OGIC: The illustrious Edward

I’m about to write way too much about something whose chief virtue is its unlabored concision. Forgive me. I am really excited.
The wonderful Kate Beaton has posted a great set of comic strips suggested by some of Edward Gorey’s well-known pocket book cover illustrations. I recommend to you Beaton’s entire body of work (fully archived on her Web site), but none of it more than these inspired little vignettes.
By now some of the drawings Gorey made for Anchor and Vintage in the 1950s have achieved iconic status themselves. Beaton’s spontaneous but thoughtful spinoffs inventively pay homage while illuminating the choices Gorey made, which turn out to be so interesting. She reminds one that–far more so than almost any cover on a work of classic literature one sees today–his drawings were a pretty high form of interpretation.