{"id":613,"date":"2015-11-24T16:21:02","date_gmt":"2015-11-24T16:21:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/greydogtales.com\/blog\/?p=613"},"modified":"2015-12-12T00:24:40","modified_gmt":"2015-12-12T00:24:40","slug":"longdogs-and-other-tripods-we-have-known","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/greydogtales.com\/blog\/longdogs-and-other-tripods-we-have-known\/","title":{"rendered":"Longdogs and Other Tripods We Have Known"},"content":{"rendered":"

For your mid-week pictorial pleasure, dear listeners, we have a beautiful three-legged longdog, John Christopher<\/strong>‘s The Tripods<\/em> trilogy, H G Wells and an Edwardian artist from Brazil. All good things come in threes, except possibly ravening metal war-machines from Mars. They can be annoying.<\/p>\n

Last week we were talking about rescue centres and Lurcher SOS<\/strong>, which reminded me of my plan for a gallery to show off these magnificent beasts. I was pottering on the Lurcher Link<\/strong> forum a while ago, and a member there, Michaela<\/strong>, kindly sent us some marvellous pictures of her three-legged Nicky<\/strong>, a saluki x greyhound and thus a true longdog. Proof that you don’t need four legs to be a wild rover. Here’s just a few shots of Nicky\u2026<\/p>\n

\"DSC00813<\/a> \"DSC04557\"<\/a> \"photos1051\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Three-legged lurchers<\/strong> and longdogs<\/strong> surprise some people with their ability to match any four-legs, and you’d be amazed at their speed and agility. Thanks again for those, Michaela.<\/p>\n

####<\/p>\n

Tripods don’t end there. It seemed wasteful to show off Nicky and not to use the opportunity to go weird. We needed two other, far stranger (and less licky) examples of tripods to complete the article. As we’re generally being arty at the moment, our second focus is on the artist Henrique Alvim Correa<\/strong><\/span>.<\/p>\n

\"Henrique-Alvim-Corr\u00eaa\"<\/a>Correa<\/strong> was born in Brazil in 1876, but his family moved to France when he was a teenager, and he eventually settled in Belgium. His relevance to greydogtales<\/em>, apart from being a neat artist, is that he illustrated the 1906 Belgian edition of H G Wells<\/strong>‘ War of the Worlds<\/em>. Despite the various re-imaginings of Wells’ tripods, and the filmed versions, Correa’s pictures should be the iconic ones, capturing the feel of the age so well just nine years after the book’s publication.<\/p>\n

(On a personal note, I found some of the acting in the 2005 Spielberg film too annoying to enjoy the images and special effects fully. I had to re-watch the 1953 version with Gene Barry to cheer myself up again.)<\/em><\/p>\n

Apparently Correa himself initiated the idea after reading War of the Worlds<\/em>, and came to the UK with his drawings to show to H G Wells. Wells loved them and Correa was asked to illustrate the special illustrated edition being planned by Vandamme<\/strong>, the Belgian publishers, which he did. Sadly Correa had tuberculosis and died only four years later, in 1910.<\/p>\n

Here are a few of the brilliant Correa illustrations to enjoy:<\/p>\n

\"Correa-Martians_vs._Thunder_Child<\/a>\"War-of-the-worlds-tripodcorrea\"\"correaposter\"<\/a> \"martiandrunks\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As soon as I’d written the above, as usually happens, I discovered the monsterbrains<\/em> site which has loads more Correa art on display. Aeron Alfrey<\/strong> of monsterbrains<\/em> also creates his own unique imagery inspired by the macabre, grotesque and monstrous. It’s well worth a visit to browse the other weird art there:<\/p>\n

correa at monsterbrains<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to resist, but it proved impossible not to mention Jeff Wayne<\/strong>‘s War of the Worlds<\/em> musical\/narrative version after looking at the Correa drawing of the Thunderchild. That song always sends shivers up my spine (and I prefer this to Spielberg’s, as well. Sorry, Steve).<\/p>\n