Escape From Eden by Ippy Patterson

I made this book after visiting China because I was struck by that culture's use of dragons as a source of power and wondered how it would be to use a dragon as an image of God in an illustrated work about the predicament of paradise. I also was interested in the Judaic figure of Lilith, who has more power than God will allow, so I drew Adam with Lilith balanced in the hands of the dragon and later Eve emerging from Adam's rib. I covered God with scales much like the serpent, they are almost one and the same creature, each enraged. (The dragon's tail is a wrecking ball.) Eve and Adam suffer loss of innocence and the protections that paradise offered in order to gain the beginnings of understanding. Their final appearance is victorious; the last panel includes white space (oxygen) not available in the densely inked first 14 pages. The words are by my college professor, Keith Waldrop,who kindly offered this poem when I asked if he had written any related to paradise.