What keeps a retelling true?

I love classic story and fairy tale retellings as a category. (Given that I write them, I would hope so.) Jane Yolen and Robin McKinley and even James Thurber give wonderful new shadings to well-known stories and bring forward themes and characters with dimension and creativity that show me new meanings in familiar things.

Lost boys, "Once Upon a Time" style. What are you doing, Disney? What?

But reading books like Peter and the Starcatchers and Midnight in Neverland, and watching shows like my favorite scapegoat "Once Upon a Time" has given me cause to examine what I like and what I object to in retellings of classic stories. (Admittedly, OUaT has thrown the original Peter Pan so far out the window that I've started enjoying the show again.)

At first, I thought I don't mind someone reworking the story if the characters are true to the originals. But that leaves out how much I love the Wicked series, and how much Gregory Maguire's characters diverge from L. Frank Baum's, making it a new narrative but one I can embrace.

So then I thought maybe I require either the plot or the character to be true to the original. But ultimately I decided what it comes down to, for me, is respect. If a retelling shows respect for the vision as it was initially created, I can appreciate it even if there are aspects I don't agree with or don't enjoy. But without respect, an author might as well create new characters. Maybe it would make it harder for him or her to get their book published, but I think that says something in itself.

Knowing the source material shows respect. Even when the OUaT writers drive me bats, I can tell there's some real knowledge of Barrie's original as well as Walt Disney's film among the writing staff. Half-done research doesn't show respect. And if one truly loves a work, it's generally clear whether a plot departure is an intentional departure or is a merely half-understood aspect plucked from the original. And I don't have time for that, or respect of my own for the retelling.

I suspect there's more here to be mined, but for now, I leave you with another problem in fairy tale retellings--the temptation to fall back on tropes, even new ones, rather than explore new ideas. Cracked.com has taken note of a few of those in fairy tale movies.

Defending the Captain

Sort of a Part II to this post from last Friday, although I suppose technically it may be Part III or IV by now. Regardless. Onward!

Even if I were less of a purist about Peter Pan, there was no way I could appreciate the "Peter and the Starcatchers" book after its description of Hook, who at the time of the book is known as Black Stache.  And even if I weren't so deeply immersed in the world of James Hook as originated by J. M. Barrie for my work on The Stowaway, I would be insulted by the recasting of this character I have been fascinated by for so long.

And to think I was offended that the Disney film made Captain Hook comedic and inept. I have yet to figure out why he would have his desk outside on the ship's deck.

The Stache of the Barry/Pearson books is depicted as repellent and pathetic, and he is made a figure of mockery until I feel like I'm watching school kids bullying the child who comes to school with dirty clothes and poor social skills. I end up thinking I may be glad I didn't grow up with Dave Barry (which is disappointing, as I read his columns happily for years) and Ridley Pearson, which is not a pleasant way to feel about the authors of a book one is reading.

This captain's crew call him Rat Breath. He eats raw meat from the depths of his hideously filthy cabin. He feels pride in nothing but his foot-wide moustache.
"He was a strikingly unpleasant figure, with a pock-marked face and a large red nose, like a prize turnip, glued to his face. His long black hair, greasy from years without washing, stained the shoulders of the red uniform coat he'd stolen from a Navy sailor on the high seas..." 

Black 'Stache from Peter and the Starcatchers, by Greg Call, 2004

James Hook was never like this, not even in the very first productions of the play.

Robb Harwood, 1906 play production. Note the Charles II hair. Also, no moustache.

Gone are the original Hook's Eton origin, elegant bearing, and presumably tragic past. He is no longer even allowed his original appearance. As J. M. Barrie describes him:
"In person he was cadaverous and blackavized [dark faced], and his hair was dressed in long curls, which at a little distance looked like black candles, and gave a singularly threatening expression to his handsome countenance. His eyes were of the blue of the forget-me-not, and of a profound melancholy, save when he was plunging his hook into you, at which time two red spots appeared in them and lit them up horribly....He was never more sinister than when he was most polite, which is probably the truest test of breeding; and the elegance of his diction, even when he was swearing, no less than the distinction of his demeanour, showed him one of a different cast from his crew."

Flora White, 1921

Or for that matter,  the descriptiong given by "Old Etonian Mr. G.F.T. Jasparin":
 "I do not merely mean that Etonian was written all over him; there was something even more than that, as if (may I venture) he was two Etonians rolled by the magnanimous Gods into one. In a word the handsomest man I have ever seen, though, at the same time, perhaps slightly disgusting." ("Hook at Eton," 1927 speech by Sir J.M. Barrie)

I can work with this (and I do). Even with the "slightly disgusting" part, because opinions vary.

The elegant, compelling Hook, in this case as drawn by Maxim Mitrafanov. If you see a copy of this book for sale anywhere, be a dear and let me know. I've been looking for this one for months.

Really, for Disney books, this depiction has little to do with the Disney Villain version of Hook. The play version of Black 'Stache, at least, could segue into the Captain Hook of the 1953 Disney animated film without too much of a stretch.

John Sanders as 'Stache with Joey deBettencourt as Boy

But not the Black 'Stache of the books, who just makes me sad.

Uncharted

The Neverland map we're familiar with was not drawn by J. M. Barrie, but rather Walt Disney studios and many artists thereafter. There's no map in the original book, and given Barrie's description of Neverland, it's no wonder.

"...the Neverland is always more or less an island, with astonishing splashes of colour here and there, and coral reefs and rakish-looking craft in the offing, and savages and lonely lairs, and gnomes who are mostly tailors, and caves through which a river runs, and princes with six elder brothers, and a hut fast going to decay, and one very small old lady with a hooked nose. It would be an easy map if that were all, but there is also first day at school, religion, fathers, the round pond, needle-work, murders, hangings, verbs that take the dative, chocolate pudding day, getting into braces, say ninety-nine, three-pence for pulling out your tooth yourself, and so on, and either these are part of the island or they are another map showing through, and it is all rather confusing, especially as nothing will stand still.

Of course the Neverlands vary a good deal. John's, for instance, had a lagoon with flamingoes flying over it at which John was shooting, while Michael, who was very small, had a flamingo with lagoons flying over it. ...on the whole the Neverlands have a family resemblance, and if they stood still in a row you could say of them that they have each other's nose, and so forth......Of all delectable islands the Neverland is the snuggest and most compact, not large and sprawly, you know, with tedious distances between one adventure and another, but nicely crammed."

The only locations Barrie mentions specifically in Peter Pan are the Neverwood, Mermaid Lagoon, and Marooner's Rock. So some of the locations we think of now as part of Neverland--Skull Rock, Cannibal Cove, Crocodile Creek--are Disney creations. This sent me off to do a bit of fact-checking when I first began The Stowaway so I wouldn't inadvertently crib from Disney. Now it's a handy reference point for me as to whether artists and writers are using Barrie or Disney as their starting point.

According to KStirling, contributor to the jmbarrie.co.uk message board (now mostly inactive, which is unfortunate for my research), a scenario Barrie wrote for a proposed silent film of his book was reprinted in a book called Fifty Years of Peter Pan by Roger Lancelyn Green. (I've found copies of the book online, but haven't committed yet to spending what it would cost to have one.) In his screenplay, Barrie wrote:

"We see the island all glorious and peaceful in a warm sun. We see the whole of it as in a map, not a modern map but the old-fashioned kind with quaintly exaggerated details. I have a map of the Never, Never Land, in this style which should be reproduced." The Beinecke Library at Yale has Barrie's actual film typescript, but I haven't been able to find out if it contains the map.

Wikipedia tells me users of Colgate-Palmolive's "Peter Pan Beauty Bar with Chlorophyll" received a copy of this promo map for the Disney film by sending in three wrappers with fifteen cents. I want one.

So, as it stands, the only maps of Neverland are from the Walt Disney film or are based on it. In The Stowaway, the Captain has a map of the island on his wall, useful as he makes excursions to and from and around it--but I make no claims as to the map's veracity, or how often its features may change.

Ultimately, I suppose the best description of Neverland's location is from Herman Melville's Moby-Dick: "It is not down on any map: true places never are."

And yet more Tink

My new favorite Tinker Bell story comes from an episode of "This American Life" I heard on NPR over the weekend. While a lot about the disaster performance of Peter Pan it described entertained me--from the Captain accidentally flinging his hook into the audience, to the flying apparatus dumping the children on the stage and dragging them through a field of papier-maché mushrooms, to the fire department response to one of the Indians spraining both ankles descending a rope ladder--my favorite part was an actual choice by the stage director. She chose to represent Tinker Bell with a light bulb on an extension cord, which would descend from above to be addressed by the cast. I still laugh every time I picture it.

And now here's Mindy Johnson's new book, "Tinker Bell: An Evolution," which explores in depth how Disney's version of the character came to be. Apparently everyone really is interested in the pixie. Surely Tink would be gratified at the attention.

A question I've had, which has been answered by the book: Tinker Bell was originally named Tippytoe and had speaking lines, but J.M. Barrie decided chimes would provide a better voice for her. One of the bells that traveling tinkers used to call customers to their wagons was used for this purpose in an early stage production, which led to her name and presumably to her trade in Barrie's book Peter and Wendy. I find it hard to imagine her now as anything other than a pots and pans fairy.

On the trail of Tinker Bell

Tinker Bell's transformation from a spot of light dancing about a stage to the winged pin-up girl we see everywhere today is directly a result of the 1953 Disney animated film.

Tinker Bell had appeared on film before, in a 1924 version of Peter Pan.

However, when Disney artists began work on their own version, they had their own preferences for the character. Two of the principal animators at the studio wrote that story artist 'Joe Rinaldi wanted Tinker Bell to look more like the popular bathing beauties of the time," according to Murray Pomerance in Tinker Bell: The Fairy of Electricity" in Second Star to the Right: Peter Pan in the Popular Imagination. The human model for Tink was Margaret Kerry, an actress known as "The Best Legs in Hollywood" (not Marilyn Monroe, as has often been rumored). Kerry also provided the voice of the red-haired mermaid in the film. 

The pixie's fiery personality was also developed in animation--not so far from Barrie's original descriptions, in fact.

Roy Best, 1937. Tinker Bell as drawn by a pin-up artist is less of a pin-up girl than Disney's version.

As to why Barrie included a fairy in Peter Pan to begin with, reasons are numerous. Barrie's work was influenced by the folk tales of his native Scotland, and "Kensington Garden" by Thomas Tickell, written in 1722, is frequently cited as the inspiration for the setting of Barrie's entire fairy world of Kensington Park.

In 1901, Barrie and the Llewellyn David boys were enchanted by Seymour Hicks's theatrical hit Bluebell in Fairyland, which they went to see together during Christmas time.

And specifically, in Barrie's dedication "To the Five," he writes, "As our lanterns twinkled among the leaves [Michael] saw a twinkle stand still for a moment and he waved his foot gaily to it, thus creating Tink."

Special thanks to www.rarestkindofbest.com and the (sadly) largely inactive www.jmbarrie.co.uk for information used in this post.

The wrong Jolly Roger

Whatever I may say about the accuracy of character portrayals on "Once Upon a Time," I applaud the show regularly for getting Captain Hook's ship right.

You may also recognize the Lady Washington as the Interceptor from Pirates of the Caribbean.

The producers are using the Lady Washington as their Jolly Roger (some of the filming has been done on the actual ship, the rest on a full-sized replica). And the Lady is a brig, as is the Jolly Roger, according to J.M. Barrie. You will note she has two masts. I know right away when artists haven't done their research, or have chosen to dispatch with Barrie's vision, the moment I see three masts. 

A brig has two masts, square-rigged.

I call Disney as the original instigator of this travesty.

Yes, maybe I'd like to have one of these models, but that does not mean I think this is accurate.

James Coleman, "Moonrise Over Pirate Bay," current fine art for Disney by one of its animated film landscape artists. Beautiful! But not a brig.

I suppose Disney's version has become the popular default.

Nadir Quinto, 1982

But it's hardly just Disney.

Model for the ship in the 2003 film of Peter Pan. Looks to me like a clipper, maybe, not a brig

I don't know why it's hard to get this one right. It's easy enough to do the research, and a brig is a lovely ship--it's not as though it weren't just as pretty as a clipper or a frigate, even if less imposing.

A brig! Robert Ingpen, 2004

Of course, it's not as if I'm not also confronted regularly with the placement of the Captain's hook on the incorrect hand. I just realized even one of my favorite Peter Pan artists' renditions has that issue.

Gwynedd M. Hudson,  1931. It is almost impossible to find biographical information about her online, and I was sorry to discover this may be because she died at the age of 26.  Hudson studied at the Brighton School of Art, and is also remembered for her illustrations for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

At least I know artists have used the play as their inspiration at least as much as the book as regards the hook, which is an element that has changed from one production (and actor) to the next. I don't think they have as good an excuse for ship inaccuracies.

Hook vs. Hook

It's hardly a secret by now that I gnash my teeth over portrayals of Captain Hook that clash with the original by J.M. Barrie (possibly I need a bumper sticker that reads "Barrie is my co-pilot.") And ABC television's "Once Upon a Time" has provided rant fodder for me in general for its fast-and-loose handling of classic stories. When the show added Captain Hook to its roster (well after I had started The Stowaway), my objections suddenly became more personal.

The TV Hook is Captain Hook in, er, name and hook only. And actually not even in name. Somehow on the way to the small screen, Captain Hook became Killian Jones. (Admittedly, if he turns out to be related to Davy Jones of "locker" renown, I will applaud a job well done.) I've accepted that--for the most part. But the more I watch--and I feel compelled to watch just so I know what's being put out there--the more I think OUaT's Captain Hook is actually Long John Silver.

Robert Newton as Long John Silver with Bobby Driscoll as Jim Hawkins in the 1950 film of Treasure Island.

Bobby Driscoll was also the voice of Peter Pan in the 1953 animated Peter Pan. Around we go again...

Both John Silver and Killian Jones form alliances as they are convenient and betray them just as easily. Witness how easily Jones changes his alliances with Regina and her mother Cora, depending on who seems to have the upper hand on him or can most benefit him, as Long John Silver did with the officers and crew of the Hispaniola. And both repeatedly face capture and betrayal themselves, which the original Captain Hook would have found too embarrassing to endure.

Silver murders one of the sailors he recruited to his mutiny with apparently no remorse, and Jones both steals Aurora's heart and shoots her, showing no regret about either. James Hook is described as murdering out of temper (and, I argue, sometimes that reaction could be considered justified), but not for manipulation.

Colin O'Donoghue's Hook with Dylan Schmid as Baelfire, the son of Hook's beloved Milah.

Most significantly, perhaps, Jones and Silver have a fatherly side which is completely absent in James Hook. Silver's mentorship and eventual protection of Jim Hawkins are the only demonstration that there is more to the man than duplicity and greed. Jones craves a fatherly relationship with Bae even to the point of sailing to retrieve Bae's son Henry from Neverland, a place Jones swore he would never return.

By comparison, James Hook's relationship with children can be summed up as follows.

F. D. Bedford, 1911

I wonder often if the writers of OUaT have a good knowledge of their source material and are using it as a starting point, or if they genuinely have only the barest conception of their characters' origins. Given that this is a Disney property and all the characters have been featured in Disney films, I'm going to go with the first and hope I'm right. It baffles me sometimes, though, how far afield they go from the original conceptions. I suppose my concern is that people without background in fairy tale lore will take these as the final word, and not be open to other interpretations--including those which are written with the utmost concern for keeping to the spirit and word of the original. It's personal, in other words.

Many kinds of pixie dust

Tinker Bell, the pots and pans fairy, has been envisioned by artists in more varied ways than Peter Pan himself. 

J.M. Barrie describes her as "exquisitely gowned in a skeleton leaf, cut low and square, through which her figure could be seen to best advantage. She was slightly inclined to embonpoint." The French term meaning that she was probably plump and definitely busty, and the description in total implying she is proud of her charms. Artists have interpreted her more or less accordingly, with this less-than-ethereal, utterly 1980s version by Regis Loisel an apt interpretation.

Regis Loisel, 1992

Perhaps his description seemed too adult for earlier illustrators.

Marjorie Torrey, 1957

Disney's Tinker Bell is suitably sparkly and bratty, and I like how her wings are animated. I've never been able to quite get my head around the ballerina bun and shoe pompons, but this version is actually not far from Barrie's description.

Disney, 1953

The omnipresence of Disney's Tink has not prevented artists from seeing her in guises from this lovely, if slender, portrayal

Trina Schart Hyman, 1980

to glamorous, ethereal versions

Anne Graham Johnstone, 1988

to modern depiction like this one from Zenescope. Not a traditional portrayal, to be sure, but not as far from Barrie as one might at first think.

Even before she became the de facto ambassador for Disneyland, Tinker Bell had traveled far from her beginnings as a spot of light projected about a stage.

Unbearable Art, Pt. 3

I know this is unfair, because marionettes can't help having features like this. But when I look at this alarming item, I being to understand why there are so many dark Peter Pan interpretations. It's especially funny that this was a Disney version.

I mean, look at Hook here. He's positively genial in comparison.

It doesn't help much seeing them side by side.

If you're interested in early-1900s antiques and toys, these links all go to worthwhile places. I had to spend some extra time with the last, Pastimes Quilt Design, for the furniture alone.

Defending the boy

I can't believe I've been driven to this (and I'm sorry, Captain, sir, I honestly am), but I have lost my tolerance for depictions of Peter Pan as a villain.

I've seen Peter portrayed as a vampire in one than one interpretation, as a fighter who uses foundlings and runaways as his soldiers in his war (Brom's The Child Thief), as a brutal young man who uses children to fuel his immortality (Zenescope's Neverland comics), as a mysterious being whose exact evil nature we will soon learn (the TV series "Once Upon a Time"). Just this morning I discovered a web comic called "The Assassin of Neverland." Only 30 pages so far, but I think the intent is clear.

These versions don't necessarily involve casting Captain Hook as a hero, although sometimes they do--frequently everyone in the story is equally dismal and/or morally defunct, leaving me nothing to enjoy in the telling. I have encountered so much unrelenting grimness in these stories that Disney's Peter Pan begins to come as a relief. Even versions of the character that fly (heh) even further against the original in their portrayal of Peter's origin or age--the Starcatchers series, the SyFy miniseries "Neverland"--shine brighter to me than they did formerly, in the face of such bleakness. The concept of Peter Pan has long provided an escape for children (if not adults) in need of one, and even if my heart lies with the purported villain of the original, I find this one of the story's signal virtues.

Disney Peter had his less-than-benevolent moments, but at least they were transient.

In his recent book, "I Wear the Black Hat," New York Times ethics writer Chuck Klosterman analyzes what makes a person the villain (noting that the same traits would garner different reactions in fiction and in real life--e.g. Batman). One of his characteristics is "knows the most and cares the least," and another is "super-human self-assurance." Looked at through that lens, it's easy to see Peter Pan as the villain. But perhaps because it is so easy to flip the narrative, doing so no longer holds any meaning it might have originally.

Yes, Peter can be seen as a thief of children and a real threat,and Barrie acknowledges the fact. But keep in mind that the Darling children returned home safely once they chose to. And before meeting Wendy, Peter only took boys to Neverland who fell out of their perambulators and weren't claimed by their parents--not children from loving homes. (Girls, he says, are too smart to fall out of their prams.) Remember also that Barrie describes Peter Pan as a psychopomp who meets children after their deaths to escort them partway. And yes, Peter kills blithely, but out of the innocence and ignorance of being an eternal child, not from malice.

It's the ambiguity in the original story which lends it resonance and continued relevance. A cardboard villain is easy to fight against. But a character who isn't quite a hero and isn't quite a villain, who forces you to consider why he does what he does and the effects his actions have upon him, who causes the reader or viewer to give genuine consideration to him and to the story--this character's complexity adds depth to the story, as opposed to eliciting knee-jerk, unquestioned responses. And takes away none of the magic.

Certainly I enjoy dark retellings of classic tales, but only if they're not too easy. Only if they give me some insight the original did not (see Gregory Maguire's "Wicked" series for how to do it right).I won't go so far as to call a moratorium on Evil Peter portrayals--as if that would even work, ha. Occasionally one still entertains me--I admit I enjoy the Zenescope comics more than I probably should. I'm even looking forward to OUaT, if mainly for ranting purposes. But it may be time to put Evil Peter into context.

I really want the shadow to have split apart from Peter into its own evil entity, but OUaT has not been known for listening to me.

As I noted in my review of Midnight in Neverland, I am finding that these interpretations have been written almost entirely after September 11, 2001. (And I hedge my statement only to cover any that I might find in the future, as so far everything I've read or seen along these lines is from this era.) This seems to me a surprising place for Americans' altered sensibilities about their safety in the world to come to rest, but certainly current YA fiction is rife with these themes.

Is is possible that stories for young people now contain enough looming threats and evildoers that we can return to allowing children--and adults--to see Peter Pan as more than yet another bad guy? After the outside threats are acknowledged and guarded against, we still have human nature to contemplate, and that is a mystery we have been unable to conquer, or even fully understand, for many and many a year. Longer, for certain, than there has been a Peter Pan. Even if he is a vampire.

Art spotting

I have found an artist who drew Captain Hook in a red coat pre-Disney.

American illustrator Roy Best was contracted by Whitman Publishing Company in 1931 to illustrate The Peter Pan Picture Book, based on the play. This is the first portrayal of Hook in red that I have found, and I suspect it was the original inspiration for Disney's art design. Although the animated film was not released until 1953, Walt Disney began work on it in 1935, only to have production derailed by World War II.

Note also Peter in green tunic and tights, with feathered cap. Hmm.

Roy Best also illustrated "Saturday Evening Post" covers. And painted pin-up girls. Well, I have long maintained that Peter Pan is not exclusively a children's book.

Keeping faith

Retellings are part of the tradition of fairy tales and one of my favorite literary forms. Most of these, of course, are tales that originated so long ago we have no idea of their beginnings, although we may know their more familiar interpreters, and that provides a certain amount of latitude when deciding how to represent the story.

"Peter Pan"is a challenge for me in this regard, as we do have the original text of the original story in both J.M. Barrie's 1904 play, and in his 1911 book, but there are ways in which they disagree. The play itself went through numerous revisions during its first years. And then there are the multitudinous interpretations of both, some of which are better known than the originals, including the inescapable (trust me on this) Disney film which has become an overlay over nearly every Peter Pan retelling since its release in 1953. So many iconic representations that don't agree with the original, and here am I, trying to be true to the original without disregarding other interpretations or inadvertently stealing from them.

Our boys as most of the world now pictures them, courtesy of Disney Studios. (|Yes, that is commentary as well as an accurate credit.)

But it was not always thus. Behold, Peter Pan in red. And Captain Hook in blue. This is by Alice Woodward, from a 1907 novelization of the play by Daniel O'Connell. (And off to ABE Books your blogger went, having just discovered today that this book exists. Yes, there are affordable copies, and I can't wait to get that full set of pictures.)

Here we have an illustration by Flora White  from 1914, after the initial publication of "Peter and Wendy" in 1911. Possibly the skeleton leaves that Barrie describes Peter as wearing, but again he's in red.

Barrie himself chose Mabel Lucie Attwell to illustrate the gift book version of "Peter Pan" in 1921. Still not the green tunic and tights most people picture Peter wearing**. I'm also struck by how young he looks, unlike most versions since.

The first version I can find of Captain Hook in red is 1931, Gwynedd Hudson's illustrations.

 Although I wonder if this was colored in after 1953, because I have two books with versions of his art (hush), and in one, all the pictures are brown on white, and in the other, the colored plates appear as so:

Disney made the red coat iconic, and it's not until the 2000s that I find any new art with Hook wearing any color besides red. Without the red coat, the central metaphor falls right out of Peter Pan in Scarlet*. I want to think this is enough reason to keep the red coat. But mostly, I like James in red, even if Disney has earned  enough of my ire for distorting the original story that I try to avoid reference to that version altogether (not just for copyright reasons, although they would be enough). I make a nod to the original portrayals of Hook's garment toward the end of "The Stowaway," but James will wear his red coats (yes, they are plural) throughout the story.

And hence my little ballet of being as faithful as I can to the original, plus respecting what's come to be tradition, while trying to keep track of dozens of interpretations over the last 102 years.

*The only authorized sequel to the original, by Geraldine McCaughrean, winner of a 2004 contest sponsored by Great Ormond Street Hospital, to which Barrie willed all proceeds from his book.

**Where would Peter get green tights, anyway? The question answered itself as soon as I'd thought of it--he'd steal them from nurseries, of course.

A funny thing happened on the way to the blog

I'd planned on posting some sailing ships (brigs, of course), from the ever-growing stock of images on my hard drive. But I was distracted by something posted on pixieneverland.tumblr.com, and off I went.

So Disney parks make these. And multitudes of others, of every character you can imagine. But they didn't really catch my attention till this one.

I'm not sure why I like it, given my usual issues with the Disney depiction of the Peter Pan story in general (*deep breath* remember the Disney film is based on the play not the book *deep breath* better) and Captain Hook in particular. But when they don't play him for comic relief, the artists sometimes depict an expression or an action that I quite like. This one, I think, just makes me laugh.

So I spent the day waiting for an eBay seller to relist one of those, and in the meantime I ran across this.

And this.

Ye gods and little fishes, the hook's not even on the right hand (*deep breath*) and yet I post them.

I found a cake topper, too, so there's next year's birthday.

Ahem. Time to get off Google and back into the manuscript, now that my motivation is nicely recharged. Apologies for the digression, and a promise that the real blog will return soon, bringing with it the nice ships.