A lot of horrific things happen in Pinocchio's Adventures. Certainly the most traumatic for the tender soul of a child must be that Pinocchio, after hours of pursuit, is hanged by a bunch of murderers. "He closed his eyes, opened his mouth, stretched his legs, shook his whole body once more and hung there, as if he were dead.”

Originally this would have ended the feuilleton, but there was so much protest from the readers of the children's newspaper that Collodi had no choice but to continue writing. He added twice as much!


The fox and the cat, disguised in coal sacks, hang Pinocchio. There is a lot of action: the cat lifts Pinocchio, the fox ties the rope around the branch, Pinocchio struggles, noose around his neck and hands tied. It's all in the sketch, but it's not clear enough yet.


I continued working on it on the computer. I use a small drawing tablet, A5 size. For details I enlarge the drawing on the screen, so I have more room to draw. Just think: if the drawing is very small on the screen, I have to draw a very small eye on the tablet. If only Pinocchio's head is on the screen, I draw a big circle to get that same eye.


Spot the differences: The ballpoint sketch and the edited version. I have placed the legs in such a way that you can see Pinocchio's bound hands well. Suddenly it is also clear that the fox is much too small!


Cut, paste, scale, slide and the fox has grown. When transferring to paper I let the nose protrude above the branch, it stands out more that way, and it is more spacious. The rope of the noose now passes in front of the fox's paws again. Pinocchios Left leg is a bit straightened out. Small changes to make the picture clearer.


The fox's mean grin goes well with what they're doing, but in the other coal sack drawings, the fox has a sewn wire for a mouth. I didn't want to deviate from that. The fox has also been darkened a bit, so the initial focus will be on Pinocchio.



This overall sketch of the hanging scene was also a serious candidate. Here you see it in one of the first drafts of the book design. From the start there was a close collaboration with Daphne and Anouk from Bureau Merkwaardig, the designers of the book. The great advantage was that we could consider each other’s ideas before any decisions were made. After all, illustrations and design mutually influence each other.