GFT Retrospective #35: Pawns, Puns, and Punctuation
♫Down here at the pawn shop!♫
Welcome, Ticketholders, to another Sublime issue of the Grimm Fairy Tales Retrospective!
'90s reference, y'all! Must stop using exclamation points! Keep reading!
The Grimm Fairy Tales Short Story #5: Pawns is about as much of a story as Wicked Ways was a story: merely a dialogue with accompanying visuals. The first page (left) displays the Snow Queen, the Wonderland beast, the evil knight last seen in Sela’s Rip Van Winkle dream sequence, Sela dressed as Snow White, asleep in a glass coffin, and what appears to be Tinkerbell (less scantily clad than in Rip Van Winkle), with a man in green brandishing a hook standing next to her. Looming above all of this is a huge, ominous hand, showing that, like the title implies, all of these figures are pieces in some elaborate board game.
The looming hand is that of The Dark One, and the dialogue in question is with his assistant, both of whom were last (or will later be, if we’re talking actual issue publication order here) seen in the 2011 Halloween Special, feeding Russian Roulette players to a dragon.
The assistant says he has information on two people in New York and hands The Dark One their pictures--those of Wendy Darling and Captain Hook--offering to contact their “friend in the third realm.”
Spotting Belinda sitting outside, they wonder if she “suspects the truth” (which will come into play in Different Seasons Volume #1).
There isn’t much in the way of a story or action here, but a few easter eggs that set up future events or remind us of past details. My only critique besides the apparent lack of story here when compared to three of the previous short stories (Legacy, Timepiece, and The Lamp) is an old one: that of inconsistent art style interfering with character and brand recognition. Only the assistant looks anything remotely like his Halloween 2011 appearance. The Dark One here (officially revealed now as the chief behind-the-scenes villain of the "Grimm Universe," who should be the most recognizable figure in any story featuring his likeness) has a completely different bone structure, hair color, and hairstyle, so the only way you know who he’s supposed to be is by his association with the assistant.
I get that he’s referred to as a demon or even the Devil at times, and that “evil takes many forms,” but this is just poor execution. At least when the art style sucked before, Sela had her glasses to identify her, and Belinda has red hair (a defining feature that has only had a few moments of identity confusion associated with it) in the past, but that the Dark One’s only identifying feature in this case is a fat man who works for him seems a bit disrespectful to the character.
And now for some earth-shaking news: I know it's not Halloween anymore, but I thought I'd take some time to look at a monster movie series that has been long in the searching and never in the watching until now. I hope to have it ready within a week, so tune in when the next Just the Ticket digs deep for a review of the Tremors series. Puns! I've got them!
Ticketmaster!
Out!
Welcome, Ticketholders, to another Sublime issue of the Grimm Fairy Tales Retrospective!
'90s reference, y'all! Must stop using exclamation points! Keep reading!
The looming hand is that of The Dark One, and the dialogue in question is with his assistant, both of whom were last (or will later be, if we’re talking actual issue publication order here) seen in the 2011 Halloween Special, feeding Russian Roulette players to a dragon.
The assistant says he has information on two people in New York and hands The Dark One their pictures--those of Wendy Darling and Captain Hook--offering to contact their “friend in the third realm.”
Spotting Belinda sitting outside, they wonder if she “suspects the truth” (which will come into play in Different Seasons Volume #1).
There isn’t much in the way of a story or action here, but a few easter eggs that set up future events or remind us of past details. My only critique besides the apparent lack of story here when compared to three of the previous short stories (Legacy, Timepiece, and The Lamp) is an old one: that of inconsistent art style interfering with character and brand recognition. Only the assistant looks anything remotely like his Halloween 2011 appearance. The Dark One here (officially revealed now as the chief behind-the-scenes villain of the "Grimm Universe," who should be the most recognizable figure in any story featuring his likeness) has a completely different bone structure, hair color, and hairstyle, so the only way you know who he’s supposed to be is by his association with the assistant.
I get that he’s referred to as a demon or even the Devil at times, and that “evil takes many forms,” but this is just poor execution. At least when the art style sucked before, Sela had her glasses to identify her, and Belinda has red hair (a defining feature that has only had a few moments of identity confusion associated with it) in the past, but that the Dark One’s only identifying feature in this case is a fat man who works for him seems a bit disrespectful to the character.
And now for some earth-shaking news: I know it's not Halloween anymore, but I thought I'd take some time to look at a monster movie series that has been long in the searching and never in the watching until now. I hope to have it ready within a week, so tune in when the next Just the Ticket digs deep for a review of the Tremors series. Puns! I've got them!
Ticketmaster!
Out!
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