Going Along with Mr Gumpy: Polysystemy & Play in the Modern Picture Book DAVID LEWIS Recently a colleague of mine retumed from a trip to France with a ew picture book to show met, Joh Chatterton Déteive, a modern fairy ule in which a rich woman employs 2 eat to find her kidnapped daughter, The abductor turns out to be an obsested collector of art ‘works, and the ransom, demanded on his mobile phone, is a painting he needs to complete his collection. Like all the very best picture books it wffains from too much exposition and allows the reader the delight ‘of making discoveries at each re-reading. [At first sight I was struck once again by how inventive, flexible and amnivorous the makers of picture books for children can be. The book draws upon a wide range of pictorial, cultural and narrative codes (0 eave a composite text that is simple but allasve. The graphic style is from Asterix and Tintin by way of the bande dessinée (the French version of the graphic novel), but the mise en sone is film noir, all silhouettes gnd shadows. Chatterton himselfis depicted as a laconic Sam Spade fig- dire. The mother and daughter are human but the detective is a cat and the villain a wolf and sooner or later the reader begins to realize that this isa version of Red Riding Hood—the trail of clues being the odd shee, ribbon and handkerchief, all in. vivid red as is the captive, bound figure of the gir. The works in the wolfs art collection—representa~ tions of lupine figures in two and three dimensions—are clearly based "upon styles and movements from the Western fine-art tradition: there is a ‘laughing cavalier’ wolf, a Cubist wolf, a Giacometti, even & Christo. “Jolt Chatterton Détective thus exemplifies many of the ways in which the designers, illustrators and writers of picture books respond to the flexibility inherent in the form. The book is clever, street-wise and knowing but has a surface scructure that is wholly accessible. It borrows freely ffom the cinema and makes ffequent allusions to contemporary ‘culture. It assumes a good deal of knowledge on the part of the reader, fom folklore to fashion, but is never obscure. It clearly belongs to the species ‘picture book’, yet is wholly distinctive. Tn earlier articles in this series I tried to suggest something of the diversity of the picture book and observed that its variety and flexibility were rarely commented on, I argued that some important lessons might be learned from what is known about the historical develop- 105 Copyright © 2013 ProGuest LLC. All rights reserved. Copyright © Thimble Press. ®