The Darge

Have you all heard of Henry Darger?

He was a janitor and social recluse who lived in Chicago. Right before he died in 1973 his landlords discovered a 15,145-page fantasy manuscript called The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion along with several hundred drawings and watercolor paintings illustrating the story.

I don't know how I learned about him but at some point a few years ago I Netflixed the documentary In the Realms of the Unreal (2004) and it was pretty cool. It was a bunch of his pictures and drawings set to somebody reading parts of his journal and autobiography. I can't provide all the interesting details of his art because it'd take too long, but here are a few:

War. Seven sisters are princesses of the Christian nation of Abbiennia and assist a daring rebellion against an evil regime of child slavery imposed by men that looks like Confederate soldiers.

Mythology. Children defend themselves and are often slain in battle or viciously tortured by overlords. The elaborate mythology includes a species of winged beings with curved horns who occasionally take human or part-human form. [FN1]

Based on a real (dead) girl. The war was sparked by Darger's loss of a newspaper photograph of Elsie Paroubek, a five-year-old girl strangled in 1911 whose murderer was never found. According to his autobiography, Darger believed the photo was among several items that were stolen when his apartment was broken into.

Based on a real (dead) girl he may have murdered. His work portrays horrific brutality against children. It is sometimes assumed that Darger wrote and drew this way because he was enacting repressed subconscious desires. His biographer speculated that he may have strangled Elsie Paroubek.

Murderer or no, he liked 'em young. He made humans by tracing, collage, or photo enlargement from popular magazines and children's books. He collected a lot of trash and used it for material. Some of his favorite magazine/newspaper clippings here the Coopertone Girl and Little Annie Rooney.

He also liked 'em transgendered. Characters are often portrayed unclothed or partially clothed, and regardless of ostensible gender, some females have penises. Some think he was unfamiliar with female anatomy, that he meant it as a symbol of power, or that he modeled the girls after images of the infant Jesus.

[FN1: Holla at my minotaurs!]