Featured on PDR in the collection Distortions and Grimaces: Jean de Bosschère’s Weird Islands (1921)

One wonders how many children might have tugged at a parent’s coattails to cajole a present of Jean de Bosschère’s Weird Islands when it was first released in 1921. A glance at any one of its 120 illustrations, all done by the author himself, would surely have scared off all but the most intrepid young readers. The Carpenter — an unnaturally tall, blue top-hatted, androgynous character in yellow bell-bottoms with a folding, insect-shaped airplane strapped to his back — joins a motley troupe of nine musicians (including Bing, taller still than the Carpenter, his face covered by a hawkish black harlequin mask; Peter, a fly-voiced fiddle player with spidery fingers; and Melinda, a selfish girl oblivious to everything and everyone but her own whims) for…