Number 650


Brothers Grimm are grim, brothers...


No one needs to tell anybody who has ever heard a folktale that "Hansel and Gretel" by the Brothers Grimm is more horror story than fairy tale. Cruel stepmother, children abandoned to die in a forest, famine in the land, wolves attacking, cannibalism and death by fire! Yup, another day, another old story as retold by Jacob and Wilhelm, our grimmest brothers.

This particular version, which I believe to be close to the original (I haven't read the Grimm version in several years) is drawn by Walt Kelly and is from Fairy Tale Parade #1, 1942. What a big surprise for an unsuspecting parent reading the kiddies to sleep with this thing, eh? As a matter of fact, Stan Lee and Joe Sinnott imagined just that, in this funny story from the horror comic, Menace, in 1954. I showed it to you in 2007 in Pappy's #147.