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Artist: Toby Allen
Project: The Grimmest Grimm
Website: http://cargocollective.com/zestydoesthings
Fairy tales were never intended to be the sickly sweet versions we know today and many of the original stories focused on grisly characters and creatures that killed and devoured their victims at whim, with little to be sorry about. In this project I will challenge myself each month to take on an obscure and dark fairy tale and produce a piece of narrative illustration created in a picture book style, but still making them appeal to older audiences.
The second dark fairy tale I chose to explore was Donkeyskin, which shares its themes with many other tales such as She-Bear, Catskin and Cap O’Rushes. The princesses in these tales all seek to disguise themselves (to varying degrees) and flee from their homes to escape the advances of their incestuous fathers, making these tales grim due to their exploration of this taboo/crime. The princess undergoes many different hardships to escape and ultimately sacrifices her beauty to save herself. I have combined some of these similar tales, to create my own version- Bearskin, in which the princess turns herself in to a bear and the themes of incest are hidden by the figure of a terrifying demon king.
Donkeyskin Wikipedia article- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donkeyskin
Originally posted 2013-07-20 08:00:24. Republished by Blog Post Promoter