A Little Bit of Fun

So this week’s books are Zenescope’s Grimm Fairy Tales. As the name implies, it is a fairy tale based comic series.

Each book tells two stories, that of events happening within the storyline, and then a reflection of the events within a dark version of our favorite children’s tales that is extremely loosely based on the original. This is often done by Sela as a means of teaching the subject of the story a life lesson that often goes ignored. As a result, the books end depressingly for the most part.

What’s odd about Grimm Fairy Tales is that it took them sixteen issues to establish an overarching plot to the series. Despite the individual issues being overall entertaining enough for a quick read, I’m still confused on what is actually happening within the universe. Even at issue sixteen, all that was established was that there is another person like Sela running around doing evil (I’m serious. That’s it).

But four years worth of books into the series, I have to say it is getting quite interesting. Considering Zenescope is a small time publisher in the greater comic book community, I like the fact that all their books are interconnected. Although you don’t have to read the other books, you often want to understand completely the overall story and buy into their whole marketing ploy.

I do have to admit though; it is nice to see a sort of freaking horror comic able to stand on its two feet in such a competitive community.

My one major annoyance with Grimm Fairy Tales is the cheesy writing. While the story is entertaining enough to want to read, each time it open an issue it feels like I’m watching one of those old horror movie classic that you can see the strings attached to the monster, but you are so charmed by it you continue to watch. Everyone in the book comes off as dimwitted, which takes away from the series.

Personally, I think it is due to the series episodic nature, with two female characters (one good and one evil and that’s all that’s really explained) running around with other two dimensional punk characters who get killed in the end. Not enough time to form some actual characters.

This might also be once again due to the fact that they print extra material to pass out at conventions and in the trade paperback collections that are unavailable to the monthly issue collectors such as myself. So instead of buying the expensive hardback collections, I feel like I’m missing the back stories to the main character.

Overall I like Grimm Fairy Tales for what it was: mindless reads, with stories that are wrapped up within the issue itself. It allows for inconsistent reading, which was nice for someone who is as busy as me, but in the end left me wanting more. I guess next week I’ll have to find something more filling.