Review: Grimm Fairy Tales #36

Let’s see that again from the other angle

If you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m a sucker for good girl art, and Zenescope has got to be the company with the most curvaceous lovelies in its titles. Grimm Fairy Tales features those ladies, but for some reason, by the end of the most current issue, those girls who think they are better than us normal people always meet their grizzled end.  In the case of issue #36, the pretty girl gets killed… again.

Grimm Fairy Tales #36 is an interesting story in that it is both a continuation of another story, but also a brand new tale.  The story is the Ugly Duckling, and if you’ve been a reader of the series, the Ugly Duckling story has already been told once before, way back in issue #28.  However, what makes this telling unique is the point of view Michael Dolce shifts the story.

At the end of #28, the ugly girl, who suddenly becomes beautiful (thanks to some hijinks by the storyteller), ends up shunning the dorky boy in the school.  Years later she meets her end at the hands of that same dorky boy, who is now not so ugly himself.  Instead of seeing the story from Robin Summers perspective, this issue tells the same story from the dorky boy’s view.
In this case, the dorky boy is Ted, and much of the issue is told via flashback as he recounts how he went from the kid that always got laughed at, to the murdering of his first “swan” and beyond.  Of course the idea of killing those Plain Janes, who will eventually blossom into beautiful women only to dump him, is not an idea that Ted thought up himself — it’s planted by Belinda posing as Ted’s resident assistant at college- the same girl who gave Robin her pretty looks in the previous issue.

If you don’t like seeing comely lasses stabbed to death by a goth dude who lands more women than you ever will, then this is probably not an issue for you.  However, if you want to see how Ted became a slasher and how his story intertwines with Robin’s, then this is an interesting story.

For whatever reason, the flashbacks, and use of several panels from the previous installment really threw me.  I kept thinking I had read the entire story before, and it took me digging through 9 months worth of piled up comics to see just how well this story was done to intertwine, yet not simply reprint from the original source.   It also confused me as to why Zenescope would wait nine months to tell the second part of the story, but considering the delays most publisher experience at some point, I was willing to let that part go.  After reading this version of the tale, it makes sense why the company planned the delay between installments, as the flashbacks wouldn’t have been as effective, and it would have caused readers to think they had already read the issue, and not made the purchase.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this review, I like the hot girls, and Jeff Zarnow can certainly draw hot girls of unrealistic proportion and who probably never exist – at least not that I have seen outside of Photoshop airbrush spreads in adult magazines (not that I read adult magazines – the Intarwebs has all that stuff for free).  Porn for the underage?  Not really, as the women usually remain clothed, even if the clothing is a bit revealing.

The best part about the issue?  The final page reveal where Ted gets his and a major character from the past returns in all her glory.

For a Twilight Zone twist on the classic fairy tale, Grimm Fairy Tales is entertaining. Issue #36 does push the boundary on excessive violence in my opinion, but at least readers aren’t subjected to page after page of blood splattered gruesomeness that can easily be found in other publisher’s titles.  I continue to enjoy the series, and Grimm Fairy Tales #36 earns a 3.5 out of 5 Stars.