In the realms of the unreal

Though quite famous, Henry Darger is a new discovery for me.
I would love to take a look at...

"...his posthumously discovered 15,145-page, single-spaced 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"

...to quote Wikipedia.

In (very) short he was a loner that had a terrible childhood and obsessed over murdered children. The loss of the photo of murdered child Elsie Paroubek made him want to recreate the image and his perception of it. The end result was In the realms of the unreal that he created on his free time and never showed anyone.

"Darger's human figures were rendered largely by tracing, collage, or photo enlargement from popular magazines and children's books. (Much of the "trash" he collected was old magazines and newspapers, which he clipped for source material.) Some of his favorite figures were the Coppertone Girl and Little Annie Rooney. He is praised for his natural gift for composition and the brilliant use of color in his watercolours. The images of daring escapes, mighty battles, and painful torture are reminiscent not only of epic films such as Birth of a Nation (which Darger might easily have seen) but of events in Catholic history; the text makes it clear that the child victims are heroic martyrs like the early saints. One idiosyncratic feature of Darger's artwork is an apparent transgenderism: Characters are often portrayed unclothed or partially clothed, and regardless of ostensible gender, some females have penises."

...Wikipedia describes his art.

I look forward to watching the film about him.

(The images link to their original locations.)