A rarely found Nights
story, “The Prince and the Tortoise,” appears in graphic form in the newly recently published book Fairy Tale Comics. The book is
edited by Chris Duffy who has been the editorial brains behind significant
reboots of series like Nickelodeon
Magazine and several key DC Comics titles. The story is illustrated by well-known
comic artist Ramona Fradon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramona_Fradon)
and written by Chris Duffy.
“The Prince and the Tortoise” first appears in the Nights in the Mardrus translation.
According to The Arabian Nights
Encyclopedia “This tale does not feature in the standard Arabic manuscripts
of the Arabian Nights. According to
Chauvin, Mardrus appropriated the tale from Yacoub Artin Pacha’s Contes populaires de la vallee du Nil”
(Vol 1: 330).
The story concerns a prince who must choose a bride by
shooting an arrow into the city and marrying an eligible daughter living in the
house the arrow hits. Of course there are issues. The arrow strikes the same
house multiple times but it’s not a daughter who lives there but a tortoise.
The prince decides to go ahead with the marriage. His two
brothers marry human women. The three couples must then compete for their
father the King’s favor and all sorts of hijinks follow involving the tortoise.
I won’t spoil the story or the end but it’s happily ever after.
The book Fairy Tale
Comics also contains many standard fairy tales rendered by contemporary
graphic and comic book artists. These include two of my favorites, Jaime
Hernandez (here doing “Snow White”) and Gilbert Hernandez (“Hansel and
Gretel”), who pen the fantastic adult graphic series Love and Rockets. The book overall is a great addition to the
continuation of fairy tales and is perfect for kids. My daughter reads it
constantly and it’s the first exposure she’s had to many canonical fairy tales.
If you are interested you can buy it (with no financial reward to
myself by the way) on Amazon here -
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