Anita Bensoussane wrote:
I must admit I don't really care for Quentin Blake's Roald Dahl illustrations either. In the 1970s Roald Dahl's books had illustrations by various artists and the drawings had much more depth and detail to them, conveying the bizarre, twisted, chilling nature of Dahl's stories much more effectively than Quentin Blake's scribbles.
Good point, Anita. I think Quentin Blake did a great job of Dahl's books that he was commissioned to illustrate in the first place (I can't imagine
The Enormous Crocodile,
The BFG,
The Twits,
George's Marvellous Medicine,
Matilda or
The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me illustrated by anyone else), but I can't really come at his re-illustrations of the earlier titles like
James and the Giant Peach,
Danny the Champion of the World, or the two
Charlie books. I particularly love Faith Jacques' illustrations for the original edition of
Danny.
That said, Dahl's last published children's book,
The Minpins, was illustrated by Patrick Benson, and that was definitely the right choice - the illustrations are just exquisite (and this is one where Blake-style cartoons couldn't possibly have done the story justice). I'd post a few examples, but we're getting way off topic here!
I would say above all, regardless of any individual artist's merits or demerits, cutesy cartoony drawings just do NOT go with Enid Blyton!