Words, writing, imagery are a phasic part of life since age 3.5 or maybe 4. It began in the US via completely opposed bits of work, the 1967 Big Little Books “Bugs Bunny in Double Trouble on Diamond Island” along with the ancient Little Golden Books light-hearted educational piece “Dinosaurs” a re-print from their professionally illustrated 1959 original.
Neither book was like the other except for paper and some kind of ruddy ink. Both opened wild mental doors, largely from art and concepts way out there for a 3.5 or 4 year-old of non-digital 60s. Yes, I was unable to actually read when I got the books so young…but was later reading all kinds of stuff by age 5, before kindergarten. Not sure how or why. Genetics? Ice cream?
Let’s start with “Dinosaurs”. Carried that book to and from age 5 kindergarten class like treasure. Something new from it every day, as if synapsis happened from behind the pro textbook-stye graphics, images with hints profoundly unseen and undetected, save for suggestion.
When kindergarten grade ended, home I went…later realizing I left the damned “Dinosaurs” book in class somewhere. At age 5 it seemed like the world closed forever off that. Ouch.
Now for the Warner cartoons thing, “Bugs Bunny in Double Trouble on Diamond Island”. All I can say is, a Whitman Publishing mini-hardcover tour de force by author Don Christensen, his 248 page epic of slap comedy and endless color drawings in trademark Warner high-quality social sidecar wildness and humor.
Imagine a 3.5 to 4 year-old kid in North Las Vegas Nevada, 1967 and ’68, trying like hell to figure out the airship, kooky characters…and hey, what’s a diamond…?!
The book was crazy landscapes and designs in a backstage oddity. Had no idea words I wouldn’t even translate for another year would eventually magnify all.
The small cover image was of course Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd flying a wacky Star Trek-ish “Alternative Factor” prop, headed for crash-landing on a tropical island apparently ruled by Tasmanian Devil. The ship put my brain through a combine, like distorted memories from the future. I read (or studied) “Double Trouble” over and over, each time travelling known dimensions with Bugs and Elmer (and Taz), a practice that seemed to have far more going from emotional and technical revelation than the printed stuff. Like I could see something behind it all…an additional place and timeline, a casual but formal opening of huge colorful curtains.
When I was able to finally, you know, read the text a little later, words were funny…and lightyears across the street.
To close, I’ve neither seen nor held “Dinosaurs” or the Warner book since 1971-ish. Saw minor pictures here and there via internet scans, but neurological shadows of the past are all that’s left.
Heavy, because those two spinning books pushed me into Stanley Kubrick, Chagall, Roddy McDowall, I.M. Pei, Hawking, Wolfgang Mozart, Edward Gorey, and many more titans. Quite a journey. Quite a cache. Quite a development.
Cheers.
