976
00:51:27,199 --> 00:51:29,119
in the culture that we're living in now, it's obviously

977
00:51:29,119 --> 00:51:31,840
you're still obsessed with the maiden. It's like, you know,

978
00:51:31,920 --> 00:51:34,280
I see fifty year old women now trying to look

979
00:51:34,360 --> 00:51:37,280
like twenty year olds, and there is no kind of

980
00:51:37,320 --> 00:51:42,079
dignity in the mother or or you know, the matriarch

981
00:51:42,239 --> 00:51:44,400
or you know these kind of older forms that you

982
00:51:44,440 --> 00:51:46,679
find in fairy tales. And so through our discussions, what

983
00:51:46,719 --> 00:51:48,920
I was trying to do is like, yeah, we visit it.

984
00:51:49,000 --> 00:51:51,800
Is there a way of again staying true to the

985
00:51:51,840 --> 00:51:55,760
original stories, but finding those those more nuanced characters and

986
00:51:56,119 --> 00:52:00,599
kind of exploring these different identities for women, because I

987
00:52:00,639 --> 00:52:03,920
know that they're there and and but I think they've

988
00:52:04,159 --> 00:52:08,360
kind of been edited out over the years, and so

989
00:52:08,800 --> 00:52:13,000
you know, I'm obviously i'm uh middle aged women, and

990
00:52:13,079 --> 00:52:14,960
so I'm reading them and thinking, well, I'm not a

991
00:52:15,000 --> 00:52:19,639
maiden anymore, but I want to find interesting kind of characters.

992
00:52:20,079 --> 00:52:22,480
We had the widow queen in Snow White, and now

993
00:52:22,480 --> 00:52:24,000
you've got the Witch and we're going to see what

994
00:52:24,039 --> 00:52:26,440
happens to her. But I just think it's about presenting

995
00:52:26,519 --> 00:52:31,679
different possibilities for women as we see in you know,

996
00:52:31,760 --> 00:52:35,480
traditional Christianity. You've got You've obviously got the Mother of God.

997
00:52:35,519 --> 00:52:37,760
But then you have the female saints, you know, and

998
00:52:37,800 --> 00:52:40,360
they're they're all different and interesting, and it's like, how

999
00:52:40,480 --> 00:52:43,079
how does that then relate to the fairy tale world?

1000
00:52:44,599 --> 00:52:46,519
Speaker 1: No, I think I think that that. I think that's right,

1001
00:52:46,559 --> 00:52:48,559
and I hope that we were able to capture that

1002
00:52:48,719 --> 00:52:51,159
and people will see because that we're not done with

1003
00:52:51,199 --> 00:52:53,800
the with the Witch. She's she's she has a whole

1004
00:52:53,920 --> 00:52:56,039
part of her story that still needs to be told.

1005
00:52:56,079 --> 00:52:59,719
So that's right. Yeah. And I love the color like

1006
00:52:59,719 --> 00:53:01,679
this is it's such a like it has this kind

1007
00:53:01,679 --> 00:53:06,159
of fall colors, and you know, the late day, kind

1008
00:53:06,159 --> 00:53:08,400
of end of day, and the sun. I love the

1009
00:53:08,440 --> 00:53:12,880
sun is just kind of chilling. The sun's just just

1010
00:53:13,159 --> 00:53:16,400
because there's a great image earlier on where you see

1011
00:53:16,599 --> 00:53:18,840
when the prince is going up to tower, where the

1012
00:53:19,280 --> 00:53:20,519
Witch is going up to the tower, where the sun

1013
00:53:20,559 --> 00:53:26,920
looks very worried. Oh yeah, it's just like a worried look. Yeah,

1014
00:53:26,960 --> 00:53:29,679
it's that one. Yeah, and you see like, oh, no,

1015
00:53:29,960 --> 00:53:33,320
you know, I love I love I love that, And

1016
00:53:33,360 --> 00:53:35,000
so I love the fact that at the end of

1017
00:53:35,039 --> 00:53:37,320
the story, the sin is just the sun is just

1018
00:53:37,320 --> 00:53:39,599
just just relaxing with them, and he's just.

1019
00:53:39,519 --> 00:53:40,239
Speaker 2: Happy, happy.

1020
00:53:40,599 --> 00:53:45,840
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, okay, so this is the final image of

1021
00:53:45,840 --> 00:53:48,800
the book, and yeah, I suppose this is both of

1022
00:53:48,840 --> 00:53:51,519
them at the end of their kind of story arcs,

1023
00:53:51,559 --> 00:53:53,920
and you've got the prince has kind of found a

1024
00:53:54,000 --> 00:54:00,360
humble profession starting life, you know, stitching and mending things,

1025
00:54:00,960 --> 00:54:04,960
and she has the twins and you can I tried

1026
00:54:05,000 --> 00:54:08,199
to draw her here in a state of fulfillment, and

1027
00:54:08,239 --> 00:54:12,280
I wanted her looking directly at the reader, because I

1028
00:54:12,320 --> 00:54:14,599
really wanted it to be about, you know, a contrast

1029
00:54:14,679 --> 00:54:17,719
between this position and when she was in the tower

1030
00:54:17,760 --> 00:54:19,960
on her own. It's like they're poor, but she really

1031
00:54:19,960 --> 00:54:22,880
does have everything. It's like a hopefully a kind of

1032
00:54:22,920 --> 00:54:24,000
image of completeness.

1033
00:54:24,519 --> 00:54:26,079
Speaker 2: And even though she's lost her.

1034
00:54:28,079 --> 00:54:33,639
Speaker 3: You know, kind of initial youthful beauty, there's still a

1035
00:54:33,679 --> 00:54:36,679
beauty in motherhood, which is like this sort of beauty

1036
00:54:36,679 --> 00:54:38,920
of sacrifice or something like that that was trying to

1037
00:54:38,960 --> 00:54:43,039
capture in her, even though her hair's kind of shorter

1038
00:54:43,159 --> 00:54:48,360
and messy, you know, hopefully, it's a it's a lovely

1039
00:54:48,400 --> 00:54:49,199
image to end with.

1040
00:54:49,800 --> 00:54:54,639
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's funny. I found myself surprised that this was

1041
00:54:54,840 --> 00:54:58,320
one of my, if not my favorite image of her,

1042
00:54:58,400 --> 00:55:01,039
because I think you were able capture exactly what it

1043
00:55:01,119 --> 00:55:05,480
is you're saying. You know, she looks she obviously looks

1044
00:55:05,480 --> 00:55:08,199
like someone who has become wiser. You know, she's been

1045
00:55:08,239 --> 00:55:10,800
through a lot. She has this look where she has

1046
00:55:10,840 --> 00:55:12,760
this look where she's looking at us with a lot

1047
00:55:12,800 --> 00:55:16,559
of like almost like an inside joke, like and she

1048
00:55:16,599 --> 00:55:20,880
has this inside knowledge that she's communicating with her look.

1049
00:55:21,440 --> 00:55:24,639
And and but then you can also see she has

1050
00:55:24,679 --> 00:55:27,760
just a beautiful little smile and you can tell she

1051
00:55:27,800 --> 00:55:30,599
doesn't care that her hair is a little messy and

1052
00:55:30,639 --> 00:55:33,440
that she has got patches on her clothing. She's like, no,

1053
00:55:33,639 --> 00:55:35,920
this is what I've chosen, Like, this is actually the

1054
00:55:36,280 --> 00:55:38,199
life that I that I want, and I love it.

1055
00:55:38,599 --> 00:55:40,599
So I think I think it's a great I think

1056
00:55:40,599 --> 00:55:43,119
it's such a great representation of her. And yeah, and

1057
00:55:43,159 --> 00:55:46,639
in some ways it does show this really positive aspect

1058
00:55:46,800 --> 00:55:52,159
of family and motherhood. And yeah. But the Prince, though,

1059
00:55:52,679 --> 00:55:57,840
you can see that he's not as as he's not

1060
00:55:58,000 --> 00:56:00,239
as content. There's a little bit of a you can

1061
00:56:00,280 --> 00:56:02,760
see that he has a bit of a worry in

1062
00:56:02,800 --> 00:56:06,920
his eyes. There's something going on, yeah, you know, and

1063
00:56:07,000 --> 00:56:09,480
so yeah, but his story is not over also, and

1064
00:56:09,519 --> 00:56:12,199
so Heather's already thinking of the next book when she

1065
00:56:12,360 --> 00:56:16,159
made this, made this this little portrait of the prints

1066
00:56:16,159 --> 00:56:18,639
working on his on his sewing here.

1067
00:56:19,320 --> 00:56:20,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.

1068
00:56:21,519 --> 00:56:25,800
Speaker 3: So this is our Yeah, this is the cover. So

1069
00:56:26,599 --> 00:56:29,719
the book's going to be available pretty soon, I think

1070
00:56:29,760 --> 00:56:32,079
on general distribution, is that right?

1071
00:56:32,159 --> 00:56:35,079
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so in the next few weeks. I think

1072
00:56:35,159 --> 00:56:37,440
mid August is when it's going to be available. People

1073
00:56:37,599 --> 00:56:40,760
can pre order. What we've done is obviously we did

1074
00:56:40,760 --> 00:56:42,639
like an actual pre sale where we had a thousand

1075
00:56:42,679 --> 00:56:45,159
books and we sold them in like twenty four hours,

1076
00:56:45,199 --> 00:56:48,800
twenty six hours, we sold all the books. But now

1077
00:56:48,840 --> 00:56:51,079
what we've done is people can still pre order. And

1078
00:56:51,119 --> 00:56:53,920
the reason to pre order is that I recorded an

1079
00:56:53,960 --> 00:56:57,440
audiobook for this and we also made like a little

1080
00:56:58,159 --> 00:57:01,719
family worksheet that people can used to interact with their

1081
00:57:01,800 --> 00:57:05,400
children about the story and uh, and so those will

1082
00:57:05,400 --> 00:57:07,440
be offered for people who get it in pre order.

1083
00:57:07,599 --> 00:57:10,440
And our new shipping system has been amazing. One of

1084
00:57:10,440 --> 00:57:13,480
the reasons why we started with the one thousand books

1085
00:57:13,559 --> 00:57:16,920
was to test out our new distribution system. And uh,

1086
00:57:17,000 --> 00:57:18,599
I mean some people were getting the book on the

1087
00:57:18,599 --> 00:57:21,480
same day, which was crazy, and then some people got

1088
00:57:21,519 --> 00:57:24,400
it the next day, two days, but really just a

1089
00:57:24,400 --> 00:57:27,360
few days before people got the book, especially in the

1090
00:57:27,480 --> 00:57:30,960
United States. So we're so happy that we're here. We

1091
00:57:31,079 --> 00:57:33,800
finally have been through all our difficulties. We you know,

1092
00:57:33,840 --> 00:57:37,159
we are set for the future. And so Rapunzel in

1093
00:57:37,159 --> 00:57:40,639
Someway's marks the new beginning for the press. So you

1094
00:57:40,679 --> 00:57:44,360
can go to rapunzelbook dot com and pre order your

1095
00:57:44,360 --> 00:57:46,840
book and you'll get it as soon as the as

1096
00:57:46,880 --> 00:57:48,760
soon as the books are in the warehouse, they will

1097
00:57:48,800 --> 00:57:50,639
they will ship it to you with the audiobook. I

1098
00:57:50,719 --> 00:57:54,679
really enjoyed reading it. I actually then then I read it,

1099
00:57:54,920 --> 00:57:57,880
and I had so much fun reading it. And then

1100
00:57:57,920 --> 00:58:00,280
even some people said, oh, when you read it, some

1101
00:58:00,320 --> 00:58:02,400
things about the story that I did realize were there

1102
00:58:02,440 --> 00:58:05,280
because of just the intonation of the way I read it.

1103
00:58:05,360 --> 00:58:07,480
So I thought, okay, wow, So now I just I

1104
00:58:07,519 --> 00:58:09,800
read all all of our fair tales, and so I

1105
00:58:10,039 --> 00:58:12,039
went back and I read snow White, and then I

1106
00:58:12,119 --> 00:58:16,440
read Jack. And also I also read the next book

1107
00:58:16,440 --> 00:58:18,760
that's coming out in the fall, which is Little Red

1108
00:58:18,760 --> 00:58:21,559
Writing Hood. So I read that and so yeah, so

1109
00:58:21,559 --> 00:58:23,920
I can't wait for people to see it, and I

1110
00:58:23,960 --> 00:58:25,920
can't wait for people to tell us what they think,

1111
00:58:26,000 --> 00:58:28,719
and Heather to maybe finish off and tell us what

1112
00:58:28,800 --> 00:58:31,199
it is that your final thought, let's say, of your

1113
00:58:31,239 --> 00:58:34,280
experience of making it, and it'll move on to the

1114
00:58:34,280 --> 00:58:35,159
next book after this.

1115
00:58:37,000 --> 00:58:39,199
Speaker 2: Gosh, it's just always a bit of a dream.

1116
00:58:39,239 --> 00:58:41,400
Speaker 3: You know, you embark on something you don't really know

1117
00:58:41,480 --> 00:58:43,800
how it's going to turn out, even though you have intentions,

1118
00:58:45,280 --> 00:58:47,360
and so you know, I'm sitting here at the moment

1119
00:58:47,360 --> 00:58:49,880
in my studio surrounded by all the Rapunzel reference that

1120
00:58:49,960 --> 00:58:53,440
I used, but it really turned into something unique, I think,

1121
00:58:54,679 --> 00:58:56,679
And so it's always a surprise at the end when

1122
00:58:56,719 --> 00:58:59,559
you look back and think, oh, it's that. But that's

1123
00:58:59,599 --> 00:59:03,320
why it's such an interesting process, because there's the things

1124
00:59:03,360 --> 00:59:05,000
that you think you're going to do, and then there's

1125
00:59:05,000 --> 00:59:09,360
a whole subconscious level that you know is doing something else.

1126
00:59:10,719 --> 00:59:11,559
Speaker 2: As an artist.

1127
00:59:11,719 --> 00:59:14,440
Speaker 3: So you get to learn about yourself as well when

1128
00:59:14,599 --> 00:59:17,760
and other understanding and maybe you know, like you say,

1129
00:59:17,840 --> 00:59:20,639
things I might have picked up from you wasn't totally

1130
00:59:20,679 --> 00:59:23,920
conscious of, but that made made their way into the images.

1131
00:59:25,159 --> 00:59:29,119
So yeah, it's always an interesting experience, and more so

1132
00:59:29,320 --> 00:59:33,280
because I get to collaborate, you know, with someone like you,

1133
00:59:33,360 --> 00:59:35,800
and we we kind of keep up the communication through

1134
00:59:35,800 --> 00:59:38,159
the process. It's not like I receive a manuscript and

1135
00:59:38,159 --> 00:59:41,480
then we never speak again. It's like there's a constant evolution.

1136
00:59:43,559 --> 00:59:47,199
And yeah, it's it's it's just been. It's been great.

1137
00:59:47,320 --> 00:59:51,440
So I'm looking forward to doing the next one.

1138
00:59:51,760 --> 00:59:54,480
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, So the next one in this series is

1139
00:59:55,000 --> 00:59:58,000
The Valiant Little Tailor, and that is actually being illustrated

1140
00:59:58,000 --> 01:00:01,119
by Elouise right now. And uh, you know, it's a

1141
01:00:01,119 --> 01:00:04,440
giant killing story. So she's really a lot of the

1142
01:00:04,559 --> 01:00:06,920
solutions she came to in the first in the Jack

1143
01:00:07,000 --> 01:00:10,199
Book are now kind of taken like they're just being multiplied.

1144
01:00:10,639 --> 01:00:12,880
And so the images we've been seeing have been coming

1145
01:00:12,880 --> 01:00:15,760
out are really wonderful. And then the one after that

1146
01:00:16,000 --> 01:00:20,199
will be Sleeping Beauty and and Heather will be illustrating that.

1147
01:00:20,400 --> 01:00:22,840
So we're working on the next two and I and

1148
01:00:22,880 --> 01:00:25,559
I can't wait. And these and for people who don't know,

1149
01:00:25,599 --> 01:00:29,679
the Rapunzel Book is where the stories start to merge together,

1150
01:00:29,840 --> 01:00:32,119
where you start to see how the Jack Book and

1151
01:00:32,159 --> 01:00:34,559
the snow White Book are related to each other. But

1152
01:00:34,599 --> 01:00:37,119
that's just going to that's just going to increase, and

1153
01:00:37,159 --> 01:00:39,360
a lot of these characters are going to come back

1154
01:00:39,400 --> 01:00:41,559
are going to repeat and so when they all have

1155
01:00:41,639 --> 01:00:45,000
their own little transformational art. So so this is I'm

1156
01:00:45,000 --> 01:00:47,719
getting I'm excited because in some ways, this is where

1157
01:00:48,039 --> 01:00:53,440
the the let's say, the the risky part of this

1158
01:00:53,760 --> 01:00:56,400
of our endeavor is going to start to pay off.

1159
01:00:56,440 --> 01:00:58,519
We're going to start to see how people react to

1160
01:00:58,639 --> 01:01:01,320
all of the all of the threads kind of coming together.

1161
01:01:01,440 --> 01:01:04,760
So yeah, I'm excited. That's right. And Heather, thanks for

1162
01:01:04,920 --> 01:01:08,000
thanks for putting your heart into this. It's it's much appreciated.

1163
01:01:08,360 --> 01:01:09,000
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you.

1164
01:01:09,119 --> 01:01:09,360
Speaker 1: It was.

1165
01:01:09,840 --> 01:01:12,519
Speaker 3: It was a real privilege to do so, thanks very much.

1166
01:01:13,079 --> 01:01:15,800
Speaker 1: All Right, everyone go to a punzabook dot com and

1167
01:01:15,920 --> 01:01:18,159
uh and get your book. Thanks everybody, Bye bye,