Beauty and the Beast

 

The Frog Prince by Paul Meyerheim                   The Pig King

"The Pig King" and "The Frog Prince, or Iron Heinrich" both have specific animals as the creature of love interest, and both animals are ugly, disgusting creatures. There is similarity between the first two daughters’ reactions to the pig and the princess’s reaction to the frog, as in they all react with disgust. The third daughter in "The Pig King", however, is accepting of her husband’s beastly appearance. This is the reason for the difference in transformation of the beasts—whereas the love of the Pig King’s wife is what frees him from his evil spell, it is only when the princess in "The Frog Prince" hurls the frog against a wall is he turned back into a human. The Frog Prince’s transformation is also different than the Pig King’s because his is instantaneous, and leaves nothing behind. He’s thrown against a wall, turned into a handsome prince, the end. The Pig King, however, changes back into his pig skin the morning after he first sheds it. And so he continues for several days—sleeping as a human each night, then becoming a pig again each morning, until the princess’s parents burn his pig skin, thus completely releasing him from the spell.

I can’t decide which I story I like better. I find it funny that the princess just throws the frog against a wall, and I find it even funnier that this is what breaks the spell he’s under. But I enjoy the fact the youngest daughter in "The Pig King" is completely fine with letting a muddy pig crawl all over her and sleep in her bed. I guess because it goes against the idea that women must be prim and proper.

 

Little Red Riding Hood

By Bob Gonzalez https://oddboxcomics.com/2011/03/15/blooper/

It’s a social cartoon, I guess, because it’s definitely not political. And I don’t want to call it satire, because it’s not really criticizing anything—while the punchline has to do with Hollywood and/or TV companies, it doesn’t seem to be making any scathing commentary on either industry. It’s just a joke. I think it’s pretty funny, although not really deep in any aspect.

It does, of course, reference the fact that there’s more than one wolf villain in different fairy tales, similarly to Roald Dahl’s Little Red Riding Hood and Three Little Pigs poems that we read. Those poems were of course much more violent than this four-panel comic strip, and certainly the Three Little Pigs had a lesson to go along with it; a lesson that is strikingly similar to most “regular” versions of Little Red Riding Hood. The narrator in that poem warns people not to trust “young ladies from the upper crust”, just like Perrault’s moral at the end of Little Red Riding Hood is for children, “especially young girls”, not to trust strangers they meet, especially the really nice ones, because they may turn out dangerous.

This comic, however, has no lesson at all. The only thing it has in common with Little Red Riding Hood is the characters and situation; partly because it is not complete tale, it has no narrative arc, and partly because it just exists to be funny. A true fairy tale should help children better understand the world, or teach a lesson, but this simply entertains. And I think that’s okay.