It Must Be Believed To Be Seen

Off and on, I’ve been thinking about Roald Dahl’s classic children’s story, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

A few years ago, it came to light that, according to Dahl’s widow, “His first Charlie that he wrote about was a little black boy.” This comes as some surprise to those who know the history of the novel, since the Oompa-Loompas were “pygmy Africans” in the first edition, and remained imported slave labor in all subsequent editions and adaptations.

The writer of the linked Guardian article seems to think that making the Oompa-Loompas orange-faced and green-haired somehow erases this fact, but come on now. Regardless of whether they’re a real people, the very premise of importing an entire population into your factory as labor is colonialist as can be, and coding them with uniform physical features is both racist and racialist.

This in itself is nothing new, but lately I’ve been reevaluating these parts of the text in light of the news that Charlie was originally black. The Guardian, predictably, only cares about Dahl’s reputation, but we should take it further. How does a black Charlie change our reading of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory itself?

Charlie was black, and the Oompa-Loompas were also black. Narratively and thematically, what do these two facts say in conjunction?

Suddenly, a lot of pieces fit together more tightly than they ever did before.

It’s a story about the Faustian bargain that a person of minority status must often make with the powers that be—powers that trace their lineage back to empire.

Art by Quentin Blake, Roald Dahl’s official illustrator

catcf sketches now in tone and color!!!

they were rejected before i could finish mike teavee so i guess i won't color the last one

wonka wonka wonka wonka my beloved (and smol charlie too)

And here it is! The solo drawings of all the kids from my upcoming retelling/fan adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. As always, this was drawn by my good friend, @jamesandtheblog​, I only came up with the idea, and he draws the illustrations. 

All the kids here all have certain combined traits from many of the adaptations over the years (though, I will admit that I based Violet Beauregarde pretty much on her 2005 counterpart, since I found her the most interesting out of all her incarnations), and I even decided on reintroducing and reimagining the deleted characters of Marvin Prune and Miranda Mary Piker (you can read more about what I’ve done with reinterpreting them in that first link I gave). You may notice that may be one or two concept pieces for the same character, and that’s because they’re either alternate designs which may be used at some point (though, I’ve decided that Marvin almost always wears sunglasses on his head, as it complete the whole “douche-y, upper-class yuppie” look), or (in Charlie’s case) that they’re part of different outfits which they wear in different parts of the story (Charlie wears his, coat, gloves, and hat outside due to it being cold around the time of the story, he later wears a scarf which was given to him after his birthday, and a little bowtie is added to his outfit during the tour).

I hope you all like it, and I would like to once again thank @jamesandtheblog for drawing these, because it means a lot (and the reason some of them may look different is because because all of them were drawn at different points in time, with Violet’s drawing being the most recent one drawn).

Reblogs, likes, and comments are always welcome and appreciated.

I once again bring you another comic drawn by my good pal @jamesandtheblog (though, I did write most of the dialogue, while he was the one who drew it), featuring the characters from my fan retelling of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (also guest starring Veruca’s mom, Angina Salt, and Cherry Sunday, one of the two reporters who covered the Golden Ticket contest in the musical version of the story). You can also see some of the other designs James drew for the story here, here, and, here.

As some of you may know, this is apparently still going to be a thing:

So, being a fan of the original Roald Dahl story, I decided it would be funny if we got the reactions of the main characters from my own interpretation of the story. Needless to say, some of them are taking the news better than others. (also, Marvin’s description reads “Self-absorbed, metrosexual teen celebrity and French stereotype” and Miranda’s reads “Talkative, school-obsessed, know-it-all, and Dictator-in-the-making”, and the text with both of them reads “Deleted Characters Left on Roald Dahl’s Cutting Room Floor”, in case you can’t read the text).

Hope you guys like this (if anything, this is probably one of the only good things that’ll come out of this direct-to-DVD debacle), and please feel free to like, reblog, and comment if you like.

Since nearly everyone else has done it, @jamesandtheblog and I have decided hop on the “Tag Yourself” bandwagon, this time featuring characters from my Charlie and the Chocolate Factory retelling, including, Charlie Bucket, Augustus Gloop, Veruca Salt, Violet Beauregarde, Marvin Prune, Miranda Mary Piker, Mike Teavee, and even Mr. Willy Wonka himself.

This is just a little something we cooked up fun. Hope you like it.

P.S. I’d consider myself a mix between beautiful cinnamon roll, tim burton, and kristen stewart, with maybe just a bit of call of doody