Stable as a castle made of sand: Graeme meets a book that he really dislikes...

GRIMM'S FAIRY TALES: RETURN TO WONDERLAND #1: There's something about this comic that makes me feel guilty in a way that not even the ridiculous breastage of Madame Mirage managed. I was amused to read the Newsarama review of the book and see the reviewers address, and then apologize for the gratuitousness of the book: "I just think the outfit and look of Calie on the cover screams SuicideGirls. That's what I thought when I saw it, and call me "horndog" if you must, but it caught my attention, and it appealed to me. The interior art had one questionable moment with the thong in question, but, I will say it was preceding actual sex, not a peek-a-boo as Calie was getting ready for school, or some such. I can guarantee that girls her age, in her shoes, wouldn't be wearing granny panties."

So maybe it's just me that thinks that it's kind of... offputting... to see the shot of the teenage girl half-naked, her ass on show to the audience, taking up half of the page by the second page of the story. Or, you know, the upskirt shot of the teenage girl a few pages later (which apparently isn't questionable, according to the reviewer above). Or perhaps it's all the cleavage shots of the teenage girl - including the shot from above, peering down into her cleavage - and the way that the artist continually accentuates her breasts even when it's a shot from behind the character (but when you show her from behind, then you get to show her thong peeking up from her low-riding jeans! "Bonus!"). Maybe I'm not thinking SuicideGirls enough, when I wonder what the all the T&A actually adds to the story, and all, but still. Dude. It's cheap thrills from a fictional high school girl's breasts and ass for no reason other than cheap thrills. Is it so wrong of me to feel like that's kind of... wrong?

I could go on about how bad the story is, and how unoriginal the entire story is, but it's really not worth the effort - We've all read multiple "dark takes" on Wonderland before, and we've also read the stereotypical troubled teen dealing with disaffected youth and uncaring parents thing, as well. The only thing that's worth mentioning is how unconvincing the whole thing is, and how little the writing attempts to make any of the characters sympathetic or even three-dimensional. It's entirely lazy and convinced of its own genius even as it lacks any shred of same. Add that kind of writing to such generic but exploitative art, and you're left with a book that's completely self-satisfiedly Ass.