Review: Grimm Fairy Tales #62

I have been on a bit of a Zenescope trip of late. Robyn Hood and Van Helsing have been worthy reads, if not spectacular. Put it another way, Van Helsing has been added to my pull list. Maybe I have been swayed by the odd strong issue or maybe I am just a sucker for fishnets, who knows? Thing is, I am not sure even that level of quality has carried over to what is their main month-in-month-out book.

The Dark Princess has escaped a dying universe and set-up shop in Arcane Acres, accomplished by sending Skye Mathers and her friends across the Realms, with the help of Swarm generals. With the fate of the universe in the balance, Skye must find a way back home!

With a story from Joe Brusha, Ralph Tedesco, Dave Franchini and David Wohl you know that for Zenescope fans, you are in safe hands. Dave Franchini gets the writer nod and keeps things going at a fair pace. True, this book seems to move from quest to quest with nary a break. The inclusion of some of the regular Zenescope cast make things interesting. OF course. the Ol’ Timer in me is worrying about continuity but that is a problem for another day as this book has more serious problems.

The art is supplied by Babisu Kourtis who, and I say this very rarely, is utterly terrible. Now I know that nobody wakes up in the morning and things “you know what, I am not going to do the best I can”. With that said, there is nothing positive that I can say about the art. Poses are awkward, faces changes to readily and if it wasn’t for the costumes, I don’t think I could tell who was who! Perhaps better camera angles would allow Kourtis to show his strengths. Was this book done in a rush as even the usual excellent color production, in this case from Jorge Cortes seems a little lacklustre. Taylor Esposito of Ghost Glyph Studios, maintains his usual standard, though I am unsure of the inflections of green in one characters text bubble. But at least the letterer gets a cover credit. Well done Zenescope!

I don’t know what is going on with comics at times. One week they are fantastic and blows my socks off and others they make me wanna burn my collections due to their consistently inconsistent nature.

Writing – 3 Stars
Art – 1.5 Stars
Colors – 2.5 Stars

Overall – 2 Stars

Story by; Joe Brusha, Ralph Tedesco, Dave Franchini and David Wohl
Written by; Dave Franchini
Art by; Babisu Kourtis
Colors by; Jorge Cortes
Letters by; Taylor Esposito of Ghost Glyph Studios
Published by; Zenescope Entertainment

Author Profile

Johnny "The Machine" Hughes

I am a long time comic book fan, being first introduced to Batman in the mid to late 70's. This led to a appreciation of classic artists like Neal Adams and Jim Aparo. Moving through the decades that followed, I have a working knowledge of a huge raft of characters with a fondness for old school characters like JSA and The Shadow

Currently reading a slew of Bat Books, enjoying a mini Marvel revival, and the host of The Definative Crusade and Outside the Panels whilst also appearing on No-Prize Podcast on the Undercover Capes Podcast Network