Rapunzel’s Revenge, by Shannon Hale & Nathan Hale
Originally published at tansyrr.com. You can comment here or there.
I requested this one - a graphic novel written by YA author Shannon Hale - for my birthday. I’m a big fan of stories which take fairy tales and worldbuild so that the often-illogical details of the original story suddenly make sense. Robin McKinley is the mistress of this genre, covering nearly all the most famous stories, but Gail Carson Levine’s Ella Enchanted and Margo Lanagan’s Tender Morsels (veeeery different books, don’t get them mixed up) are some good examples. Also, Juliet Marillier’s Daughter of the Forest and Wildwood Dancing, Jim C Hines’ The Stepsister Scheme, the movie Shrek…
And then there’s Castle Waiting, a glorious mashup of fairy tales made mundane, all in elegant pencils… ah, Castle Waiting, how much I covet a copy of thee…
But I digress. Hale & Hale’s Rapunzel’s Revenge is exactly in that tradition, creating a fantasy land of Wild West imagery and other Americana to present a very believable, logical version of Rapunzel. Only far more awesome.
The story opens with a pampered princess who climbs the wall of her home and discovers that she lives in a garden shut off from reality - the world out there is one of bleak mines and starving slaves, one of whom is the mother she was stolen from… the price of the lettuce her father stole from the witch who has raised Rapunzel as her own.
One of the details I particularly loved is that the witch has growing magic - this affects the world around them, as she uses it to create destructive agriculture that is sucking the water out of the soil, but has other delightful effects throughout the story, not least the unnatural length of Rapunzel’s hair, and is regularly returned to as a theme.
Then there’s Rapunzel herself, who starts out completely naive, and yet grows and learns otherwise. She trains herself to use her hair as a lasso/whip style weapon (see the gorgeous cover pic) and far from being rescued from her tower by a handsome prince, is in fact her own rescuer on a regular basis, and determined to go home and rescue her mother from the witch’s grasp. She teams up with Jack, a ne’er-do-well adventurer with a dodgy goose under his arm, and together they navigate the hard-bitten, dog eat dog world of grim miners, corrupt sheriffs, thieves and con-men.
The artwork is gorgeous, with rich colours and lovely faces - and Rapunzel is a strong, thoughtful heroine who projects confidence and sexiness and plain old smarts without having to look like a glamourpuss or have her boobs hanging out. Believe me, this isn’t something a graphic novel reader sees every day! Her hair is very much the star of the show, on every page. Jack is a great comic foil with a sincere touch of romance to him, even as he stumbles around from catastrophe to catastrophe (the sequel, due out this year, is called Calamity Jack).
If YA and fairy tales or interesting heroines are your thing - or even if you fancy a decent Western comic book experience with some magic thrown in for good measure - then I recommend getting hold of this one and I’ll bet the sequel is just as good.