Review – Tales of Mother F. Goose (one-shot) (AfterShock Comics)

Posted on December 11, 2021 in Aftershock Reviews

Publisher: AfterShock Comics
Writer: Frank Tieri
Artist: Joe Eisma
Colours: Matt Herms
Lettering: Carlos M. Mangual
Release Date: 8th December 2021

It’s Christmas in the city, and while most are celebrating the holidays, Detectives Horner and Muffet are grilling a series of wise guys after the brutal death of his informant Georgie P. During the “interrogation”, we get to know these wise guys better as we are led through three familiar stories with an unexpected twist, straight from the pen of Mother F. Goose.

It can only be about four or five weeks since I was writing a review of “After Dark” and saying that I’d love would for Tales of Mother F. Goose to appear in its own series, and I’m delighted to say, here we are!

This is going to be a relatively short review, but don’t think it’s because I can’t think of anything positive to say about it. It’s chiefly because I would be repeating a fair bit of the superlatives from my previous review. However, I will say that I’m really enjoying this continued reimagining of classic fairy tales. In this one shot, we pick up the continuing story of Miss Muffet, a retelling of Puss in Boots, the Three Little Pigs and the Three Blind Mice, all wrapped up in a dark, gritty crime thriller.

Sure, this isn’t the first time we’ve had reimagined fairy or folk tales in comics, but this is a really good take on the idea which is executed with flair, and style, and it’s a series I can see lasting for a long time. There are so many stories the creative team could weave into narrative whichwould look great in the guise of a crime thriller. Using a central crime king pin, in this case Don Orca, otherwise known as Mother Goose, writer Frank Tieri can build empires, around these themes and I’d love to see where this creative team can take the series in the future.

The artwork of Eisma and Herms in both this one-shot and the previous episodes is exactly what I was looking for. It would have been so easy to go for a Skottie Young kind of feel to this series given the source material, but choosing a darker, grittier style that still has a sense of humour works perfectly. There are of course some subtle (and in some cases not subtle at all) nods to the fairy tales our characters are taken from. At one end of the scale, “Boots” has a certain feline look to him, while at the other, the Three Pigs couldn’t look more like well, the Three Little Pigs, if you stuck curly tails on them.

Between the writing and the art, this is a world that has instantly captivated me, and I desperately want to see more from these guys. In this issue alone we have thrills, shocks, deception, revenge, bloodshed and betrayal. What more could you ask for?

Rating: 4/5.

[PREVIEW ARTWORK – CLICK TO ENLARGE]