All Things Alice: Interview with Vincent Proce

As an amateur scholar and die-hard enthusiast of everything to do with Alice in Wonderland, I have launched a Podcast that takes on Alice’s everlasting influence on pop culture. As an author that draws on Lewis Carroll’s iconic masterpiece for my Looking Glass Wars universe, I’m well acquainted with the process of dipping into Wonderland for inspiration. The journey has brought me into contact with a fantastic community of artists and creators from all walks of life—and this podcast will be the platform where we come together to answer the fascinating question: “What is it about Alice?”

It is my great pleasure to have Vincent Proce join me as my first guest. Read on to explore a sampling of our conversation, and check out the series on your favorite podcasting platform to listen to the full interview.

FB:

What was is your introduction to Alice in Wonderland?

VP:

Arthur Rackham. Alice in Wonderland, Arthur Rackham the illustrations. I had the experience of the Grimm fairy tales from a friend's house. I'd seen that book and the work of Arthur Rackham. It's just magical. It's what all the modern fantasy artists base their ideas on because he's just so prolific.

FB:

I think my favorite is Ralph Steadman. The guy who he was friends and a collaborator with Hunter S Thompson.

VP:

Oh yeah! I remember, yes, yes. It's crazy. It's like tripping on acid.

FB:

The lines. The lines are so clean, and they have such a whimsical nature. To your point, this was the 60s. I think he did his Alice in 1969, so it does feel of the era. I love that guy.

VP:

That’s really great stuff man.

FB:

If you were to choose a character from Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, who would most represent you and your personality? Who would you be?

VP:

It’s hard. I’ve been thinking about that because I remember you put that in my head the last time we talked on the phone. Originally I was like “Oh, I’d be Alice” but, then I was like, I always feel like I haven’t done something I was supposed to do, so I guess I’d be the Rabbit. But, then, I’m like wait a minute, I am confused a lot of the time and directionless so I’m kind of like Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Then I settled for one of the oysters.

FB:

That is an excellent answer. You know given your childhood, I really understand the White Rabbit. You definitely fell down a rabbit hole, but I would say that you’re more Alice than an Oyster. Despite the chaos that surrounded your life you figured out how to get home and make a life for yourself. what about Frank Beddor’s Alyss? Who would you be?

VP:

We all want to be the badass, you know? I always think I’m the guy that’s throwing the blades and the hat, or I’m Alice with the sword and I’m leading people, or I’m the assassin Cat and I’m clever, but then I’m like “oh no, I know a guy that’s more like that”. For me, because I’m not really an action-oriented person I don’t really know who I am in that universe because it seems like everybody is so capable, and honestly I don’t really think I’m that capable at anything. Other than doing what I’m doing right now. It doesn’t seem like anybody’s really in that world unwillingly dealing with the situation, and I feel like most of my life it’s kind of been like things happening to me as opposed to me making them happen.

FB:

Then you’re the Walrus Butler! You know? The Walrus Butler is in the middle of all the chaos and he’s just trying to deliver his tea and do what he is supposed to do and not get taken out.

VP:

Yeah, that’s kind of where I’m at. I wouldn’t say that I’m not courageous, or that I don’t want to give my input.

FB:

Let's talk about the last time you and I worked together, it was 2015 or 2016. And you know, we've been working for 15 years.

VP:

It's crazy dude how long how long it's been!

FB:

Yeah, flies by— but what I've noticed is that since you've worked with me you have decided to start working with really A-level people. Now I don't know if I was the forerunner and I warmed you up for these—

VP:

You totally were dude. Listen, believe me— throughout my whole life I never had any idea I would be working with all these great directors. I mean, I honestly believed that I was going to be dead by the time I was 30, or a bum living on the street. I was a runaway as a kid. So, my whole expectation for life was never grand, you know? I didn't graduate high school, I didn't go to college. I did my GED. I never picked it up, but I did! Anyway, the point is that I never expected any of this and honestly, I just walked into it. I didn't do anything magical. There was no mystery to it. It just so happened that Stephan [Martiniere] started working at Midway. I was really disappointed about that because it was like: “oh they're hiring him to take my job”. But it was the best thing that ever happened to me because that guy, he knows stuff and he introduced me to you. He introduced me to the world that he works in which is book covers and movies and stuff like that— and I didn't know anything about any of that stuff.

FB:

It was interesting because Stephan was remarkable to work with, and I was really trying to expand my relationship with him but he's so busy. So, he recommended you. And you did these super cool [Card Soldier] concepts that got me excited about working with you on the re-release cover of Hatter M. Far from Wonder. What I love about that story is what you told me on the phone previous to this interview. It was a cover of Hatter Madigan finding himself in Paris lost and separated from Alyss and he gets surrounded by a lot of police. One of the things I really wanted from you was a dynamic pose of Hatter throwing his hat which is very difficult to do. I had asked a couple of other concept artists to do it before you not for the cover but just so I could see the motion. You sent me two pencil sketches. One where he was standing upright, the police were below him and he was throwing the hat. Another one where they had engulfed him and he was throwing it up in the air. The second one was the most visceral, but I chose the pose where you really saw his body. It was like an athlete throwing the hat. I loved it. But, what was really funny to me was I said to you “you did such a great job with the police” and “they came to life”. You told me that it was you. Your image was the same face for all those policemen.

VP:

All of them man. And Hatter M. too. I had this elaborate setup down in my studio downstairs. I had a high stool, and I had my wife taking pictures of me because I wanted to get the coat right. I wanted to get the pose exactly right because I really wanted it to feel like that scene. I really love action stuff from comic artists like Jim Lee and everything like that. So, I was really trying to mimic that kind of visceral action-packed scene. And I'm sitting there in the chair and I think I was like in my underwear with the coat on. And I'm doing it over and over and over again. I'm like “just take it. Take the picture!” and I had these strings holding the coat up to try to mimic the waving. So I had string strapped all over the place. I did this for a lot of your covers because in those days I went to this kind of book cover retreat thing that Stephan turned me on to. He wasn't there this year, but he turned me onto it anyways and they told us “You always got to use live models for everything that you do” and I never did that before. I never painted from life. I did life drawing classes and stuff like that to try to get my anatomy ability up, but I’d never done that before. So, I was really into doing all these photos. I have a lot of photos of myself as Hatter M throughout the years. Every one of those images, there’s a picture of me as Hatter M in that outfit with that coat on.

VP:

Yeah, for the Crossfire covers, that was my kid. I used my son, and both those pictures are him.

FB:

All in the family. Remember you did Underfire too, Both of those covers were inspired by some movie poster…

VP:

The Dirty Dozen. I remember we were going back and forth on that too. I love that stuff man. I love that those old movie posters.

FB:

One of the things I wanted to mention about this was I've noticed, because I've worked with a lot of different concept artists for the Looking Glass Wars— probably 30 different people, and usually there are artists that specialize in environments and then there's people that specialize in weapons and then there's folks that do characters. And the reason that I kept coming back to you for these covers over and over was because you do all three of those so well. They're sort of seamless, and I hadn't been able to find anybody that could bring personality to the characters. Who could do the wrap around for my covers. You had great images on the front but then on back it was extending the look and the feel of it. For instance, in the Zen of Wonder we had Hatter in a pose in the front but on the back you created that really cool monastery with those cherry blossoms and it was seamless. They were beautiful connective tissue.

VP:

You know, when you compose those out you have to compose it as two images, but then as one image also. There's like this this extra layer of thinking because you don't want to have too much action on the back, because that's where you're going to have words, so it's got to still feel almost like a movie frame but then you could fold it in half and it still feels like it's a dramatic book cover.

FB:

You know, there’s even a Hatter animation I had forgotten all about it until I started prepping to do this interview, and I went “What was I thinking? Why am I not using this?”

VP:

It’s really graceful, the poses are beautiful. You know it was really fun working on that. I had Jen actually take pictures of me running through the yard doing that.

FB:

So, let's talk about your Oscar-winning movie.

VP:

Oh, well I only worked on that for a couple weeks, and it’s really funny because that was the first time I had ever worked with him—and when I met him. I tell this story all the time but I don’t think I ever told you how I met Guillermo.

FB:

You have not.

VP:

So, I had gone to Comic-Con a couple times back in in the early 2000s and you know it's chaotic and it's hard. You've been to a million of them.

FB:

Indeed, it's brutal.

VP:

It's just brutal. Anyways, so I was going to quit doing it, and my wife talked me back into going because we had heard a friend of ours, another artist named Allen Williams, he had gotten discovered there. Guillermo Del Toro had walked into his space and said “hey I want to hire you for something”. So Jen’s like “ We gotta go! We gotta go! He’s gonna totally come into your space and ask you”. And I’m like “I’ll do it because you want to do it”. Anyway, I go, and I got my paintings set up and stuff, and I’m sitting behind the desk—and it’s early, and this big fat guy comes walking by with a lucha mask, a wrestling mask, carrying all these bags. Comes in, just like looking around, he looks up at the paintings, he looks over at me, comes up to the desk, pulls the mask away from his face a little bit so he could talk. He’s like “My name is Guillermo Del Toro, I want you to work for me.” I’m like “all right, yeah—fuck you man. Okay you’re Guillermo.” He’s like “No, I’m Guillermo Del Toro. Give me some of those books write your phone number in the back.” I’m like “Okay Guillermo, here if you want them, you can have them for free” you know? And I wrote my name and phone number on the back and he’s like “No, no, no, I support the arts” and he gave me a hundred-dollar bill. Then he walked away.

FB:

Oh my God.

VP:

I was like okay, that was bizarre—but again, this is the year that Jen told me to go because Guillermo del Toro was going to discover me. So, I called Jen right away because she wasn’t at the box. I said “Guillermo Del Toro was supposedly just here, but he was wearing a mask I’m not sure it was really him”. I didn’t know what he sounded like at the time, or anything like that. Pretty funny. Anyway, a week later he called and he said “Can you come up to Toronto next week? I got this show I’m starting to work on called Carnival Row”. I’m like yeah, that sounds wonderful and of course my head was exploding. They sent a limo to my house to pick me up, and got me on a plane there, and set me up in a room. I was there with several other artists, Allen Williams was one of them, and we worked on Carnival Row for about six weeks and we did a bunch of stuff. It was amazing. Crazy. All of us packed in this little room, Guillermo coming in every day and going over it. Just so exciting, so wild.

FB:

What did he focus you on?

VP:

I did a lot of keyframe stuff. I did some design stuff. I worked on so many projects with him, and only two came out, you know? I worked on The Shape Of Water which was right after Carnival Row.

FB:

You mentioned that you worked on the Smile movie—and just so you know my 14-year-old daughter really hates scary movies, but all of her friends are going to scary movies so she feels compelled. She just went and saw Smile and she was terrified—so, what did you do to scare my daughter?

VP:

So, the Smile movie, I created the monster at the end. I’m not going to tell you what it does, but it’s a pretty horrific monster.

FB:

So, what did you create? What did the director say?

VP:

I did concept art. Basically I watched the short of the film. He had made a short and that's on IMDb right now, you could actually see the short right now. I saw that and I read the script and he said “I want to do this really interesting thing at the end”. I don't want to really say what it is because it's you know it's part of the whole crux of the movie. The visualization he described to me. He described what he wanted the creature to do but as far as what it looks like he's just like “I just need you to throw some ideas at me”.

FB:

Okay—another Alice question for you. Alice in pop culture runes very very deep—is there a piece of art or a show or something that speaks to you most? Mine are Jefferson Airplane’s White Rabbit, huge fan of that—and of course The Matrix is another favorite. I love all the motifs in the movie.

VP:

I’ve been thinking—well, first of all, Jefferson Airplane, that song, it’s saturated with drug culture. I was wondering did that have an effect on you too? I heard that song and it was all about tripping on mushrooms and hanging out and smoking pot and all that stuff—that’s where my mind went. Did it do that for you? Or did you totally go to Alice in Wonderland?

FB:

That’s what is so remarkable about a story that was written 157 years ago. Alice represents the time, the era. It keeps morphing to represent. It becomes the language for us to articulate the times we’re living in. Because I was growing up in the 70s it resonated, and I thought it was such a cool song. It just keeps finding its way into culture. They used it in the newest Matrix trailer.

VP:

They did follow the White Rabbit.

FB:

The Wachowskis used the red and blue pill rather than the drink me potions of different colors—so the pill replaced what was originally in the novel.

VP:

A sign of the times. You’re not going to take tea to get healthy now, you’re going to take a pill. Honestly, the Disney animated movie was what introduced me to Alice in Wonderland all together, but the Arthur Rackham stuff is what opened my mind to it. I would say the Disney stuff brought me to animation, the idea that “wow there’s this thing where you could do anything”. It’s just fantastical. I look at it as something of a process. I kind of lived in that sort of realm. I had a top hat that I used to wear, the top had that’s in the Hatter pictures. I actually used to wear it in the early 90s.

FB:

Oh that’s cool. That was the grunge era, so that would work—you had a long coat and a cool hat—I could see it.

VP:

Kind of living that Alice in Wonderland life in the early 90s—I did a lot of hitchhiking across the states and stuff like that. Road trips with no money. Squatted with the best of them man, out there doing mushrooms.

FB:

As your own Mad Hatter.

VP:

I think that’s kind of my biggest connection with Alice in Wonderland. I feel like my whole life— I don’t know what’s happening, it’s gravy to me because I feel like it’s so much more than I expected.

FB:

One of the topics of this conversation was which character are you, and now it seems that what you’re saying is you really are Alice. As a traveler she is bombarded with oddities and weirdness at every turn, but she never loses her head (excuse the pun)— so, even though you were dressed up as the Mad hatter you were the Mad Hatter as Alice traveling across the country. That’s the perfect place for us to end our conversation. Thank you for your honesty and all the work you’ve done on behalf of my Looking Glass Wars.