Long before Tim Burton and Disney's colorful re-imagining of Alice in Wonderland was a gleam in a script writer's eye, Frank Beddor was hard at work with his own version of Alice in Wonderland - the New York Times bestselling series of novels entitled The Looking Glass Wars Trilogy. Unlike other remakes or re-imaginings of Alice in Wonderland, Beddor's work is unique in that he claims to be telling the "true" story of Alice (Alyss if you go by Beddor's books).
Interestingly, while Beddor has a lot to say about Alice and Wonderland these days, when he was younger, he did not care for Lewis Carroll's work. "My grandmother (whose name is actually Alice) insisted on reading Alice in Wonderland to me when I was about 10. It was a hot summer day and all the other kids were at the pool. Needless to say, it wasn?t a treasured memory and I sort of despised the book until much later in life when I read it for myself," Beddor says.
Beddor's views on Alice in Wonderland were transformed by an event that occurred ten years ago during a trip to the British Museum while in London. Beddor claims to have seen an exhibit of ancient cards including a deck that appeared to depict the story of Alice in Wonderland. The deck was not complete, but Beddor found an antiquities dealer who had the missing cards. "He [the dealer] brought out this old, worn leather box filled with cards and told me the story as he flipped one card over at a time, revealing the saga of The Looking Glass Wars. Once I discovered the truth behind the deck of playing cards it soon became clear that Lewis Carroll had changed everything."
If you've read the books, you know just how much Lewis Carroll supposedly altered reality to tell his tale. For example, the white rabbit in Beddor's version of events is Bibwit Harte, a six foot tall albino royal tutor for Wonderland Queens. "Carroll's choices in how he changed Alyss's story were so fascinating - he even changed her name!...It was such a betrayal on Carroll's part [it] was in fact, the reason for the rift that eventually occurred between the writer and his muse," Beddor says.
Fortunately, you can learn about how the characters actually were in The Looking Glass Wars Trilogy because, according to Beddor, "The characters we know as the White Rabbit, the Red Queen, the Cheshire Cat and, of course, the Mad Hatter all appear in The Looking Glass Wars as they were intended to by Alyss when she told Carroll her harrowing tale."
In addition to being inspired by the opportunity to tell the true story of Alyss, Beddor also credits books such as The Phantom Tollbooth and The Chronicles of Narnia as sources of inspiration - "I love all of the great books that have involved world creation and a portal that takes you there. Whether it be a tollbooth to the Kingdom of Wisdom, a twister to Oz, or a wardrobe to Narnia ? sign me up!"
While Beddor's work has met with a great deal of success ? his trilogy is a best seller and he now has a successful graphic novel series about Hatter Madigan (the Mad Hatter for reference) ? he still gets complaints now and again from Lewis Carroll purists who are unhappy with his novels. "Weird but true story," Beddor says, "when I arrived at Heathrow for a book tour after The Looking Glass Wars was published, my plane was blocked on the tarmac by a militant faction of the Lewis Carroll Society waving placards that read: 'Off With Frank Beddor's Head!'"
For the time being, Beddor is in discussions to determine whether a Looking Glass Wars or Hatter Madigan film will be made. Beddor is not worried about the recent release of Tim Burton and Disney's Alice in Wonderland having a negative affect on his ability to bring his projects to theaters. "It would be 3-4 years before The Looking Glass Wars came to the big screen and time alone would give enough distance between Tim's interpretation and my mythos."
Beddor may not have plans to produce a film version of his work soon, but he is still finding ways to use the inspiration for his novels in other surprising ways, such as a film script for the Monopoly game. "My inspiration for Monopoly came from Carroll and The Looking Glass Wars experience. Hasbro has this big world and this game ? it's the most famous board game in the world ? I took the approach of thinking of the main character falling down a rabbit hole and into a real place called Monopoly City. It was the re-engineering of Alice in Wonderland'" Beddor says. Ridley Scott is attached to direct.
Fans of Beddor's work who don't want to wait until 2012 to see the Monopoly movie can enjoy some of Beddor's other projects, such as the Hatter M graphic novel series. Volume 3: The Nature of Wonder will be out in Summer 2010.
For additional news about Frank Beddor, as well as games, interview clips, and a place to connect with fellow fans, check out The Looking Glass Wars official website.
