ALESSANDRO MAGANIA
THE FORSAKENS
illustrations Alessandro Magania
text John Jahnke
THE FORSAKENS is a series of episodic novellas with text by John Jahnke, illustrated and designed by Alessandro Magania. Published online, the stories follow the exploits of two spoiled canines, Quince and Albertine, suddenly facing hardship, on a world traveling adventure in pursuit of their owner, a mysterious art curator who has seemingly gone missing.
Deploying the format of early 20th century picture-novels for young adults, The Forsakens explores the cross-cultural paradoxes and financial discrepancies of our modern world in a tone that is sardonically old-fashioned. The illustrations are principally manual, and are drawn, sketched and painted on a multitude of papers and materials, allowing the digital transposal of their textures to create its own incongruence, contributing to the final aesthetic. Likewise the narration plays with a type of language uncommon to modern texts, with its baroque flair and flourishes, juxtaposing the absolute contemporaneity of the stories with a deceivingly nostalgic tone. As the stories progress the plot spans genres: from romance to mystery, to didactic tale gone terribly wrong.
*The Forsakens website is currently under re-construction.
All images copyright (c) Alessandro Magania/John Jahnke