Grimm Fairy Tales (comics) explained

Grimm Fairy Tales
Schedule:Monthly
Publisher:Zenescope Entertainment
Date:(v1) 2005–2016
(v2) 2017–present
Writers:Ralph Tedesco
Joe Tyler
Pencillers:Joseph Dodd
Inkers:Justin Holman

Grimm Fairy Tales is a dark fantasy comic book series by Zenescope Entertainment that presents classic fairy tales, albeit with modern twists or expanded plots. It began publication in June 2005.

Summary

Each issue of Grimm Fairy Tales has two parts: a frame story and a fairy tale. The frame story revolves around Dr. Sela Mathers, a Professor of Literature with the supernatural ability to help people to avoid bad life decisions by subjecting them to visions, in which they see themselves as the protagonists of allegorical fairy tales. As the series progresses, she struggles with the fact that several people ignore her lessons and ruin their lives anyway, and begins using her ability to dispense justice instead. Sela's nemesis is Belinda, who has the same ability as Sela but uses it for evil.

The other portion of the story is a twisted version of a classic fairy tale. The fairy tales are often violent and usually end in depressing ways, warning the readers to change their lives or suffer a similar (or sometimes worse) fate.

It is later revealed that Belinda is working for the Dark One, a Satan-like demon who is seeking to conquer not only Earth but four other worlds which the fairy tales come from. The worlds include Wonderland, Oz, Neverland, and Myst. The series gradually begins to revolve around Sela herself, as she discovers that she has become a major player in an ancient war between the Dark Horde, led by the Dark One and his allies, and the Guardians, leaders of the worlds the Dark One seeks to conquer. Already Wonderland and Neverland have fallen and are now ruled by the Dark One's allies, the monstrous Jabberwocky and the soul-devouring immortal Pan, respectively.

After Volume 15 concluded, a new Zenescope comic event, "The Age of Darkness", began. It spans in every comic related to the Grimm Fairy Tales series. There are major tie-ins and things especially related to major worlds in Grimm Fairy Tales. These worlds are Oz, Myst, Neverland, Wonderland, and Earth. The event happened in 2013–14 heading up to the 100th issue of Grimm Fairy Tales.

After the milestone issue, issues #101–125 are the "Arcane Acres" storyline.

Core series

First series

VolumeIssueTitleRelease dateStoryPencilsInksColors
1
  1. 1
Little Red Riding HoodJoe Tyler and Ralph TedescoJoe DoddJustin HolmanLisa Lubera
A high school girl is conflicted about her boyfriend, who is frustrated with her reluctance to "go all the way" (i.e., have sex). After he leaves, she finds a book of fairy tales on her bed and falls asleep, dreaming that she is "Red", walking to her grandmother's house through the woods. She arrives to find her grandmother savagely mauled. Jacob, a woodcutter with tender feelings for her, appears and tells her to leave with him immediately. Believing him the killer, Red stabs him with a machete, but is then attacked by the werewolf that killed her grandmother. Before it can attack her, the wounded Jacob kills it with an axe. The wolf transforms back into Red's noble suitor, Samuel, who confesses that he let his carnal desire for her get the better of him.

The girl wakes up, resolved to break up with her over-amorous boyfriend. She believes that the story was a dream, but is shocked to see scratches on her face and fallen leaves on her bed.

  1. 2
Cinderella
A bookish young college girl is chased out of a sorority house by the derisive sisters. She wanders into Sela's mythology class, and dreams that she is the protagonist of Cinderella. After her wicked stepmother and stepsisters lock her in the dark cellar as punishment, she is visited by a female demon, who offers her everything she could wish for, in exchange for her soul. Cinderella goes to the Prince's ball and wins his heart, but has to return home before midnight, leaving her glass slipper behind. Hearing that the Prince is searching the land for his true love, Cinderella's family eagerly prepares to receive him, but her stepsisters are attacked by a flock of ravens outside their home. In terror, the stepmother runs inside and locks the door, trapping her daughters outside. She then falls into the cellar, and Cinderella locks her in to starve to death. The next morning, Cinderella meets the Prince, carefully steering his attention away from her stepsisters' desiccated corpses in the back yard, and avoiding inviting him inside the house where he might hear her stepmother's cries for help.

Reawakening, the coed tells Sela how much she enjoyed the lecture, and Sela tells her that everything she wants could be hers, "for the right price".

  1. 3
Hansel and Gretel
  1. 4
Rumpelstiltskin
  1. 5
Sleeping Beauty
  1. 6
The Robber Bridegroom
A college girl is outraged to find her boyfriend embracing her sister. The two women begin fighting in a deserted playground, before Sela appears with her book. In an extended dream, two sisters fall in love with the same dashing prince, but after he proposes to the younger sister, the elder lures her to a mountaintop and pushes her off a cliff. The older sister takes her place as the prince's fiancée. On their wedding night, she enters his castle and sits down to dinner, only to see that the "prince" and all his servants are cannibalistic ghouls, who devour her alive, declaring her just as tasty as her sister would have been.

Waking up, the sisters reconcile, agreeing that they are family and it would be foolish to let a man come between them.

2
  1. 7
Snow White
  1. 8
Jack and the Beanstalk
  1. 9
Goldilocks and the Three Bears
  1. 10
The Frog King
  1. 11
Bluebeard
  1. 12
The Pied Piper of Hamelin

Second series

Annuals and specials

Spin-offs and miniseries

Starting in May 2007, a Grimm Fairy Tales spin-off and limited series called Return to Wonderland debuted. Written by Raven Gregory, the series tells the tale of Alice Liddle, the heroine of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and her teenage daughter, Calie Liddle (an anagram of "Alice").[1] Alice is no longer the little girl who fell down the rabbit hole and discovered Wonderland. Now an adult, she once tried to commit suicide by slitting her wrists. Mentally disturbed and in a dreamlike state, her only link to reality is the disturbing white rabbit that she clings to. Calie, not wanting to deal with her mother's mental illness, is now a substance-abusing, alcoholic, promiscuous party girl. The series deals with the entire Liddle family, Alice's childhood, and Calie venturing into a darker and more frightening Wonderland than the one her mother knows. The characters in Return to Wonderland are the Queen of Hearts, the Mad Hatter,[2] the Caterpillar, the Carpenter, the Walrus, Tweedledee, Tweedledum, the Cheshire Cat, the Jabberwocky, the March Hare, and the Cook.

Tales From Wonderland, a three-part prequel to the Return to Wonderland series, was released in 2008, which included The Queen of Hearts, Alice, and The Mad Hatter, followed in June by #0 of Beyond Wonderland, the sequel to Return to Wonderland.[3] [4] The series returned for a third time in the summer of 2009 with another sequel Escape from Wonderland and Tales From Wonderland Series 2, which includes The Cheshire Cat, The Red Queen, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, and The Mad Hatter #2.

Zenescope released a 2009 Annual For Wonderland entitled "The House of Liddle", and continued the story of Calie in Beyond Wonderland, Escape From Wonderland, as well as an annual for 2010, 2011, and 2012. Zenescope began publishing an ongoing Wonderland series in 2012, which revolved around Calie and her teenage daughter Violet. It concluded after issue #50.

Following the success of Wonderland comics, Zenescope started several other series related to the GFT universe. Among them are Neverland, Oz, Robyn Hood and multiple mini-series such as Godstorm, Bad Girls and Sleepy Hollow.

Spin-offs

Grimm Fairy Tales

Wonderland

  1. Queen of Hearts
  2. The Mad Hatter
  3. Alice
  4. Cheshire Cat
  5. The Red Queen
  6. Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum
  7. The Mad Hatter II
  8. The White Knight
  9. The Red Rose
  10. Queen of Hearts vs. Mad Hatter

Neverland

  1. Tinker Belle
  2. Tiger Lily
  3. Croc

Robyn Hood

  1. Riot Girls [#1 – #6]
  2. Monsters in the Dark [#7 – #12]
  3. Attitude Adjustment [#13 – #16]
  4. Uprising [#17 – #20]

Oz

  1. Tin Man
  2. Cowardly Lion
  3. Scarecrow
  4. Glinda
  5. Adraste
  6. Zamora

Van Helsing

Belle

Miniseries

Grimm Spotlight

Myths and Legends

Grimm Universe

Crossover

The Dream Eater Saga [12 issues]

Unleashed [6 issues]

Unleashed [miniseries]:

Age of Darkness [multiple issues]

Other series

Collections and trade paperbacks

The contents of a Grimm Fairy Tales comic collection can be defined into three categories: there are those issues that are "officially" reprinted in the collection (these issues have their original covers included in the cover gallery section), there are (parts of) issues from another series (these are included to induce the reader to buy that series), and there are bonus stories (original stories that were made specifically for the collection).

Grimm Fairy Tales V1 (Sela) (2005-2016)

TitleMaterial collectedPublication date
Grimm Fairy Tales, Vol. 1
  1. 1–6
July 2006
Grimm Fairy Tales, Vol. 2
  1. 7–12
October 2007
Grimm Fairy Tales, Vol. 3
  1. 13–18
May 2008
Grimm Fairy Tales, Vol. 4
  1. 19–24
October 2008
Grimm Fairy Tales, Vol. 5
  1. 25–30
March 2009
Grimm Fairy Tales, Vol. 6
  1. 31–36
June 2009
Grimm Fairy Tales, Vol. 7
  1. 37–42
February 2010
Grimm Fairy Tales, Vol. 8
  1. 43–50
October 2010
Grimm Fairy Tales, Vol. 9
  1. 51–56
April 2011
Grimm Fairy Tales, Vol. 10
  1. 57–62
September 2011
Grimm Fairy Tales, Vol. 11
  1. 65–70
May 2012
Grimm Fairy Tales, Vol. 12
  1. 71–75
September 2012
Grimm Fairy Tales, Vol. 13
  1. 76–81
February 2013
Grimm Fairy Tales, Vol. 14
  1. 82–84, #86–87
October 2013
Grimm Fairy Tales, Vol. 15
  1. 89–93
March 2014
Arcane Acre
Arcane Acre, Vol. 1
  1. 101–106
April 2015
Arcane Acre, Vol. 2
  1. 107–112
April 2016
Arcane Acre, Vol. 3
  1. 113–118
October 2016
Arcane Acre, Vol. 4
  1. 119–125
March 2017
Omnibus releases
Grimm Fairy Tales Omnibus Vol. 1
  1. 1–24
May 2012
Grimm Fairy Tales Omnibus Vol. 2
  1. 25-50
August 2012
Grimm Fairy Tales Omnibus Vol. 3
  1. 51–75
July 2013
Arcane Acre Omnibus
  1. 101–125
February 2020

Grimm Fairy Tales V2 (Skye) (2016-)

TitleMaterial collectedPublication date
Grimm Fairy Tales: Legacy
  1. 1–12
May 2018
Grimm Fairy Tales: Age of Camelot
  1. 13–25
    Annual 2019
    Giant Size 2019
August 2019
Grimm Fairy Tales: Odyssey
  1. 26–37
    Annual 2020
June 2022

Wonderland

Title Material collected Publication date
GFTP - Return to Wonderland
  1. 0-6
October 2008
GFTP - Beyond Wonderland
  1. 0-7
September 2010
GFTP - Escape From Wonderland
  1. 0-6
May 2011
GFTP - Wonderland - The House of Liddle Wonderland Annual 2009
Wonderland Annual 2010
Wonderland Annual 2011 		September 2011
GFTP - Alice In Wonderland
  1. 1-6
September 2013
GFTP - Call of Wonderland
  1. 1-4
September 2013
GFTP - Madness of Wonderland
  1. 1-4
November 2013
GFTP – Wonderland: Asylum
  1. 1-5
October 2014
GFTP – Wonderland: Clash of Queens
  1. 1-5
October 2014
GFTP – Wonderland: Through the Looking Glass
  1. 1-5
April 2014
Grimm Fairy Tales vs. Wonderland
  1. 1-4
April 2015
GFTP - Revenge of Wonderland
  1. 1-5
April 2019
Tales From Wonderland
Tales From Wonderland Vol. 1 Tales from Wonderland: Queen of Hearts
Tales from Wonderland: The Mad Hatter
Tales from Wonderland: Alice
August 2009
Tales From Wonderland Vol. 2 Tales from Wonderland: The Cheshire Cat
Tales from Wonderland: The Red Queen
Tales from Wonderland: Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum
Tales from Wonderland: The Mad Hatter II
December 2009
Tales From Wonderland Vol. 3 Tales from Wonderland: The White Knight
Tales from Wonderland: The Red Rose
Tales from Wonderland: Queen of Hearts vs. Mad Hatter
December 2010
Grimm Fairy Tales Presents Wonderland
GFTP - Wonderland v01
  1. 1-5
October 2013
GFTP - Wonderland v02
  1. 6-10
November 2013
GFTP - Wonderland v03
  1. 11-15
December 2013
GFTP - Wonderland v04
  1. 16-20
September 2014
GFTP - Wonderland v05
  1. 21-25
April 2015
GFTP - Wonderland v06
  1. 26-30
November 2015
GFTP - Wonderland v07
  1. 31-36
March 2016
GFTP - Wonderland v08
  1. 37-41 Wonderland FCBD Issue 2015
March 2016
GFTP - Wonderland v09
  1. 42-46
December 2016
GFTP - Wonderland v10
  1. 47-50 Wonderland Finale
March 2017
Uncollected
Wonderland Annual 2012 July 2012
Wonderland: Birth of Madness (one-shot) May 2017

Robyn Hood

Title Material collected Publication date
V1 (2012)
Robyn Hood Vol. 1: Origin Robyn Hood (2012) issues #1-5 October 2013
Robyn Hood Vol. 2: Wanted
  1. 1-5
February 2014
Robyn Hood Vol. 3: Legend
  1. 1-5
February 2015
V2 (2014-2016)
Robyn Hood V4 Vol. 1: Riot Girls Robyn Hood (2014) issues #1-6 March 2015
Robyn Hood V4 Vol. 2: Monsters In The Dark Robyn Hood (2014) issues #7-12 September 2015
Robyn Hood V4 Vol. 3: Attitude Adjustment Robyn Hood (2014) issues #13-16
Robyn Hood 2015 Holiday Special
January 2016
Robyn Hood V4 Vol. 4: Uprising Robyn Hood (2014) issues #17-20
Robyn Hood 2016 Annual
November 2016
Title Material collected Publication date
Robyn Hood - I Love NY
  1. 1-12
February 2018
Robyn Hood - Outlaw
  1. 1-6
March 2020
Robyn Hood - The Curse
  1. 1-6
December 2018
Robyn Hood - The Hunt
  1. 1-6
June 2018
Robyn Hood - Vigilante
  1. 1-6
January 2021

Chronological order

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

2021

2022

2023

2024

Notes and References

  1. http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=98787 Raven Gregory on Return to Wonderland
  2. http://comicbookresources.com/?page=preview&id=230&disp=table Tales From Wonderland: The Mad Hatter
  3. http://zenescope.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=4140#4140 zenescope.com ~ View topic – Zenescope Announces It's 2008 Schedule
  4. http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=153334 Going Beyond Wonderland with Raven Gregory

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