GFT Retrospective #31: Three Blind Mice
Things are back on track, Ticketholders!
In other words, I have my eyes on the prize. And with nothing else clever to say, here's my Grimm Fairy Tales Retrospective review of the Three Blind Mice.
Again, this is not a Grimm Brothers fairy tale, nor is it a fairy tale, period. Like stories featured in the first two annuals (2007 and 2008), it is a nursery rhyme. More specifically, it is a nursery rhyme that some historians believe was a way of endearing young children to Queen Mary I (the farmer’s wife) and her view of Protestant heretics (the three blind mice). And because burning people at the stake doesn’t really appeal to children (except maybe Timmy in his early GFT appearances), the author of the rhyme chose to include a lyric about bodily dismemberment by kitchen utensil instead. Sounds just right for Grimm Fairy Tales, doesn’t it?
I started reading this issue, thinking that I would have to say something negative about how starting with subject material that is already bloody is a way for Zenescope to avoid making an effort, but as with their previous nursery rhyme adaptations, their take on Three Blind Mice is rather good, if not all that original.
A handyman named Tom seeks employment with a lonely old woman named Beth when her hot niece (because Zenescope) takes a backpacking trip across Europe (because cliche college student). But when things start going missing from Beth’s house--including a certain purple book of fairy tales--and we find out he’s been in league with Belinda, it becomes painfully obvious that without Sela to screw with, she’s perfectly fine with hatching next-level nefarious schemes against ordinary people.
Under the pretense of being his partner-in-crime and having never seen her own book before, Belinda starts reading Three Blind Mice, a tale of three mice who pretend to be blind as a way of scamming an old woman out of her food.
Taking a cue from the story, Tom gets his two friends in on the score, even using Saturday morning cartoon-level reverse psychology to convince the old woman to let them move into her house.
By the way, if you’re too young to remember Saturday morning cartoons, they were awesome; probably the best part of being a child of the 90’s and the early 2000’s. When the world decided that cartoon blocks on Saturday morning stunted mental growth and social skills and led to obesity, cancer, AIDS, drug use, alcoholism, school shootings, war, racism, sexual non-conformity, and more than half of the side-effects listed for any given Pfizer product, plus whatever other societal ills they could get to stick to children’s television during the last best decade of anything ever, it was like a significant portion of pop culture had given up and died, taking Blockbuster Video, record stores, and the innocent part of my soul with it.
Stating the obvious, things don’t work out favorably for the mice or Tom and his friends. The former get served one last time (Twilight Zone reference), and the latter trio learn just how empty and sightless the world can be.
Good story, but the issue with this issue (once again) is time. The plot seems to unfold in the present day, but the whole thing with Belinda and the book doesn’t make sense. She supposedly has had the book with her at all times up to now, but we find out near the end that she sold it to Beth “years ago” out of a bookstore she runs. This leaves several options.
GFT #27: Three Blind Mice
Again, this is not a Grimm Brothers fairy tale, nor is it a fairy tale, period. Like stories featured in the first two annuals (2007 and 2008), it is a nursery rhyme. More specifically, it is a nursery rhyme that some historians believe was a way of endearing young children to Queen Mary I (the farmer’s wife) and her view of Protestant heretics (the three blind mice). And because burning people at the stake doesn’t really appeal to children (except maybe Timmy in his early GFT appearances), the author of the rhyme chose to include a lyric about bodily dismemberment by kitchen utensil instead. Sounds just right for Grimm Fairy Tales, doesn’t it?I started reading this issue, thinking that I would have to say something negative about how starting with subject material that is already bloody is a way for Zenescope to avoid making an effort, but as with their previous nursery rhyme adaptations, their take on Three Blind Mice is rather good, if not all that original.
A handyman named Tom seeks employment with a lonely old woman named Beth when her hot niece (because Zenescope) takes a backpacking trip across Europe (because cliche college student). But when things start going missing from Beth’s house--including a certain purple book of fairy tales--and we find out he’s been in league with Belinda, it becomes painfully obvious that without Sela to screw with, she’s perfectly fine with hatching next-level nefarious schemes against ordinary people.
Under the pretense of being his partner-in-crime and having never seen her own book before, Belinda starts reading Three Blind Mice, a tale of three mice who pretend to be blind as a way of scamming an old woman out of her food.
Taking a cue from the story, Tom gets his two friends in on the score, even using Saturday morning cartoon-level reverse psychology to convince the old woman to let them move into her house.
By the way, if you’re too young to remember Saturday morning cartoons, they were awesome; probably the best part of being a child of the 90’s and the early 2000’s. When the world decided that cartoon blocks on Saturday morning stunted mental growth and social skills and led to obesity, cancer, AIDS, drug use, alcoholism, school shootings, war, racism, sexual non-conformity, and more than half of the side-effects listed for any given Pfizer product, plus whatever other societal ills they could get to stick to children’s television during the last best decade of anything ever, it was like a significant portion of pop culture had given up and died, taking Blockbuster Video, record stores, and the innocent part of my soul with it.
Stating the obvious, things don’t work out favorably for the mice or Tom and his friends. The former get served one last time (Twilight Zone reference), and the latter trio learn just how empty and sightless the world can be.
Good story, but the issue with this issue (once again) is time. The plot seems to unfold in the present day, but the whole thing with Belinda and the book doesn’t make sense. She supposedly has had the book with her at all times up to now, but we find out near the end that she sold it to Beth “years ago” out of a bookstore she runs. This leaves several options.
Three Blind Mice could take place “years” after the death of Sela, in which case, why do bookstores still exist in the future? This is the least problematic solution to the conundrum, so I will ascribe to it while pondering the validity of the other options.
It could take place in the present, in which case Belinda now has the never-before-displayed ability to make herself and/or her book exist in multiple places at once, in addition to the book having possible shapeshifting powers (Rapunzel issue?) and being both a magical prison (The Piper miniseries) and a Duel Monsters deck (Snow White & Rose Red). Given the completely illogical turns the series has taken from time to time, this is as sensible a possibility as any.
The third option is that Three Blind Mice took place in the recent past, which might play into Belinda’s claims of wiping Sela’s memory, or it might negate what we think we understand of Sela’s congruity in the timeline altogether, which is also completely sensible, given Zenescope’s disregard for continuity and established mechanics early on in the series (and occasionally later on in the series, but we’ll get to that when we get to it).
The art style in this issue was interesting and creepy. Everyone is drawn to look reminiscent of Slappy the Dummy from Goosebumps mixed with the man-eating Titans from Attack on Titan, as designed by the creators of The Stepford Wives. It isn’t exactly appealing (the niece, who is supposed to be hot, has a severe and mannish face as a result of how she’s drawn, and as the only seemingly innocent party in the story, she doesn’t benefit character-wise from this art style, either), but it plays into the personalities and motivations of the other characters perfectly, which only enhances how well the story works as a whole.
Even a blind man can see that.
It could take place in the present, in which case Belinda now has the never-before-displayed ability to make herself and/or her book exist in multiple places at once, in addition to the book having possible shapeshifting powers (Rapunzel issue?) and being both a magical prison (The Piper miniseries) and a Duel Monsters deck (Snow White & Rose Red). Given the completely illogical turns the series has taken from time to time, this is as sensible a possibility as any.
The third option is that Three Blind Mice took place in the recent past, which might play into Belinda’s claims of wiping Sela’s memory, or it might negate what we think we understand of Sela’s congruity in the timeline altogether, which is also completely sensible, given Zenescope’s disregard for continuity and established mechanics early on in the series (and occasionally later on in the series, but we’ll get to that when we get to it).
The art style in this issue was interesting and creepy. Everyone is drawn to look reminiscent of Slappy the Dummy from Goosebumps mixed with the man-eating Titans from Attack on Titan, as designed by the creators of The Stepford Wives. It isn’t exactly appealing (the niece, who is supposed to be hot, has a severe and mannish face as a result of how she’s drawn, and as the only seemingly innocent party in the story, she doesn’t benefit character-wise from this art style, either), but it plays into the personalities and motivations of the other characters perfectly, which only enhances how well the story works as a whole.
Even a blind man can see that.
So get your Braille translator ready and tune in tomorrow for perhaps the worst Grimm Fairy Tales issue of its time.
Ticketmaster,
out.
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