The Wizard of Oz word-image

I discovered this over at award-winning comic book artist Derek Kirk Kim's blog. I'm not too sure about the original source, though. You probably can't tell unless you click on it and see it blown up much larger, but it's a picture made up of the text from the first eleven chapters of Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. I love things that play around with the ambiguous space where text/images overlap, and this, something that literally uses the words to paint a picture, creates such a great visual pun.

Update: I try to be curteous and host my own images rather than hotlink, but Blogger only allows images of a certain size. Clicking on the above image will not blow it up large enough to see the text that makes it up. Please head on over to DKK's blog instead to see the image in full.

Little Pigs

More "Three Little Pigs"-themed metal now, but this time a slightly more energetic (that's certainly one phrase for it) track from Mucky Pup.

There really isn't a lot of substance to this video/song, so not much to say, but I decided I pretty much had to put this up after posting the Green Jelly vid; it was only fair.

Once Upon a Crime

It already came up in the comments section of a previous post, but I really ought to give another mention to Once Upon a Crime, an old-school point-and-click adventure by Bjorn "Ghost" Ludwig (and thanks again to SSH for pointing this game out to me). In OUaC you play as newly-licenced Private Investigator Little Red Riding Hood who is called upon to solve the recent murder of the Big Bad Wolf (although surely she'd be considered an obvious suspect, no?).

The game is reasonably short (a couple of hours of gameplay, maybe) but has some colourful and charming character designs and a lot of humour, as well as (although I don't want to give too much away) a pretty neat post-modern twist towards the end, which I enjoyed immensely.

OUaC is free to download. Personally, I found a couple of the puzzles a little frustrating, but luckily, there is a guide available.

Incidentally, and this is in no way a slight against OUaC, the fairytale-character-turned-private-investigator subgenre sure is popular, no?

Three Little Pigs

Sometimes, it seems I just need to post a silly metal video.

As far as I'm aware I don't tend to get any children visiting this blog, but just in case, I'd better warn that the following video for "Three Little Pigs" by metal band Green Jello (a.k.a. Green Jelly)* does include some mild drug use and sex references. Still, in the spirit of Celebrity Deathmatch, "it's only clay!"**

The below video is actually slightly redacted. The full (embedding disabled) video is here.



*One day I'll learn how to put heavy metal umlauts in a blog post
**Or, in keeping with the appendix to the ful-length video, only a "stupid puppet show".

Emerald City Confidential

When it comes to finding a way to describe the overall mise-on-scene of point-and-click-adventure game Emerald City Confidential, I really can't do better than the game's own creator, Dave Gilbert, who calls it "Raymond Chandler meets L. Frank Baum." Emerald City Confidential is a gem of a game that puts a film noir spin on the wonderful world of Oz, coming up with something that's a little Sam Spade, a little Gregory Maguire and with just a hint of Sam & Max (I was right, I really couldn't do better than the game's creator).

ECC is a thoroughly engaging game that's sure to be an especial treat for Oz geeks. For more on this game and its genesis, check out the video below which features an interview with the game's creator (from which I snagged the above quotation).

Hansel and Gretel

I haven't seen it, so I can't make any claims as to its quality, but I'd be lying if I said that I didn't think this South Korean film based on Hansel and Gretel didn't look really interesting (warning: some minor violent imagery in the below video).



An American remake is supposedly set for a 2011 release.

Bri-Chan's Princesses

You've probably seen her stuff elsewhere on the internet already, and Disney Princesses are arguably in a category all of their own which might be slightly removed from what I typically deal with, but I couldn't resist linking to Bri-Chan's (Brianna Garcia) deviant art page and the typically cheeky and amusingly iconoclastic images of the Disney fairytale princesses that she posts there. Enjoy!

No Spider-Man or Avengers Fairy Tales trades, it seems

It's sad to see that, despite the fact that C.B. Cebulski's X-Men Fairy Tales comic book miniseries was released in trade paperback form, the follow-ups Spider-Man Fairy Tales and Avengers Fairy Tales will not, meaning that the casual comic book consumer - or those that simply don't have great access to comic shops - will likely not get to experience them. Still, I'd advise having a look out for these series in online stores if you're interested, as the concept is still a very good one that often yielded some quite interesting results. Also, the series often featured artists you're not likely to see doing work in mainstream American comics too often, so was frequently a visual treat as well.

Edited to add: Ok, I'm an idiot. Apparently Spider-Man Fairy Tales has indeed been released as a TPB and I just somehow missed it. Still, it looks like there's going be at least quite some delay before the Avengers edition comes out.

Yet more 'The Path'

Just an update, the website for the LRRH-themed game The Path (due within a month) is now located at grandmothers-house.net. Just don't stray from the path on your way there, you hear me?

Gang of Wolves and the Girl

I haven't seen it, but based on this particular trailer, this troupe's take on what is clearly the story of Little Red Riding Hood looks like quite a spectacle, with lots of great costume design, singing, dancing and circus arts on display. I may have to investigate these guys further.

The Girl & The Wolf

A fairly straightforward modern, animated take on LRRH from Button Films via James Thurber's amusing interpretation.

The Red Hat and the Wolf

I'll be honest, I'm not entirely certain what this is. It appears to be some sort of public service announcement to do with (online) sexual predators. This is actually a fairly common reading of some of the themes at work in the LRRH story. Still, I'll be honest, this isn't exactly the greatest vid I've ever posted on here.

Big Wolf and Little Girl

The animation may be crude (to be fair, it's all done in MSpaint!) but there's a few neat touches in this little animation from 'fherueda'.

Red Riding Hood and the Wolf

LRRH and the Wolf may compete, but they seem a lot happier when getting along in George Gendi's neat little animation.

I like that the traditional story is eschewed in favour of a simple noughts & crosses (tic tac toe) game. The roles of LRRH and the wolf are reduced to their basic functions of antagonists of one another, so the overall story of the piece still very much comes across (plus, I bet that tic tac toe game was much easier to animate than the alternative).