A review by nightxade
Grimm Fairy Tales Vol. 1 by Joe Tyler, Ralph Tedesco

3.0

Grimm Fairy Tales is a great example of "don't judge a book by its cover" even when the covers of these graphic novels make such an effort to ensure that you judge them. Scantily clad fairy tale ladies adorn each cover, posed provocatively, trapped in precarious situations, tormented by evils. How good could this comic really be? Based on these covers alone, I figured I was in for a laugh in reading this. I was pleasantly surprised to find just how deceptive the covers are.

Each story starts in the real world with a young woman facing a serious problem in her life, such as a boyfriend who shuns her for not putting out, a partner who wants her to abort a baby when she doesn't. It even surprised me by focusing on a male protagonist who is smitten by a girl who is obviously using him. Each protagonist stumbles across a mysterious woman and or her mysterious book of fairy tales and turns to a page with a relevant story to help them come to a decision about their future. The tales follow the standard story, but then offer some intriguing twists that offer a moral punch.

Despite the covers, there are no buxom babes prancing around in corsets and fishnets in the stories. Other than the occasional cleavage, everyone is appropriately dressed and none of the women are taken advantage of beyond the constraints of their respective fairy tales.

I'd originally decided to read this along side Fables thinking it would prove to be an amusingly poor comparison, but I ended up discovering something surprisingly interesting that wasn't as bad as it appeared to be.