Four-Color Fairy Tales: Fairy Godbrothers.

Well folks, if you ever wanted to see a raunchy, violent, M-rated, “not safe for work” fairy tale comic, have I got the thing for you!

Fairy Godbrothers, Volume One: Tooken was brought to us by writer Ken Kristensen and artist M.K. Perker.  The book is published by Adaptive Comics.

The comic stars two brothers named Sean and Marcus.  They were seemingly normal kids who grew up with their German immigrant father who ran an ice cream shop.  One day while preparing ice cream treats for the boys and their friends, the father suffers a massive stroke and dies right in front of them.  Years later as adults, Sean and Marcus are still effected by their father’s death.  Sean has become an uptight businessman consumed by work as he tries to turn his father’s shop Magic Castle Ice Cream into a worldwide brand.  Marcus, on the other hand, spends his days and nights in a haze of alcohol, drugs and sex.  This is how it goes until the day of Sean’s big deal when an accident with their father’s antique (and apparently magic) clock sends them into a realm of (rather dirty and dismal) fairy tales.

This comic, man.  How to describe this comic?

It’s like someone attempting to create the fairy tale equivalent of the movie Deadpool. 

I mean, we’ve had fairy tale comics that were for “Mature Readers” before, like Fables.  But Fables was a rather mature approach to “Mature Readers”.  Fairy Godbrothers feels more like an immature approach to “Mature Readers”.

This comic doesn’t seem to shy away from any chance to show the fairy tale world as being dark, dirty and a bit depressing once you cut through the humor.  From three pigs who can’t afford to build houses out of bricks to a cracked-up Humpty Dumpty begging to be put out of his misery to an expectant Rapunzel who seems willing to knock boots with whoever climbs into her tower.

But you know, Sean and Marcus’s bickering as they journey through the fairy tale land to find the Fairy Godmother and be sent home does lend the story a fair bit of levity (hence why I compared it to Deadpool instead of something more serious).  Also, the character work for those two and how they deal with their estrangement and messed up emotions does have some potential.  There’s also an interesting bit about how the darkness of the real world and the darkness of the fairy tale world reflect each other (suggesting that this may also be a way for the creators to vent about the state of the world).

I’m going to say that this one definitely isn’t for everyone, but I’m pretty sure there’s an audience for it.  And there are some interesting bits beyond just the dark and raunchy bits.  If this is your kind of thing, check it out.  I’d also suggest keeping an eye open for volume two just to see if any of that potential pays off.