Erstwhile: A Grimm's Fairy Tales Collection by Gina BiggsMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Disclaimer: I backed this project on Kickstarter. My name is listed on the thank you page.
My mother asked me while I needed comic book version of the Grimm tales. While, I suppose, I don’t really, but I am glad I have this.
Gina Biggs, Louisa Roy, and Elle Skinner take lesser known Grimm tales and adapted them. In many cases, the main characters are depicted as minorities, and there are interracial relationships. The stories themselves are set in a wide variety of places. Many of the tales have a woman or a girl as the main character. There is also a drawing on other media. For instance, Mother Holle would be at home in a Miyazaki movie.
It is to the volume and Elle Skinner’s credit, that the volume starts strong with a version of “Beauty and the Beast” – “The Singing Springing Lark”. Unlike many variants, though the trend is changing, Skinner makes the family more supportive of the Belle character.
The one that I was surprised to see was “King Thrushbeard”. I worked on annotating “King Thrushbeard” for Surlalune. The tale is a patient Griselda type, where a proud princess is taught humility by, basically, being abused by her father and husband. I have to give Louisa Roy credit for she does an excellent job with this story and sticks to the general plot while giving it a modern test. It has a very good ending.
My favorite story is “The Twelve Huntsmen” done by Elle Skinner. In part, this is because I have always loved the story, but here I am so happy to see a princess who is beautiful but who is not skinny and who has freckles.
Gina Biggs’ version of “Sweetheart Roland” is well done too, keeping the darkly romantic feel of the story.
Highly recommended.
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