Paradys: Book of the Mad

Teaser street posters for a film adaptation of Tanith Lee’s The Book of the Mad from her collection, The Secret Books of Paradys, all set within alternative worlds of Paris. An ice labyrinth is at the heart of The Book of the Mad, connecting the three shifting cities of Paradys, Paradis, and Paradise, allowing some of the characters from each city to move between three dimensions/time periods.

I wanted to convey the surreal, dreamlike essence of the novel. In Paradys, an exterior world of warm snow is accessed through the interior walls of an asylum. As a nod to this, I chose to ghost a period wallpaper pattern against the sky and icebergs. While Lee never specifies the labyrinth as a triple spiral, I believe the triskelion motif perfectly represents the interconnectivity of the cities. Penguins and the infamous Penguin Gin also figure heavily into the narrative of each storyline, and in the climax, torturous warders from the asylum are literally drowned in a flood of gin.

For the faux campaign of Penguin Gin, I was inspired by ads for Absolut Vodka. My hope was to have this poster feel like a contemporary advertisement, with the caveat of an antique bottle and label. I attempted to evoke a sense of overlapping time/dimensions by subtly layering three perspectives of the iceberg scene.

Iceberg photograph courtesy of Andy Brunner via Unsplash.