Fairy Tale Comics, edited by Chris Duffy, 128 pp, RL 2

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Last year FirstSecond brought us Nursery Rhyme Comics, 50 timeless rhymes from 50 celebrated cartoonists. With Fairy Tale Comics, editor Chris Duffy has collected a mix of familiar and less-than-familiar fairy tales and enticed another superb group of cartoonists and artists to contribute. Artists from the world of kid's books, like Brett Helquist, Raina Telgemeier, Charise Mericle Harper and Eleanor Davis, author of amazing graphic novel The Secret Science Alliance, created the cover art along with a stellar cast of illustrators from the world of comics, including Craig Thompson, the author of Blankets, a stunning graphic novel for adults that will change what you think about graphic novels.

Besides the excitement of coming across fairy tales I have never heard of, I love the experience seeing how other people choose to interpret or tell a story. I had my 9 year old son test drive Fairy Tale Comics before writing this review and was happy to see him read it from cover to cover, intrigued by the stories he knew and those he didn't. In fact, he'd stop from time to time to read me portions that tickled him.


The range of illustrations is expansive, with styles ranging from flat and classically-styled cartoons to something elaborately rendered, as Brett Helquist does with Rumpelstiltskin. While there is a lot of humor in the stories, some are wordless and some are very wordy. In a nutshell, this is a diverse yet perfectly assembled collection that kids - and adults - will love.







Source: Review Copy

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