Customer Reviews

Frightful Fairy Tales

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book is wonderful. Love, romance, lust, violence, horror, betrayl, mysticism, seduction, revenge, angst, twisted, wicked and jaw dropping. All of which describes the lovely Dame Darcy's illustration and writing style. If you are into all of the above with a victorian undertone you will love this book. She is like the young female version of Edward Gorey.....
Bravo! I can't wait till she releases another one.

I ordered this after discovering that the Meat Cake Compilation is practically out of circulation. I'd say this is a nice little introduction to Dame Darcy, but I was hoping for more of a graphic novel or comic layout-- where as this is more like a storybook, with pictures appearing on pages of text.

The stories are simple and you can tell what her favorite words are because she tends to re-use them again and again... this shows her style off well, but I almost hoped for a more expanded vocabulary or just a greater variety of words.

All in all, not bad, but it makes me all the more interested to read the Meat Cake series to see how they differ.

SPOILER FOLLOWS

All of the stories, however, have happy endings, which honestly was not what I expected.

Dame Darcy is the coolest illustrator and comic book artist working today, period. I'm so glad she's branching out into book-sized books. This one makes a great gift for your favorite goth gal.

If you are a Meat Cake fan, then you will love this book. It has six original, "frightful" fairytales that are very much in line with the rest of Dame Darcy's work. If you are not familiar with Dame Darcy's work, but love traditional Grimm-like fairytales (a little disturbing, violent, and full of Gothic/Victorian charm) you will also enjoy this book. Aside from the wonderful stories, there is a generous amount of Dame Darcy's artwork. Almost every page has a black-and-white side-sketch or full illustration. Be warned though, these tales are not for the faint-of-heart - some greusome things do happen. The book is best read when you are alone in the house on a rainy day or up late-night by the fire.

The illustrations in this are nice ( if a bit uneven in their quality throughout the book) but the prose is what suffers most. The words seem strained and for the most part are a little flat, a little basic. The stories seem like they wold have been better condensed as simple comics or picture books. The artwork is the main draw (all black and white illustrations inside) but some drawings seem more polished than others. There seems to be a span of 4 years between some of the dates on the drawings so the quality isn't consistent with some of the illustrations appearing rushed and dashed out. I guess this book will appeal mostly to those who already like the author's previous comics, but for those who aren't friends or fans, this was a disappointment.