Cave Pictures Publishing's 'Phantastes' Graphic Novel Now Stands Alongside A Growing Catalogue

It's often a hard slog for independent artists. You can find the dreams of artists earnestly hoped for and subsequently dashed to the ground everyday in places like Indiegogo or Kickstarter, two of the preeminent crowdfunding sites for artists.

Thankfully, some art is evidently inspired enough that a sufficient number of people see the true talent and throw them a bone, leading to enough bread for the artist to survive. But this doesn't necessarily afford them the ability to grow larger or to make a living-wage, as people say. Still, we hopefully wouldn't say to an artist that it wasn't "worth it" for them to be an artist and pursue it.

What it does lead us to do, however, is to ask ourselves which artists we ought to support, because we don't want artists suffering "without cause." An artist may suffer without cause by demanding too much of himself, or of his fans, which can lead to disillusionment. Or a person who isn't really an artist may think they ought to be rewarded for their work, when they really shouldn't be since they aren't doing what we'd call "inspired work." Maybe they shouldn't pursue art at all.

Luckily art projects do exist that demand more support, but the public doesn't always see this greatly meritorious work. But, George MacDonald's work as a truly inspired Christian writer from the late 1800's, is some of this kind. And thankfully, some modern day comic artists saw the inherent value of one of his books, called Phantastes, where so many do not. So they made this campaign a few years back, led by Cave Pictures Publishing.

I must assume they also heard the story of how Phantastes inspired CS Lewis to write fiction by "baptising his imagination" and so this story likewise captivated them, but in my view it's a story requiring a strictly "acquired taste." Most of his fairie tales & fiction are very different, less fractured, and more whimsical. That said, just about anything as visually powerful and fascinating as a George MacDonald story will make a fantastic comic or graphic novel, or maybe even a film one day. And this is no exception.

Besides Phantastes, among these masterful fairy tales, he has also written The Light Princess, The Day Boy and the Night Girl, The Golden Key, The Princess and the Goblin, Little Daylight, The Princess and Curdie, Lilith: A Romance, The Wise Woman (aka. A Double Story), At the Back of the North Wind, The Giant's Heart, The Shadows, etc. And among his novels & fiction works such as David Elginbrod, and Sir Gibbie, he has an even greater number than these.

Cave Pictures Publishing has also worked to bring The Light Princess to life as a comic before. They have also made other great comics not utilizing George MacDonald's work, many of them originals, such as Shapes, Appalacian Apocalypse (featuring artist Ethan Nicolle, formerly of the Babylon Bee), The No Ones, The Blessed Machine, Wylde, and also their free promo comic, The Cave. Plato's story The Cave, is where they gained the inspiration for the company, so their free promo comic is a showcase of a sort to build something larger... and they did!

Here's their vid introducing their crowdfund.

You can visit Cave Painting's site here to see their other work, and you can support their Phantastes crowdfund down below.

Phantastes graphic novel

If you missed our [successful!] Kickstarter, you can still claim a Phantastes graphic novel! | Check out ‘Phantastes graphic novel’ on Indiegogo.

Indiegogo

The campaign was successful but it took them a few years to actually finish the work. I supported it and so, hopefully, a book will be coming within a few weeks or months.

My hope is that more people will attempt to adapt MacDonald's work, as the unique flavor of something our western society needs desperately. This is due to the unwarranted loss of our grounding in morals, duties, and affections that a normal human being would have felt at any time in history before our current modern age of atomization.

Cold as cold can be, is our society, as our stories also lack humanity and power in it... as "lacking God" does.

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