"Snow White, Rose Red and Other Tales of Kind Young Women" - Online Launch Party May 1st 6pm AEST (Friday Australia/Thursday US)

If you're a longtime reader you know that we in the Fairy Tale Newsroom are longtime fans of Australian fairy tale writer Kate Forsyth, who has created an amazing collection of historical novels with specific fairy tales at their center [and we personally adore The Rebirth of Rapunzel: A Mythic Biography of the Maiden in the Tower (2016), which explores the Rapunzel tale-type throughout history and includes all sorts of wonderful creative expressions, as well as a research-based exegesis!]. It's also no secret that we are continually drawn to the magic photographic illustrations of Australian artist Lorena Carrington, so it's a given that any collaboration between these two magical women is a must for us - and we're about to be treated with their third!

The third book of the Long Lost Fairy Tales Collection, a collaborative series by Australian writer Kate Forsyth and Australian artist Lorena Carrington, is going to have an online book launch that anyone from around the world can attend!

The book is titled Snow White, Rose Red and Other Tales of Kind Young Women.

The previous two in the popular series are:

• Vasilisa the Wise and Other Tales of Brave Young Women
• The Buried Moon and Other Tales of Bright Young Women

All are available through Serenity Press.

We've included a small selection of popular time zone, times below to give you a start on figuring out how to block it into your calendar.
Australian Eastern Standard Time - 6pm FRIDAY night
USA PST (Pacific Standard Time) - 1am FRIDAY early morning (late THURS.)
USA EST (Eastern Standard Time) - 4am FRIDAY super early
UK London Time - 9am FRIDAY
Moscow, Russia Time - 12pm (noon) FRIDAY

YOU CAN JOIN THE LAUNCH VIA FACEBOOK
(click image or link below):

Online link:
https://www.facebook.com/events/2345942522374686/

OR MAKE YOUR WAY STRAIGHT TO THE ZOOM ROOM AT THE SCHEDULED TIME HERE
(no Facebook required! Click image or link below)::

Online link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7588848380

Publisher's book description:

An enchanting collection of little known fairy tales about young women who prevail because of their kindness and compassion.Snow-White & Rose Red save an enchanted bear from an ungrateful goblin Marushka is sent to find strawberries in the snow by her cruel step-sister but wins the help of the Twelve Months Ailsa climbs Mischanter Mountain to rescue her sister, armed with nothing more than her sewing kit and her parents’ blessing Reinhilda outwits a witch and saves her sweetheart.A kind henwife helps Morag find a home for her family with the help of a magic pot. Agnes and a young Romany woman together overcome the curse of an enchanted cupBrigid honours a promise she made, even though it takes her to theunderworld and back.With an introduction by Isobelle Carmody, Snow White, Rose Red & Other Tales of Kind Young Women contains tales fromGermany, Slovenia, Ireland and the Scottish Travellers.It will transform the way you think about fairy tales.

And here is a lovely sneak peek inside the covers!




Can you guess which fairy tales Kate and Lorena are retelling in this volume?
Hope to see some of you Friday at the launch!
(Or Thursday - whatever day it will be where you are!)
*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *
A small selection of the many fairy tale books by Kate Forsyth:

 Fairy tale art - in book form! - by artist Lorena Carrington:

'The Adventures of Snow White & Rose Red' Amazon TV Series in Development

Looks like this fairy tale series is still in the early stages of production. It's set to debut on Amazon in December 2017.

Here's the blurb and storyline from IMDB:

'The Adventures of Snow White and Rose Red' is a magical live action fairy tale about two girls who live in an enchanted forest and have adventures with their fairy tale friends.

Snow and Rose are secret princess sisters who live in hiding with their surrogate parents, a friendly woodcutter and his wife, in their cottage in the woods. They have many adventures with various fairytale friends, such as Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel and Cinderella. 

And here's the casting call for the film, (on March 18th), which outlines the characters they're looking to include:

Prince Ferdinand 8-13 yrs - Mother 35-50 yrs - Father 40 - 60 yrs - Gnome 6-12 yrs, or little person - Door Mouse 4-7 yrs - March Hair 10-90 yrs - Queen of Hearts 5-10 yrs. OR 30+ yrs - Fairy Queen 16+ yrs - 4 Little Fairies 6 - 12 yrs 4'10 or under with ballet training - Little Red Riding Hood 6 - 10 yrs - Grandma 60+ yrs - Rapunzel 16+ yrs - Wizard 20+ yrs - Cinderella 16 - 30 yrs - Prince 18-30 yrs - 

We will admit we are a little disappointed to find the sisters already princesses, as well as joining an 'Into The Woods'-like cast of popular fairy tale characters. We're also a little disappointed that one of the few positive and strong single parents in fairy tales will now just be part of a nondescript sort of couple.

         

The fairy tale has so much richness on its own it really doesn't need to add 'well known' characters. Just check out the fan-made collages above. You can't help but be intrigued by the image combinations. We're not suggesting family film makers take on Margo Lanagan's critically acclaimed retelling, Tender Morsels, but it's quite an adventure on its own. This fairy tale has been filmed in Europe at least twice - 1955 & 1978 - and dubbed into English, during the lengthy hey day of family fantasy films in Europe, as well a a couple of more recent foreign animated versions.

All you really need to pique interest in this tale is the image of the girls, sisters, letting a talking bear into their cottage in mid-Winter. Between the push for more sibling girl-power stories, thanks to Frozen, and the The Beauty and the Beast links with the 'prince enchanted as bear' there to take advantage of, there's a lot to recommend sticking with this fairy tale's bones, instead of trying to assimilate it into a mash-up.


That said, it's very difficult to judge what it will truly be like from little bits of information. Perhaps the elements we're less keen on really have a much smaller role, and will be used for the traditional fairy tale marketing strategies, a la Once Upon A Time.

Either way, it's interesting to see Amazon delving into this. Clearly they think there's a market for this fairy tale series, which makes us happy! We're looking forward to watching this develop to see which direction it goes.

The Adventures of Snow White and Rose Red is being created by the team at Trident Fantasy Films.

Happy Summer Solstice Northern Hemisphere! (& news on Jasmine Becket-Griffith's upcoming Faerytale Oracle Deck)

A Midsummer Night's Dream by Jasmine Becket-Griffith

Just squeaking in super late in the longest day of the year to say Happy Summer Solstice!

This lovely rendition of A Midsummer Night's Dream is by the popular and talented Jasmine Becket-Griffith, who is currently working on a new Faerytale Oracle Deck (with author Lucy Cavendish writing).

Being no stranger to using fairy tales as subjects for her work, I'm so curious to see how she portrays fairy tales and which ones she chooses to use.

Here are a few works she plans to include so far:

Brother & Sister

Rumpelstiltskin

The Little Match Girl

The Red Shoes

Snow White & Rose Red

Ms. Becket-Griffith's Oracle Deck is due out sometime during 2015 from Blue Angel Publishing.

Tomorrow is the Beginning of (the 10 Chapter long) Happily Ever After for Willingham's "Fables"

Issue 141 - 1st of the Happily Ever After finale chapters. Cover by Nimit Malavia

Issue 141 of Fables is the last big turning point in Willingham's popular comic series, marking the beginning of The End (for real!) for the long-running, critically acclaimed, fairy-tales-like-you've-never-seen comic-cult favorite.

In true classic storybook-ending style, this story ends as it begins, with the sisterhood conflict of Snow White and Rose Red - but turned up to 11.

“HAPPILY EVER AFTER!” part 1. Good knight vs. bad knight. King Arthur vs. Morgan le Fay. Rose Red vs. Snow White. The two sisters are caught up in the roles Camelot has set for them, and now they’re ready for battle. Plus, don’t miss the backup story illustrated by P. Craig Russell!

I admit I'm not caught up yet, having yet to navigate my way through the various crossovers etc but I've kept a general eye on things and have been following the Fairest spin-off, which also culminates at Issue 150.

Note: Issue 150 will be 150 PAGES LONG! I'm kind of looking forward to that actually. Since it has to finish, I have fairly high hopes that this will finish well and Willingham will pull out all his stops to add the notes from his fairy tale research that he hasn't yet been able to use. *fingers crossed* And I'd like an annotated version of the comics with reference to all the research too please... (No I did not happen upon a genie and am making outrageous wishes, I'm just choosing to be extremely optimistic!)

This seem like a pretty significant point in time for alternate fairy tale pop-culture influence so I'm going to do what I can to personally follow the final ten issues. It's unlikely I will comment on them until the finale is said and done, if then. It's just one of those events that should be marked by people watching the influence of fairy tales in pop-culture (and vice versa).

A little bit from Willingham on the finale arc (note Flycatcher is "The Frog King" for those a little hazy on the many, many denizens of Fabletown. He's also a fan favorite, and included on my short list too):

"I'm not saying that everyone dies and everything's horrible. But as the story plays out, it becomes clear that that's it. The story comes to an end."

Some characters in Willingham's expansive Fables cast will have their final curtain calls in the main story line — others star in short backup stories in the last run of issues, beginning with Flycatcher in No. 141, and then moving to Sinbad, Cinderella, Prince Charming and others.

There will also be some skipping around in time, Willingham says. "The final story of Flycatcher for example takes place at some undisclosed time in the future, but apparently he's had time to have kids between now and then."

The article mentions how Willingham made good use of a Fables forum to keep track of all the questions of character fates, unresolved plot-lines and other fan puzzlers (smart!) and will be dealing with a lot of those danglers in the final arc as well. Hopefully that will be satisfying story-wise without being too "i" dotting and "t" crossing.

You can read much more about The End HERE (though it might seem a little confusing if you're not a decent way into the series).

I read vague possibilities of Fables one-off "specials" in between the lines of Bill Willingham's admission that it's not as easy to let go as he originally anticipated.

"Just doing this last story line," he says, "these pesky characters keep suggesting, well, if you've done this then here's something nice, or here's something that could happen to this character down the road."

Oh - and don't forget: the movie is still actively in development. Things are still looking very good for a Fables film.

Aussies 'n' Fairy Tales Week: Debra Phillips, Painter of Stories

You may have seen her work recently in conjunction with the AFTS conference, but not known the name of the creative woman behind this new vision of Snow White. Her name is Debra Phillips and she tells stories. But not just with words. She also tells stories with paint.

While she is a writer and is currently involved with an academic study related to storytelling and fairy tales, she also creates stories using paint and often incorporating other media as well. Be it stitching, photography, old maps or her own brushstrokes, there is always a story woven into the work.

A Grimm View of Life series: Three Little Pigs

From Ms. Phillips:

When I paint I tell myself a story about the people in the scenes, the events leading up to the scenes and the qualities of each person within the painting. For me, a painting is a story. Although it is entire in itself, there is always a story before the image and a story after the image.  Decades ago when I painted the series of saints, I also wrote on the back a short story about the life of the saint (either imagined or real). 

A Grimm View of Life series: Goldilocks and porridge

What you see here are some of her intriguing paintings, exploring familiar fairy tales in a new ways, something, she says, is bring influenced by her current academic research and study, with an emphasis on the notion of time experienced in fairy tales and how they can transform to become a distinct narrative about an imagined future.

But that's not all she does.

A Grimm View of Life series: Snow White and rotten to the core

In the past, Ms. Phillips could often be found writing stories for friends by request, often with the purpose of commemorating a specific and special life event (birth, wedding etc). Over time, she began to include water colors, collages or photographs she had created. At some point she added stitching and the concept of her unique brand of hand crafted books was born.

Detail from a mixed-media collage

Story writing has overtaken my self and my life. There is always a tension between the desire to write and the desire to paint. Sometimes the paintings emerge from writing and sometimes the story comes from seeing a theme running through paintings or collage images. 

Fairy story themes are a constant thread running through all the stories. Some fairy stories are obvious and others are hidden in the other themes of the story. All my stories are about the human condition, especially its frailties and it’s complex relationships.

As you can see at the head of the post, Ms. Phillips had the honor of being the cover artist for the AFTS Inaugural Conference program this year. She also attended and, along with everyone else, has been reported as being both delighted and inspired by the papers and presentations of all kinds.Which can only mean one thing: we should be seeing more from Ms. Philips very soon.  

A Grimm View of Life series: Snow White & Rose Red have the wolf at their feet

In the meantime, she has a small website with a few examples of her work HERE, including a fascinating introduction to her current studies with fairytales. I look forward to seeing what Ms. Phillips does next.

Jasmine Becket-Griffith's 'Snow White and Rose Red'

Snow White and Rose Red by Jasmine Becket-Griffith

Jasmine Becket-Griffith is collaborating on a Fairy Tale Oracle deck! She's busy creating artwork for it right now. This is one of the most recent pieces, unveiled on February 1 this year. It's a lot softer than much of her past work has been, giving it more of a classical look. I really like it!

On her Facebook page, she explains a little about the piece:

This painting - "Snow White and Rose Red" is for my long-awaited Fairytale Oracle deck project with Lucy Cavendish & Blue Angel Publishing. As Snow White and Rose Red is about two peasant girls, this is intentionally a nod to William Bouguereau, 1800s French painter who is the master of peasant-girl paintings, hehe. These two sisters are shown early in the story (not to be confused with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs - a completely UNRELATED story of a character with a similarly translated name, ahem, this is about two sisters who befriend a bear - check it out!), Snow White has light clothing and hair, Rose Red has the darker, redder colours, and this corresponds with their two forest friends - a cardinal bird and a chickadee! I love this piece, be sure to look for it in my upcoming Fairytale Oracle deck. 

As Snow White and Rose Red is about two peasant girls, this is intentionally a nod to William Bouguereau, 1800s French painter who is the master of peasant-girl paintings, hehe.  

I'll have to try and remember to look for this deck - new fairy tale art is a-comin'!

in the meantime, Ms. Becket-Griffith will be showing new Disney licensed work at the WonderGround Gallery (in Disneyland, California) on March 1st, 2014, including new paintings (currently in progress) of Belle and Alice (sneak peek shown above). Always great to see an artist's interpretation of Disney classics!

"Frozen"s 3rd Trailer Is Worth Seeing + A Brief Discussion of Sisters in Fairy Tales (But Especially Tatterhood...)

I know, I know - ANOTHER Frozen post! But when you see the trailer and what I'm commenting on, hopefully you'll see why. (And, if it were me, this is TOTALLY a marketing angle I would take to boast how Disney is creating a new fairy tale... even if it isn't exactly the case.)

First, take a look (source):

See what I mean?

No longer is it (just) a goofy, perhaps amusing, icy adventure film with a bit of fantasy that promises to be fairly forgettable. Now we get to the meat of the film - and a real reason for wanting to watch. While I'm still not convinced of a real fairy tale in the mix, there is an aspect this trailer made me think of that I wanted to raise: sisters in fairy tales.

Art by Brittney Lee

Yeah, yeah, I know they've been blaring a TWO FEMALE LEADS trumpet but the sisterhood bond aspect of the movie has been rather smothered to date. As I've been looking around through fan blogs and those excitedly anticipating Frozen and producing fan art, apart from the "what cool magic stuff could a snow queen do?" aspect, it's the sisterhood angle that's grabbing people: this is what Disney should have been pushing in the marketing all along! Why? Because there really aren't that many sister-LOVES-sister tales out there (lotsa hate, notsomuch love) and that's kind of special.

Did you even see this teeny little poster-thing on "sisters day"? >>>>>>
Me neither.

When it comes to sisters in fairy tales, if you're like me, you immediately think of Snow White and Rose Red, or of jealous sisters (or step sisters), or sisters who spend most of their time breaking curses on their enchanted brothers (Wild Swans, Brother & Sister etc). A sister breaking a curse for another SISTER though (or, in Frozen's case, helping a sister comes to terms with a gift/curse) - and one that she actually loves - is quite unusual.

Admittedly, I do not have good access to an ATU catalog and do not have a black belt (or a belt of any color really) in researching said tale-type systems as Heidi over at SurLaLune does *sensei-bows toward Heidi* (so go check her site and blog and send her your AT-tale type questions because she is the research queen for those) but on looking at types of sister tales I did go down an interesting path of magically assisted and/or cursed births, resulting in siblings that differed from each other.

TATTERHOOD by Victoria Maderna

Usually it's a Royal (and usually a Queen) who is having trouble (or impatience) conceiving and asks for help from a magical creature or fairy or makes some claim of wishing they would happily deal with "fill in some form of weirdness here" as long as they could have a child of their very own. In this case we end up with characters like pint-sized Thumbelina, magically-haired Rapunzel (maybe THAT was the reason for her long hair - although not an assisted conception it was essentially an assisted pregnancy) or one angelically beautiful child and one truly ugly/deformed child.

The one tale this does remind me of is Tatterhood, which is in the closest ATU type (711) I could find to describe this type of tale (essentially, "the beautiful and ugly twins").

I love this tale! Apart from being one of the tales collected by one of my favorite tale collection teams, Asbjørnsen and Moe, this tale is about a very strong girl and quite the feminist tale (which is especially interesting since Frozen is bringing up so many of those very issues). You can read the story HERE.

As usual in these curse/magical interventions where babies are concerned, the situation of ugliness/deformity/stupidity is "cured" and Tatterhood (once she's done with galloping to the rescue of her beheaded sister on a goat with a spoon for a weapon, vanquishes a bunch of trolls and gotten a promise of love from a prince despite her ugliness) is transformed into a princess even more beautiful than her (now restored) and much loved twin (although, really, by that point she was doing just fine in all respects and didn't need transforming... but that's just my little beef with the ending).

Tatterhood cosplay (!) by Tatter-Hood

Although in Frozen neither Anna or Elsa is ugly (wouldn't THAT be a different movie!!), Elsa is older than Anna (how much MORE difficult would animating actual twins be like?) and it would appear that Elsa doesn't lose her freezing abilities so much as learns to control them (or share them), there is that "cursed sister" aspect to the movie in which the love (and stubborn persistence) of a sibling makes all the difference.


It would seem there aren't a whole lot of these type of tales where one sister (in Tatterhood it's the cursed one) rescues the other but these are pretty striking tales when you do read them.

Having that bonded sisterhood aspect in Snow White and Rose Red is, I believe, one of the big reasons that tale (that is, SW & RR) is so popular in the first place. And the same could be said for Frozen if it follows that route (which the latest trailer definitely indicates).

These tales are fairly unique and stand out, not only among the fairy tale canon (at least in the European collections), but in popular tales in general and THAT would be something worth mentioning. (Are you listening Disney?)

Snow White & Rose Red by Chris Beatrice (& a note on the importance of illustration)

Snow White & Rose Red by Chris Beatrice

I've posted on this artist before and no doubt will again because not only is he a beautiful artist, I love that he shares his process: both regarding technique and the thoughts behind constructing the image. For this particular one he has a wonderful blog post HERE in which he takes you through step by step in making the painting. He thinks about the characters, what they do in their lives and the important aspects of the story they're in.

For example, in the tutorial he gives us close-ups of both girls and explains a little of his thoughts on each and how he imbued the painting, not only with aspects of their personalities but also of their parts in the story, foreshadowing what's to come.

Here's a few comments on the room and the girls in particular:

Everything in the picture has to contribute to what you're trying to do, or it will undoubtedly work against it. You need to think about it all - color, value, lighting, mood, viewpoint, content, facial expression, body language, costumes, things, stuff - everything! For "stuff", I like to think about what these folks do when I'm not looking at them. How do they scurry up that ladder when they go to bed at night? What is just slightly "off camera" that we may not be seeing? What's in that jug on the shelf? What kinds of visitors come and hang their coats on that coat rack by the door? Who winds that clock? What do the girls do during the day - I know, they pick cherries - there's a basket of them under the ladder...

Here's a detail shot of the mantle. Red is more active and wild - she likes to catch butterflies, so there's a jar of butterflies above her. Snow likes to read, so there's a stack of books above her.

On Snow White:

At one point in the story the girls are rescuing a dwarf whose beard has gotten stick in the split of a log. Snow whips out a little pair of scissors and cuts the beard, freeing him. There they are... 

And a close-up of Rose Red (he takes you through the painting process/build-up via this close-up):

I like that he put Rose closer to Bear's teeth - it quietly shows us she's more daring than Snow, who is gently stroking the soft side of Bear's head. I love the curious goat behind Bear too.

You can find many more of Chris Beatrice's illustrations at his website HERE and see lots of art, art-in-progress and fantastic tutorials, like this one, on his blog HERE.

Do go show your appreciation and support. There's this nutty idea going about that there's a dearth of good illustrators these days (and apparently of strong narrative stories too!) and that just isn't true. Just look at the stunning illustrations for the new editions of the Lang Color Fairy Books being produced by the Folio Society HERE (to see the Green, Brown, Red etc books, scroll down the Folio page for links).

I will say one thing in regard to fairy tale collections though: one of the things I dearly loved (and love!) about the Andrew Lang, Joseph Jacobs and the Grimms Household Tales collections is that these text-heavy works have unforgettable illustrations throughout. I don't think these "anthologies" would have been as popular, or impacted as many generations as they have, without them. Fairy tale "memory" (I speak collectively here) is strongly linked to illustration. In this digital age of internet and access to almost anyone who logs into the world wide web we have an incredible resource that simply wasn't available - at least not to the common man - even just twenty years ago. Now we have collections and translations of all kinds, more than we could ever really read in a lifetime, yet I worry that many of these will fade out of public circulation in future and exist only in elite libraries - libraries which may not be able to access them in the future as they thought. (Note that there is a rising concern of the degradation of digital data for filmmakers and artists of all kinds who rely on digitization of any form. Why? Because the "decay" beings almost instantly and nothing much is being done about it. See link for details.)

Donkeyskin by Chris Beatrice

 It's the paintings of the Pre-Raphelites that brought myth and legend (and fairy tales too, to some extent) back into the public eye (I'm speaking very generally here - historically it's more complicated than that) and it was illustrators like Arthur Rackham who worked extensively (though not exclusively) on large collections of fairy tales that captured the public's imagination and possibility of owning a piece of that "magic" for themselves. Fortunately many of the tales came with that "magic" and they lived on - the tales informed the illustrations and the illustrations kept the tales in peoples memories. A large reason Walt Disney had such success with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is that it was designed to be a "storybook come to life". One of the failings of the Company as it tries to work with fairy tales now, is that they don't truly aim to give life to beloved tales and then take them to a new and different place. Instead they're now focused on "branding" above all else.

The White Bear by Chris Beatrice

We have such a wonderful variety of illustrators working now and no matter where they are in the world, we're able to see and benefit from their work. Fairy tale collections used to be one of the first places people, usually as children, were introduced to excellent art. While children's books still have a lot of beautiful art today, there's something truly unique and almost magical about what happens when you tell a child a fairy or folk tale in conjunction with showing them a beautiful illustration. More than ever, we live in a visual society where we are bombarded by images from every angle (even our phones are visual these days). Our writing (and I cringe, even as I acknowledge this) is even becoming ever more "visual" with the constant use of texting and emoticon shorthands. As much as we may resist this idea that the representation of language is changing, we must face that it is and not let our precious tales be lost in the flood. It's important we keep them in sight. Art is (largely) timeless and it's no coincidence that as faster and more digital our age gets, the more people look back to the past for stability and understanding. While people are busy searching ancestry.com and picking up Classics (with a capital 'C') in ebook form, it's the images that are sweeping the web. A huge boon of worldwide web sharing is that vintage photos have made a tremendous comeback and it's these that are prompting people to go back and discover the stories of their ancestors and even of complete strangers. When we finally unearth something like a photo of Dickens shaking hands with Dostoevsky (yes, they did meet! but there are no photos that I'm aware of) suddenly the world clicks a little more into place and you begin to understand people's stories and foci at the time. Tale illustrations do the same thing, only they have the ability of their art form to transcend boundaries of time and culture and directly appeal to the heart.

Jack the Giant Killer by Chris Beatrice

So yay! for illustrators like Chris Beatrice, who not only have the skill and talent for making beautiful art, but also for helping keep the stories alive, even as they breathe life into them through new works. All we need is for these wonderful people to try their hand at more tales than just the "classic canon" and for us to help make sure they're seen.

Illustration for the Italian fairy tale Porziella (by Giambattista Basile) by Chris Beatrice

Once again, you can find Chris Beatrice HERE and HERE.

Fables Spin-Off "Fairest" Free Preview Now Available

Fairest Issue #3 cover art by Adam Hughes for April 2012 (just released)

Now is the time to head to your local comic book store and try out the soon-to-be-released Fables spin-off, Fairest, for FREE. The Vertigo 2012 32 page sampler is completely free and one of the four Vertigo monthlies being previewed is the brainchild of Bill Willingham. Many of the stories are apparently going to be "pre-Fables" stories so if you are curious about the Fables graphic novels but are daunted by the 100+ issues available, this is a good way to start, and we're told you don't need to know anything about the Fables world to enjoy it. If you're a dedicated Fables fan you can also put your fears to rest. Mr. Willingham assures there will be plenty of surprises for you too.

In case you haven't heard of Fairest before, here's the copy:

New York Times best-selling, award-winning creator Bill Willingham presents a new series starring the female FABLES. Balancing horror, humor and adventure, FAIREST explores the secret histories of Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, Cinderella, The Snow Queen, Thumbelina, Snow White, Rose Red and others. 

The first 6-issue arc follows the misadventures of Briar Rose after she is stolen away by the goblin army in FABLES #107. Fan-favorite artist Phil Jimenez (WONDER WOMAN, THE INVISIBLES) returns to Vertigo to pencil the opening storyline. Award-winning cover artist Adam Hughes (WONDER WOMAN, BATGIRL) provides covers, starting with a wraparound cover on issue #1. 

Future arcs will be written by 2011 Arthur C. Clarke winner Lauren Beukes with art by Inaki Miranda, and iZOMBIE scribe Chris Roberson with art by Shawn McManus! And remember: They may be beautiful, but there will be blood. 

story by BILL WILLINGHAM
art by PHIL JIMENEZ
cover by ADAM HUGHES
PRICE: $2.99
IN STORES: March 7, 2012

In an interview HERE from January 20, 2012, Bill Willingham talks about his plans for Fairest, including the writers and artists, their approaches to the stories and his use (and other writers' uses) of fairy tales in this new "sister-series". Here are three excerpts that caught my attention:

Fairest Issue #1 wrap-around cover art by Adam Hughes for March 2012 

Let's understand that the tone and the diversity will come from the writers themselves because we're not assigning them stories. We're not saying, "Here, do a Cinderella story and have this, this, and this happen to her." It's more, "Do you have a Cinderella story?" Of course with Chris and Shawn, not only were able to answer yes to one of those, they were able to answer yes to many of those. That's the same template with the others. Lauren Beukes had a very particular Japanese mythology-based, folklore-based Rapunzel story in mind, which answers the question, "Where does the wishing well come from?" and it answers it nicely with a very sound folkloric base. We said, "Yes, of course that has to be what that story is!" These are different characters; we want them to be considered wildly different. We don't want a bunch of cookie-cutter beautiful female leads, we want vastly different ones, so having different writers is obviously the way to do that.

...Why did you want to tell the story of Sleeping Beauty in this very first arc rather than, say, Spratt or any of the other characters?

Well, interestingly enough I didn't think about Sleeping Beauty -- if I was to be one of the regular returning people in this rotation I was going to go with Thumbelina. The idea of a tiny character in a very big world appealed to me and I think there's a lot you can do with that that hasn't been explored yet. But Thumbelina couldn't really be the first arc in this because one thing we discussed is, if we are going to do this we've left poor Briar Rose sleeping away for years if not forever. So the very first thing we have to do with "Fairest" is get her awake and back in action, and we thought it was politic to kick off the series with me doing the first arc. So that's why those two combined together. We have a very specific place where all three of those characters -- Ali Baba, Briar Rose the Sleeping Beauty and the Snow Queen -- are going to be left in at the end of this arc. But they're places where other writers can pick them up and run with them if that turns out to be the case. My job is to kind of get these characters in the right place to be part of the whole "Fairest" rotation, the whole "Fables" rotation again, and hopefully tell a good story in the process of doing that. 

Fairest #1 variant cover by Phil Jimenez with color by Romulo Fajardo Jr.

...What is it about fairytales that originally captivated you as a storyteller?

Several things. One of the, I don't know if you'd call it faults, but one of the aspects of the way I write stories that I don't think is as strong with me as it is with other writers is I don't feel I introduce characters well. It takes me a while to get to know them. With using characters that have already been established, everybody's read and knows a little bit of, "Well of course I know Snow White, at least I know this much about her." That kind of awkward, ice-breaking introductory moment at the beginning of this kind of storytelling is bypassed. We can move right beyond that into the meat of it. Sure there are some introductory aspects in that, sure this isn't the Snow White you thought you knew and this is what's happened to her lately. But that's not quite the same, because that builds more intrigue. The reader interest is already written into the equation. You don't have to romance the reader into liking that character. That's one aspect of it.

The other aspect of it is just the idea that these are folktales in every sense of that. They're not just public domain characters that anyone can use because of vast collective ownership. If everyone owned every 100% piece of this character in some kind of multiple universe overlap kind of way, everyone who wants to can come along and do their own Snow White. That kind of just absolute freedom -- it's like the universe of a million previous authors and writers and story-spinners has left this to you in their will. Why not make use of these treasures that have been handed down to you? Interestingly enough they left it to everyone else too, but that's OK! It's having a treasure trove where you can play any kind of game you want. How could I resist that?

Fairest Issue #2 cover art by Adam Hughes for April 2012

You can read the whole interview HERE (please note that there is a large gap in the middle making it look like a short article but scroll on down for the rest).


Fairest Issue #1 is scheduled to go on sale March 7, 2012.

(I'm beginning to feel like there should be a fairy tale release calendar we can collaboratively keep plugging things into somewhere online. 2012 is a busy year for fairy tales!)