When the Where’s Wally? series1 conquered the world in the late eighties and early nineties, it more or less introduced the find-the-figure book to the Anglo-Saxon world, but the concept had been known in Germany for decades. Arguably, the concept goes back all the way back to Breughel’s Flemish proverbs from the sixteenth century. Our subject of today fits in this illustrious tradition. It is a Swiss children’s book by an author who is wholly unknown to me.
On this particular page, we are treated to a scene of a flea market. Some kid is pole dancing with a small tree, a mouse is selling vinyl records titled Bives2 — possibly that’s supposed to say blues –, a parrot is flying over holding a painting in its beak, and an androgynous figure is repairing laptops with a claw hammer.
And two people are playing chess on the foreground. Almost.3
This is, of course, an unholy abomination which will scare people away from flea markets forever. Instead of black and white, the pieces are gray and gray. There are no kings. The pieces are very badly adjusted. I suspect this was done deliberately, because they are pretty much exactly half on one square and half on the next. Oh, and the board has the wrong size.
I can only assume that the Bives playing from the trumpet gramophone behind them has driven them to madness.4
Realism: -/5 The position is not just illegal, it is illegal in a wide variety of ways. Starting with the fact that it isn’t even a position.
Probable winner: Nobody. Both players seem rather excited about the position, but that’s probably because they have realized that they cannot lose but haven’t realized yet that they cannot win.
1. [Which was rebranded Where’s Waldo? in the USA. Presumably, that’s where the do from Cluedo ended up, ] ↩
2. [Bives will probably come when vibes go out of fashion.] ↩
3. [They’re definitely in the foreground, but they’re almost playing chess.] ↩
4. [Which is more ska, of course.] ↩