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.

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.

"The Curse of Hamelin" - A Short Story by Lisa Kessler

The Pied Piper
Linoleum Block Cut by M.S. West
(M.S. West also has other fairy tale pieces available to see on her blog HERE)

What if the Pied Piper had no choice but to draw the rats to him? What if this curse was passed on to his descendants? And what if the creatures that followed you were not rats but the undead?

Lisa Kessler is one of those talented people who always seems to be writing new stories. While Urban Fantasy is her first love she's a very versatile writer and so I wasn't surprised to find she'd tackled a fairy tale or two. She regularly sets herself challenges to stretch her writing muscles and this story is the result of one of those exercises.

The Pied Piper is already very creepy but Lisa's given the story a very unusual - and extra creepy - twist...

Says Lisa about writing "The Curse of Hamelin":

This week's topic was Living the Lie and also mentioning diaphoretic sweating.... Hmmm.... From that, a nervous OCD accountant popped into my head. Why was he so nervous? Apparently he was cursed... After some research into German history, this story told itself.

She's generously allow me to post an excerpt and link to her very Halloween-appropriate version of the Pied Piper (please note: there's a mild gore warning for this story - but then if you read the 'undead' comment, you probably expected that):

Here's the beginning to put you in the mood:

"The Curse of Hamelin"
by Lisa Kessler

They were coming.

He couldn’t see them yet, but he could sense them. The scent of moist tilled earth teased his nostrils, and bile rose in response.

How could this have happened again so soon?

Harold made a frantic dash to the dresser, and yanked open the drawers. He had to get out fast. Snatching up his pressed and folded clothes, he placed them on the tidy bedspread and reached under the ruffled bed skirt for his suitcase.

Something grabbed his hand.

You can read her whole story HERE.

Lisa is very active with her writing, her BLOG (just a note: you'll need to scroll down past the MySpace ads and banners but she's worth it!) and on TWITTER (known there as LdyDisney . It's also where we met). She's a lot of fun and constantly amazes me with both the quantity and quality of her output. I expect her to get a three-book publishing deal any minute now...

Go read her work and support her journey into print. You'll find yourself very entertained and can rest assured this lovely, generous and talented lady is someone worthy of your time.

A sincere thank you to Lisa for allowing me to do this post. I wish you every success, my friend!

Cinderella: From Fabletown With Love

You may be aware that Fables comic creator Bill Willingham has a novel (the prose kind - which is new for him) on the way titled "Peter and Max" (the story of the villainous Peter the Pied Piper and his twisted brother Max) but did you know there's also a min-series of Cinderella in the works due for release after the novel?

The six-issue spin-off series will be called "Cinderella: From Fabletown With Love" and is due for release in Fall 2010 (I'm guessing the title is an homage to the old James Bond film "From Russia With Love".)

If you don't know about the Cinderella character a la Bill Willingham style here's a description from Newsarama.com:

While the Fables version of Cinderella seems innocent enough, running her tiny shoe store on the streets of Fabletown in New York, she has a secret that doesn't seem to jibe with her immaculate wardrobe and perfectly applied lipstick. Despite her "day job" as a divorced princess who sells shoes, she is secretly a super spy whose well-honed sleuthing skills make James Bond look like a pansy.

(You can read about the Cinderella character from the Fables world HERE in Wikipedia.)

While the "Peter & Max" novel details more of the Fabelstown universe and expands on it in a way Bill says he's been unable to do in the graphic novels, the Cinderella series is more of a stand-alone set of stories. Here's a quote from an interview with IGN Comics to help explain in Bill's words:

IGN Comics: I also wanted to get into the Cinderella mini-series that starts in November. Cinderella has always been the secret assassin of Fabletown. How is she going to function now that Fabletown doesn't even exist? Is there a significant change to her mission now?

Willingham: Well, you're right. Cinderella is an assassin. I suppose that's fair. I sort of think of her as the James Bond of Fabletown. If you have a dirty little thing that needs doing and you need it kept off the books and off the record, she's the one you send out to do it. Her story starts when the Fables are still in Fabletown. I don't want to give away too much of the story, but what we've done is sort of written her out of the Fables storyline for the time that this special mission takes place. She's pretty much on her own. She gets involved with Fables outside of Fabletown and starts uncovering all sorts of dastardly things that may be important to Fabletown, but not necessarily tying into current storyline.

...The one thing about Cinderella stories that seems to have shaped up here is that she's okay on her own. You don't just make her one amongst a large cast of Fables. The stories we tell about her are basically that she's this resourceful weapon you can fire at a problem and know that she'll take care of it.

And here's a quote from the Newsrama interview with Chris Roberson who is the main writer Bill Willingham chose to work on the mini-series:

CR: I probably can’t say too much, but what I can say is that Cinderella: From Fabletown With Love is about spies, sex, and shoes; that we find out what happened to Cindy’s Fairy Godmother, and that Happiness isn’t always forever after; and we once-and-for-all learn the burning question of who runs Cindy’s shoe store when she’s away gallivanting.

You can find the whole interview with IGN which talks about "Peter & Max", the Cinderella mini-series and more HERE, and the interview with Newsrama HERE.

Classic Tales 2010 Calendar by Pedro Bascon

Illustrator Pedro Bascon is busy painting his own versions of some fairy and folktales for a 2010 calendar.

I haven't seen a collection quite like this on a fairy tale theme and find that the strong design approach brings a new perspective and emphasis to aspects of the tale/s one may not normally think of.

I love the simple but strong designs. It's not as easy to achieve as one might think. Pedro's work in using a forced 'canvas size' for the design is very pleasing to the eye and communicates the tales instantly - yet there's more to see if you look closely too. It's always interesting to see what results when you put restrictions on a creative work.








You can view some close ups of the pieces by going to his sample page HERE.

You can also find out more about Pedro HERE and contact him directly to ask how to purchase a calendar if you're interested (he's very nice and approachable!).

He is currently investigating how to make his calendar available in the US (his contact details are all on his home page HERE).

The Science of Fairy Tales - Hamelin's Rat Problem Then & Now

From English Fairy Tales Illustrated by John D. Batten

It's true.

Hamelin still has need of a Pied Piper from time to time - the most recent being in December just last year.

From luxique.com travel 'zine on December 19, 2008:

Officials in the town of Hamelin in northern Germany have expressed alarm at a surge in the rat population much like the Great Plague in 1284 on which the tale is based.

“Rats usually come in packs of 20 to 30 but these can expand up to 200 or 300 and that what’s happened in Hamelin,” said Rolf Schmidt, who works for a pest control service in the town north of Hanover.

The town, which has 58,000 inhabitants, has added teams of rat-catchers to try to contain the new plague.

You can find the rest of the article HERE.

So what else about the tale is based in fact?

The Pied Piper by Chris Rawlins

From Wikipedia (which present multiple theories, all suggesting that there is likely some factual story behind the legend):

"Among the various interpretations, reference to the colonization of East Europe starting from Low Germany is the most plausible one: The "Children of Hameln" would have been in those days citizens willing to emigrate being recruited by landowners to settle in Moravia, East Prussia, Pomerania or in the Teutonic Land. It is assumed that in past times all people of a town were referred to as "children of the town" or "town children" as is frequently done today. The "Legend of the children’s Exodus" was later connected to the "Legend of expelling the rats". This most certainly refers to the rat plagues being a great threat in the medieval milling town and the more or less successful professional rat catchers."

You can read the rest of the theories and more about the tale HERE or read about the facts behind the fairy tale at "How Stuff Works" (which I recommend) HERE.

Here's a lovely claymation version of the Robert Browning poem, shown below in three parts:

There are also a few novels based on The Pied Piper tale but my favorite, though chilling, is "Breath" by Donna Jo Napoli. Her well researched story puts a number of events happening in 1284 into a plausible story, giving the tale an even more sobering weight. While the book is YA, I recommend it to more mature readers as the subject matter is rather weighty in dealing with plagues, illness and the resulting societal chaos. A wonderful medieval book - complete with grit.

Eugenio Recuenco's Fashionable Fairy Tales

Eugenio Recuenco is a well known Spanish photographer who's fashionable avant garde fairy tale recreations for Vogue caused a big splash back in 2006.

In this popular series he recreated The Princess and the Pea, Snow White, Puss in Boots, The Pied Piper (though this shot could double as the delirious Dancing Princesses), Cinderella, Red Riding Hood and Beauty and the Beast.

Here are the spreads from Vogue that swept the web at the time:
I recently found a few more, though I'm not sure when they were taken. For this set we have Sleeping Beauty, Thumbelina, Snow White (take two), The Ugly Duckling and two additional Beauty and the Beast shots.And, just for fun, here's an ad for Saniterpen Pet Odor Remover in France (from March 2008). Puss in Boots gets a little on the smelly side...All of his photos have a dark, other -worldly quality. His extensive online portfolio is well worth your time to browse.