When Character Design Goes Bad

I found these above little fellows, who are the cover boys for a childrens book, to be a little creepy.

Just look at their swollen jowls and red noses and the lines under their eyes. It's the morning after for these lads. Kind of like a wrong-side-of-the-tracks version of those Kellogg's elves.


Those chaps are the dwarfs in SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS, copyright 1955 by Wonder Books, Inc. Illustrations by Art Seiden. My pal Leif Peng, at his Today's Inspiration blog, has a couple of great items about Mr. Seiden: a bio here, and some more art here.

OK, now I will concede that Mr. Seiden is a man of great talent, but the Wonder Books people must have told him to go as far off-model from the Disney version as possible. Miles off the Disney model. Whereas Disney made cute cherubs, they might have advised, make your guys chubby wee grubs.

They all have this bad boy Michael J. Pollard twinkle in their beady eyes. And that's just not the right way to look at Snow White!

Below is the book: