GFT Retrospective #6: Snow White

Welcome backward, Ticketholders and Fairy Tale fans!
From Throwbacks to the Retrospective, it seems like that's the direction I've been taking creatively these days. Now, there's nothing wrong with looking back (unless there's a vicious animal chasing you down), so long as you move forward. If the arts have taught us anything, it's that if you progress forward enough, what was old will eventually be new again. Case in point, my re-reading of these old Grimm Fairy Tales comics. With the Volume One trade behind us, let's move forward in the past to Volume Two, where some of the cliffhangers from Volume One pay off rather quickly.

GFT #7: Snow White

This issue follows directly after the Legacy short story, with Sela visiting a sick girl named Stephanie, whose stepmother Terry is poisoning her as the means to a Munchausen by proxy scheme. Of course, Sela knows all about it and stops by to loan the book, recommending they both read Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.
The story, as usual, is true to the original, but for a bloody twist that leaves Terry in a mental hospital, frightened that the dwarves are going to find her and eat her.
With the exception of the evil queen being named Talia and the stepmother being named Terry, and the obvious poisoning connection between frame and fairy tale, this is one of the more obtuse pairings. Part of this has to do with the rushed, lazy artwork that makes the fairy tale characters bear very little resemblance to their frame counterparts, so you have to just keep the mechanics of the book in mind as you read. Hell, the art is so bad that one of the psych ward attendants looks like the guy from Bob’s Burgers (see below-right).

However, future knowledge has me thinking about a few things that elevate this issue slightly above the sloppily produced filler episode that it is.
Much later, I will re-touch on the Wonderland spin-off, wherein a looking glass plays a large role. The fact that the queen says “looking glass, looking glass,” instead of the classic “mirror, mirror,” has me wondering (ha-ha) if the voice of the mirror might be someone--or something--from Wonderland. That the seven dwarves are shown to be able to appear in and pass through mirrors suggests that they might be creatures of Wonderland as well. That the mirror in Terry’s basement looks like the looking glass from the Wonderland series (which is also in a basement) suggests that Terry and Stephanie might be living in the House of Liddle (what that is, I’ll explain later), but I’d have to work out some timeline stuff to be certain. Oh, and you might be thinking, “how can it be the same mirror if it got smashed this issue?” Well, let’s just say that doesn’t matter. You'll find out what I mean when we get there.

If enjoyed this post, let me know in the comments, give it a like, and click on some ads to up my revenue. Also stop by your local Subway and try the new wraps we've been advertising. You get a footlong amount of meat and fewer carbs and bread calories than a standard six-inch sandwich for only $6.99 (plus some of our signature wraps come with free premium items like guacamole and bacon). And stay tuned for the next issue of GFT Retrospective, where the sky is the limit.

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out.