Andreas:
Maybe the story is a little too close to what I experienced at
the time: I really tried to get out of a depression. Family
life actually didn't appeal to me at all at first. That
means, having a child and all the fuzz around it. I believe
that's also present in Fantalia. That's also why I like the
movie Eraserhead by David Lynch. He made the film when his
wife or girlfriend was pregnant and thought that from that
moment all was over for him. He just left the filmacademy
and thought that he could never again do what he wanted,
never make the movies he wanted anymore, because he had
to sustain his family, etcetera... That was not my fear.
My fear was that there would suddenly be someone who
would be there all the time. I had lived alone for years
and I liked that very much. I was very open to people.
That is less now, because currently I see people every day.
I see my family everyday and in a sense that is enough for me.
I have that closed side about me. I like to be at home and do
not like to be disturbed. Not many people visit my workshop.
After some years I found out that the workshop really
terrified my wife and daughter. I went there too much,
but I really need a sort of private domain. I like loneliness.
I like to be left alone. With the years, I have become
somewhat of a menhater. Anyway, what was the question?
Do the world and the colors of Fantalia represent
the world of creation, the world of the characters?
Andreas: No. It is reality entering my world - how
should I say it? - in mý world! I always kept myself in
the background, in the shadow, hence the grayness in the
beginning. Later the colors enter completely and make the
shadow impossible.
We thought the image of the woman holding a windowlike
mirror at the sametime puzzling and tragic. The mirror is
like a comics frame, and functions as an omen of what is
about to happen.
Andreas: The mirror is a taletechnical solution. When
I had cut the enitre story up into plates, I ended up with
24 pieces while I was only allowed to use 23. The mirror is
the 24th plate. I needed the image of that running person
plus the image of the watching woman. By adding the mirror
I could show them both at the same time.
It is also one of the few images of mature women in the
book. The story revolves around children, a storyteller and a
woman who is clearly older than he. Yet it is not his wife.
Perhaps his mother?
Andreas: I also wondered for a long time where she came
from. Eventually I also more or less started to see her as
my mother.
All the more noticeable, because the parent-child
relationships are problematic in several albums. The mother
is noticeably absent in Cromwell Stone: in the first part
there are two fathers with their sons or daughter and their
mother does not appear. In Cyrrus their is no
mention of Jewel's mother, neither is Mil's father. In
Coutoo Hingle causes trouble for his son and the
old Krafft nearly kills his son: in both families there is
no mother.
Andreas: Indeed, it is strange. Really bizar.
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