In Gigi D.G.’s “Little Red Riding Hood,” the woodsman has become a tough, female lumberjack. The ones that I found most interesting though are the stories that have been updated to reflect modern ideas about people and culture. One of my favorite stories in the collection is Graham Annable’s silent and visually quirky, but otherwise extremely faithful version of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” so I’m certainly not knocking this approach. The visual interpretations of the characters and seeing what story elements each cartoonist chooses to highlight are always worthwhile, even when the tales themselves are well known. That’s not to say that these familiar versions are uninteresting. Others are more or less straightforward accounts of the traditional versions, like Vanessa Davis’ “Puss in Boots” or Gilbert Hernandez’ “Hansel and Gretel.” Goldilocks and the Three Bears The end of Jamie Hernandez’ “Snow White” is much more Grimm than Disney, for example. Some of them include elements from early, darker versions of the stories. To that end, Fairy Tale Comics features classic fantasy stories reinterpreted by some of the best cartoonists today. These stories belong to all of us and seeing how they change over time is a fascinating way to study the cultures in which they’re retold. There were already revisions of the Grimms’ written collection within the brothers’ lifetimes as they reconsidered who their audience was. People talk about the “original” Brothers Grimm stories, but even those were pieced together from various sources and not always the most authentic ones. Since fairy tales were originally passed along orally, there are no definitive versions. In fact, it’s not so much that they can go through that process it’s that they have to. One of the wonderful things about fairy tales is the way they can be retold and reinterpreted from generation to generation. By Graham Annable, Emily Carroll, Gigi D.G., Vanessa Davis, Chris Duffy, Ramona Fradon, Charise Mericle Harper, Brett Helquist, Gilbert Hernandez, Jaime Hernandez, Karl Kerschl, Joseph Lambert, Bobby London, David Mazzucchelli, Luke Pearson, Jillian Tamaki, Raina Telgemeier, and Craig Thompson

Fairy Tale Comics by Chris Duffy