Four o'Clock
Illustrations for the short story "Four o'Clock" by Price Day. This novel, published for the first time in 1958 in "Alfred Hitchcock Mistery Magazine", gave ispiration to the homonymous episode of Rod Serling's "The Twilight Zone" (S.03, Ep.29). Teshis Project, Master Ars in Fabula (2018/2019).
From Rod Serling opening narration:
"That's Oliver Crangle, he's rather arbitrarily chosen four o'clock as is personal Götterdämmerung, and we are about to watch the metamorphosis of a twisted fanatic, poisoned by the gangrene of prejudice, to the status of an avenging angel, upright and omniscient, dedicated and fearsome. Whatever your clocks say, it's Four o'clock, and wherever you are, it happens to be The Twilight Zone."
"Pet".
Oil and colored pencils on black paper.
-The parrot, in the cage hanging above him, cocked her head and looked down with a hard, cold, reptilian eye, an ancient eye, an eye older by age upon age than the human race.-
"Mr.Crangle".
Oil and colored pencils on black paper.
-"Think, Pet. In ten minutes. in ten little minutes, when i say the word, all the evil people all over the world will become half their present size, so they can be known. All the uncaught murderers an the tyrants and the proud and sinful, all the bullies and the wrongdoers and the blackmailers and the nicotine fiends and trasgressors". His eyes blazed with omnipotence.-
"The big city"
Oil and colored pencils on black paper.
"The bad and the good". (unfinished illustration)
Pencil and colored pencil on black paper.
- First, who was to decide what people were evil? That wasn't too hard, really, in spite of Pet's doubts. An evil person was a person who would seem evil to a man who held within himself the knowledge of good and evil, if that man could know all the person's innermost secrets. An evil person was a person who would seem evil to an all-knowing Mr. Crangle. -
"The giant".
Oil and colored pencils on black paper.
-When at last he hit upon the idea of a change in size, what came to him first was the thought of doubling the height and bulk alla the bad people. That would make them inefficient. They couldn't handle delicate scientific instrument or typewriters or adding machines or telephone dials. In time they would expire from bigness, like the dinosaurs in the article in the sunday paper. But they might first run wild, with their great weight and streight, and hurt people. Mr. Crangle wouldn't have liked that. He hated violence.-
"The shrinking man".
Oil and colored pencils on black paper.
-Half-size people, it was true, might be able to manipulate some of the machines. They could also be dangerous. But it would take them a long time to develop tools and weapons to their scale, and think how ridiculous they would be, meanwhile, with their clothes twice too big and their hats falling down over their ears. At 3:54, Mr. Crangle smiled at the thought of how ridiculous they would be.-
"The Caos". Unfinished illustration.
Oil and colored pensils on black paper.
