There are probably a few purist out there who would frown on this futuristic retelling of classic fairy tales, but I’m not one of them. There’s one thing to mar works of art it’s another to finesse them and give new life to these dusty morality tales and that’s precisely what editors Andrew Carl and Chris Stevens do in this uber-collaborative trade Once Upon A Time Machine. I will say this, these stories are so re-imagined that it hardly constitutes desecration. Take for example the retelling of Pinocchio in which Pinocchio is an A.I. (artificial intelligence) program that his creator Ghepetto made to be installed into homes around the world. The a.i. let’s owners know basically anything they wanted even if the news isn’t good (there’s the rub). Pinocchio sees how some of the bad things he tells his owners affect them negatively and begins telling lies to make himself feel better about delivering news like “you have cancer”. That’s just one of the clever stories. Another is The Three Musketeers set in a futuristic Africa, Nigeria 3276 A.D to be exact where three of the kings skilled warriors, a blind man (the leader), a deaf man and a mute must board a high speed train to steal back the kings scepter that was stolen from him. It’s a wild ride when their mission is interrupted by an old enemy with designs on the scepter as well. Long story short they get it back and they lived happily…blah…blah…blah. Brilliant stories like these and many more are found throughout this amazing book. The minds behind the stories and art are all masters in their own right as well, illustrators such as Farel Dalrymple (Pop Gun War), Ryan Ottley (Invincible), Khoi Pham (Daredevil), and Brandon Graham (King City) have all lent a bit of themselves to this collective endeavor and the result is magic.
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