When letters are not hiding in plain sight or busy forming words and sentences, they get up to all sorts of adventures. Some abecedarians and book artists like to imagine them in fairy tales, voyages or light-hearted battles. [Links in the captions will take you to more images and details.]
Prepare to groan as Michael Chesworth gathers the crew of the Alphaboat (2002) and has them set out for buried treasure.
Both an origin story and adventure story, Souza Desnoyer and Marcelle Marquet’s Il était une fois un alphabet (1951/2009) [“Once upon a time there was an alphabet”] tells of the mutual discovery of the medieval/Renaissance country of Vowels and the isle of Consonants and their union over a banquet, evening gala and ball to form the alphabet.
In Alpha Oops! The day Z went first (2006), Alethea Kontis and Bob Kolar let X, Y and Z take the lead — with letter puns and fisticuffs to follow.
These two panels from Warja Lavater’s Spectacle: Pictoson Mural (1990) are the textual guide to the preceding wordless panels that tell another strange tale of vowels meeting consonants.
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Jon Agee, Z Goes Home (2006) is another imaginative book bringing Z to life. This time the letter begins to take on real character, quietly descending a ladder from its day job at the city zoo.
The letters themselves do not perform as characters in The Dangerous Alphabet (2008) by Neil Gaiman & Gris Grimly. They take their more traditional places in words that progress the plot.
Edward Gorey’s Thoughtful Alphabets (2012) represents the most narrative of his alphabet books in the Books On Books Collection. Patrice Miller‘s flagbook and Jacob’s Ladder adaptations reveal their structural opportunities.
Here is the alphabet in a courtroom drama. Thomas Edwards’ The Trial of the Letter ϒ alias Y (1753) has been rebound by Mark Cockram, a master of design binding.
“Once upon time, there was no alphabet. Only numbers” So begins The Numberlys (2014) by William Joyce and continues with characters 1 through 5, who in the digital book version have distinctively different vowelly voices and, in both versions, invent the alphabet.
In Z Goes First (2018), Sean Lamb and Mike Perry introduce a generally milder Z, accompanied by a helpful Y always ready to ask why and why not when the other letters are less than cooperative with Z’s going first.
Yes, Virginia, there is a St. Alphabet. To find out, just read Dave Morice’s A Visit from St. Alphabet (2005), after the poem that Clement Moore originally wrote for you.
Molly Peacock & Kara Kosaka’s Alphabetique: 26 Characteristic Fictions (2014) Molly presents standalone stories for each letter of the alphabet, but when the character T appears (a maple tree), characters from the other vignettes show up, including the offspring of the words “A” and “THE”.
In Not Yet Zebra! (2018), Lou Kuenzler & Julia Woolf let Z’s “inner Zebra” loose on poor Annie who just wants to paint her alphabet in the right order.
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