Fairy Tale Art by Pat Brennan

Goldilocks and the Bears

For your viewing pleasure I'm posting just a few of the fairy tale themed work by digital artist/illustrator Pat Brennan (on deviantArt as moonmomma). The Goldilocks one at the head of the post remains one of my favorites, since seeing it a few years ago.

The Piper

Cinders in the Limelight

The Princess and the Pea

Yuki Onna

Undine

She has a LOT of gorgeous work in her deviantArt gallery, mostly fantasy based (lots of fairies and mermaids) so be sure to visit, take a look and leave a nice comment (and maybe hint how great it would be to see even more fairy tale pieces.. hint, hint). You can also visit her website HERE and her Flickr account HERE.

The talent must run in the family. Her daughter, Rebecca Parker, is just breaking into the book cover illustration biz too.

I'd love to see Pat work on a specific fairy tale project for a book herself though. She has such a lovely touch. While she does do commissions I gather she's very busy, so if you want to work with her be persistent in trying to contact her and let me know if you work together.

Fairy Tale News New Year's Bumper Edition: Fashion

• Wild at Heart (Fall fashion slideshow feature by ZoomZoom) In this fall fashion feature, Erik Almas takes 1930s paintings, taxidermy animals, and the modern woman to create diorama-like images of fashion in the wild. The result is an amalgam of the fairy tale and the mythological muse. The images conjure narratives of the heroine who can talk to animals, live amongst the brown bears, and rule nature itself.

• Ko Ara's Fairy Tale Shoot in Korean Singles Magazine 2008 (Thumbelina, Red Riding Hood, Princess and the Pea, Bremen Town Musicians, Peter Pan, Hansel & Gretel)

• Cinderella's Closet, which provides dresses to under privileged teens for their proms, is calling for gently used prom dresses.

• Fairy tale themed jewelry by LunarraStar (Alice in Wonderland, Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood, Wizard of Oz and more) Etsy find.

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12 Days: Fairy Tale Quilt

Fairy tales are a popular choice for advanced quilters (many of whom might be considered fiber artists with their innovative use of dying fabrics, applique and embroidery combinations). I have a few unique artworks in my archives to show you sometime, including the original subject I was looking for - a Princess and the Pea quilt - but while I didn't find any P&tP quilts that stood out to me, I did find a simpler, lovely multi-tale quilt for sale on Etsy. It comes with a rod pocket sewn into it so you can choose to use it as a wall hanging if you wish.This one is by MoonGazerQuilts and I'd consider grabbing it myself if it had a more gender-neutral color for the border. It's called "Fairy Tales and Dreams" and you can find the quilt HERE (for under $50!) and also see the details of a lovely Noah's Ark quilt at the shop too.

NOTE: As usual, please note I am not affiliated with any of these stores or products. I do not receive any commission from any visit to the site or any purchase. These are just items I thought may interest people as fairy tale themed gifts for the Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Yuletide/Holiday Season. :)


Don't forget the "Pursuit of Happiness" Giveaway!

Entries close IN LESS THAN A WEEK on December 20th, so be sure to email me before then.
(A preview of the prize is coming soon too.)

Details for the giveaway are HERE and the wonderful London Particulars (who are making this giveaway possible through their generosity) can be found HERE.

Creator Nick Percival Talks About His Dark Steampunk Comic "Legends: The Enchanted"

I posted on this coming-in-2010 comic HERE last week and, seeing as there was quite a bit of interest between comments and Twitter, I thought I'd point you to an excellent interview with the creator Nick Percival.

In the interview with Comic Book Resources, he reveals more about the fairy tale characters he's using and how they've been given a new twist. Here's an excerpt from the long, informative and interesting article:

"The Enchanted are looked upon with fear and distrust by normal everyday folk and despised by their dark counterparts, known as The Wicked," says Percival. "Most of the Enchanted operate as vigilantes, outlaws, bounty hunters and so on - trying to find their place and purpose in a land that is growing increasingly hostile towards them. Armed with a hard attitude, unique abilities and customized weaponry, the Enchanted's world is shattered when they discover that some unknown enemy has found a way to break through their mystic immortality and begins slaughtering them one by one beginning with the killing of the half bionic/half wooden warrior, Pinocchio."

Nick Percival: We've got Red Hood, who lives with her daughter in a very dangerous place known as the Bionic Woodlands - this area is overgrown with spiked bio-mechanical trees and living, organic plant life, populated by mutated wolf creatures. Basically, she just wants to be left alone and raise her child, but the murder of Pinocchio and the kidnapping of her daughter force her to reluctantly seek out help from other Enchanted.

Jack the Giantkiller pretty much just looks out for himself. He's sly, likes to drink and burns around on a beast of motorcycle that uses Giant's blood as fuel. Jack acts as a kind of "creature killer for hire." For the right price, he'll sort out any towns terrorized by Ogre problems, which he usually solves by popping one of his "magic beans" that grant him cool powers for a limited amount of time as he starts cracking heads together.

Filling out the rest of the cast are psychic siblings, Hansel and Gretel (Paranormal Exterminators), Goldilox and Bear, her nine-foot half man/half bear boyfriend. They have a "rob the rich to give to the poor" type quest, which involves them coming up against the crime boss, Humpty Dumpty and the Billy Goats Gruff Biker Gang - it doesn't end quietly.

Amongst these, we've got cameos from Rapunzel, a soldier with unbreakable hair that she uses to attack her enemies, Miss Muffet, Rumpelstiltskin, Pied Piper, Jack Nimble and many others all depicted in the same gritty style with attitudes to match in a world filled with goth-type giants, vampire fairies, pissed off trolls, demon street gangs, and all manner of unsavory folk.


Do you have a favorite fairy tale or fable?

I have a lot of versions of the classic tales that the Brothers Grimm collected together, some great old German editions as well. I've also been heavily into Hans Christian Andersen's work, so there are way too many to choose from. But a lot of the ancient Russian folklore is fascinating, and there are some themes in that material that I'm thinking about including in later stories for "Legends: The Enchanted."

You can read the entire article HERE and see LOTS of (very gory) images throughout (which can be viewed larger by clicking).

All the details of the website, when it's available and the preview are in my previous post HERE. A warning again: please keep this away from children. This is dark stuff and definitely in the horror genre. All these new images severely cropped for posting purposes on this blog. If you can deal with the images though (the illustrations are amazing in addition to being ultra-gory), this comic and the developing story sounds like it's worth checking out.

"Legends: The Enchanted" - Dark Steampunk Fairy Tale Comic Coming in 2010

The girl above is Redhood (a.k.a. Red Riding Hood) and she's not the only familiar character getting a dark fantasy/post-apocalyptic/steampunk/horror makeover. Coming in April 2010 is "Issue #0" (yes, that's a zero) of a new comic series titled "Legends: The Enchanted".

Please be warned: despite the title, this comic crosses the line into horror, which is one of the reasons I'm posting on it - so you'll know what you're in for should you ever pick it up. While the feel is dark fantasy, the images are very graphic in both the gallery and on every page in the preview. I'm not even comfortable posting the cover (which has Redhood in a different pose with some scary-looking supernatural creatures flanking her) or the other character images beyond those included in this entry for my blog readers. Please do NOT have children around when viewing the comic website. The official blurb:

From award-winning illustrator and acclaimed comic book artist Nick Percival comes a dark, original fairy tale.

You think you know them. Think again.

Violently ripped from the pages of folklore come the Enchanted. Supernatural immortals living in a dark, steampunk, creature-infested world where nature, technology and foul magic are in constant conflict. When the twisted, burnt remains of the half-wooden, half-mechanical warrior, Pinocchio, are discovered, wolf hunter Red Hood and giant killer Jack realize the fragile rules of their existence have been shattered. With the help of other powerful Enchanted (the mercenary, Goldilocks [edit FTNH: the character illustration in the gallery is tagged Bear/Goldilox, Bear being her hairy, ogre-like companion] and psychic exterminators, Hansel and Gretel), Jack and Red team up on an adventure to stop whatever, or whoever is destroying their powers and murdering their kind.

Poor Red has had so many makeovers, this version isn't surprising enough on it's own, but teaming her up with the other characters in their various bounty-hunter/killer-for-hire personas there might be something interesting there. Steampunk Pinocchio sounds like he never made it past the introduction but Hansel & Gretel as psychic exterminators? Should be enough like "Fables" to draw some fans in for a 'looksee', yet different enough (very, very dark!) to form a new set too. From the preview (available at the website) this is just so violent and gory, as much as I'm curious to see the steampunk variation, I'll likely be giving this one a miss.

If you're still interested you can find out more about the comic HERE and see more pictures in the gallery tab HERE (including possibly the scariest Pinocchio I've ever seen - yikes!).

Goldilocks Bares Her Wild Side

I came across this painting called "Goldilocks Rages Against the Fall" and thought it was an interesting and different way to use the Goldilocks themes and images.

The artist, Van Arno, has an new exhibition called "A Change of Skin" that opened on Saturday at the Corey Helford Gallery in Culver City, CA (Los Angeles). This exhibition draws from legends and mythology to explore ideas of transformation and evolution.

From BoingBoing:

...The process of transformation and evolution is no easy task, and Arno skillfully narrates a dynamic collection of Darwinian daydreams in his latest series of oil paintings. Werewolves, centaurs and women shed their original skin, emerging as new breeds of enchanted beings and barbaric beasts.

You can read more about the exhibition and see more of the pieces HERE, and at the gallery HERE. (Goldilocks is the only piece I found drawn from fairy tales but those interested in mythology may find other pieces interesting.)

Please note: many of the pictures are NOT SAFE FOR WORK due to 'suggestive' nudity (ie. not classical nudity) and some representations of violence.

You can can see Van Arno's website HERE. His work will be on display until October 24th, 2009.

Goldilocks Goes Into the Woods for 'W'

As promised, today I'm posting the 'W' shoot from 2007 by the same photographers (Mert & Marcus) who shot the September '09 Vogue "Into the Woods" spread (though that one is Red Riding Hood themed).

I don't think I've seen a whole fashion spread that plays with the Goldilocks theme before.

You can see that post HERE.

I'm not sure whether the model is a victim of fashion or of those poor 'de-furred' creatures enacting their revenge. Is it just me, or is there a lot of implied violence and death? (And I don't just mean of those poor animals, even though all that fur is, I understand, sadly not at all faux.) There seems to be less cohesive narrative to this shoot but then that wasn't the point.

(You can click on the pics to see a larger version.)

Um - OK, so maybe it's not just me, thinking this might come off as a tad controversial... it's pretty clear this girl didn't just take a nap in the woods.So did Goldilocks (or the original silver haired old lady*) ever make it back home? In one piece? We may never know...

The model for this shoot was Doutzen Kroes.

NOTE: The fact that this tale originally had an elderly main character and was, at least at one point, specifically changed to a young girl because it was thought there weren't enough tales with young people in them, is fascinating to me. Now days, with tale protagonists being mostly young girls and boys (or young men and women) the opposite would be true. It's quite hard to find tales with older main characters! There is only one volume I know of that's made an effort to collect these and I highly recommend it: "Gray Heroes: Elder Tales from Around the World" by Jane Yolen

Fairy Tale Fights - The Academic Version

The Story of the Three Bears by H.J. Ford from the Green Fairy Book

(Many thanks to Heidi from SurLaLune for finding the artist! I knew that style looked familiar... :D )

Less than a week ago Once Upon A Blog published notice of an anthropological study, said to prove the ancient origin of fairy tales. (You can read that post HERE).

It would seem Dr. Tehrani's announcement and his talk at the British Science Fair last week have stirred up an old, yet apparently still hot, debate in the academic ring of fairy tale studies.

In one corner we have the oral traditionalists; in the other: the literary-origin camp.

Heavy weights from both camps have already weighed in and traded some verbal fisticuffs.

Representing the literary-origin advocates we have the highly respected Ruth Bottigheimer:
(Quotes from The Star)

"Tehrani has bought into the newest wave of biology-based understanding of literature, taking evolutionary genetics as his model. But his views are based on slippery assumptions that can't be verified and that have no legs in the real world.

Of course, all narratives have ancient origins: Aesops's fables date back to the sixth century B.C. But "modern revisionists distinguish between different kinds of traditional tales" – folk stories differ from fairy tales – "and understand that they have histories of different lengths."

Elements of a narrative told here and there over time do not a "fairy tale" make."

! (exclamation punch, er, point added by the Fairy Tale News Hound)

Dark Fairytale - Battle by Ken Wong

Keeping his cool with a smooth 'bob-and-weave' response, we have Donald Haase (also highly respected):

"Yes, there is debate in the field over dating. Fairy tales are in the thick of the culture wars."

The editor of Marvels & Tales, a twice-yearly journal of fairy tale studies, says Tehrani is right to conclude that a form of Red Riding Hood exists in many varied cultures. What's news, however, is that the story may date back further than 2,600 years: "It's intriguing, it's plausible, but tracing the ancestry of fairy tales can be very difficult. I want to see his evidence."

Arguably the most well known and respected fairy tale authority, Jack Zipes, also firmly (and famously) in the oral-traditionalists corner, doesn't hesitate to respond, or to pull his punch:

"All our storytelling originated thousands of years ago, centuries before the print editions of fairy tales," he says. "Anyone who says they arrive only with print is just stupid. People have similar experiences around the world and always have had."

Ouch.

But this is just the warm up. They're all waiting eagerly for the paper to be published before winding up for the knock-out.

If you're interested in getting up to speed you can read the original news post HERE (which links to the original Telegraph UK article) and the one I'm quoting today HERE.

I'm planning on getting a ringside seat for the next round if I can. In the meantime, this is just begging for an editorial cartoon.

'The Simpsons' Parody (Disney's) Snow White

It just came to my attention that "The Simpsons" parodied the Disney version of Snow White this season (Season 20 episode 20).

While I can only find a portion on YouTube to show you here, you should know they pretty much told the whole Snow White story in true Simpson's style with Lisa playing the main role of the princess. Interestingly, they didn't 'gorify' their version as much as expected, although their nods to other tales (Hansel & Gretel, Red Riding Hood and Goldilocks) were nicely done.

Here is Lisa's version of 'the seven' (no"dwarfs" here!) :

And here the huntsman (played by Grounds Keeper Willie) has trouble killing Snow White... or anything else:

It's not the first time The Simpson's writers have employed 'Disneyesque' fairy tale tropes in their scenes. Here's a scene from the movie where Marge and Homer get a little woodland creature help in the romance department.

You can see the full Simpsons episode below or HERE on Hulu. Lisa Simpson's 'Snow White and the Seven' starts at 5 minutes, 5 seconds in.

"Ash and Ember" & "The Irrelevant Redemption" by Binary Winter Press

Writer/designer Sheatiel Sarao and illustrator Cody Vrosh combined forces to form Binary Winter Press and have just returned from ComiCon where they were spreading the word about their new illustrated book "Ash and Ember".From the website:

Futuristic fables and storybook dissent: Snow White leads a synesthestic revolution. A homicidal pyromaniac Goldilocks stalks the Three Bears. Rapunzel driven slowly mad by the isolation of space station life. Follow our tales out of the woods and into the fire.

They have another fairy tale based book too: "The Irrelevant Redemption: A Steampunk Fairytale". From their WEBSITE:

A cyborg, coming of age fable, a post-human Pinocchio meets Alice in an apocalyptic Wonderland story.

You can read an excerpts of their books on their WEBSITE and see more images in their galleries. There's a BLOG so you can keep up with their latest endeavors and you can check out their t-shirts in their ETSY shop too. There is a definite cyberpunk feel to this collection though you'll also see influences of art nouveau, steampunk and, very likely, robots.

Behind the Scenes of Fairy Tales by Rosie Hardy

What REALLY went on with those characters behind closed doors!

A talented, young photographer named Rosie Hardy, has done a wonderful job at relating fairy tale scenarios to real life issues that don't usually have a happy ending.

Her unusual self-portrait set of 'behind the scenes' fairy tale photos on flickr are not your usual dreamy visions, or even stylized goth versions of the fairy tale heroines. No. These girls just might be your next door neighbors, girls you went to school with, your cousins, your aunts, your sisters and maybe even your mothers - and their tales all have a sobering side to them.

In posting her photos Rosie has thoughtfully added statistics about social issues, addictions and other problems our fairy tale characters could relate to. It'll make you rethink those familiar stories from a modern and relevant perspective. Instead of just posting the photos I'm giving you screen captures so you can see the connections she's made (and perhaps entice you to check out the rest for yourself).

The issues are not always comfortable to consider but I feel like applauding the wonderful job Rosie did on these. Talk about showing how the tales can be relevant to today!

Check out the rest of her 'behind the scenes' fairy tales set HERE and see more of her photography HERE.