Fairy Tale Illustrators: Arthur Rackham on AbeBooks

AbeBooks.com recently posted an article on one of the most popular fairy tale illustrators of all time, Arthur Rackham. First, here's the link to The Magical Illustration of Arthur Rackham. This article is of particular interest to fans because ABE provides cover images from some of Rackham's more obscure titles, a resource I would have loved 10 years ago!

Arthur Rackham manages to incorporate the romantic and the menacing, the sweet and the grotesque into his work, usually finding the perfect balance of all elements to perfectly capture the essence of the tales he illustrates. Of course, he wasn't strictly an illustrator of fairy tales, but his name is still synonymous with them. I could prattle on for days about him, but in the interest of a short entry, I'm almost finished.

Obviously, Rackham is one of my favorite illustrators. I've spent many hours studying and scanning his work to post on SurLaLune over the years from books I've collected. Many of the images appear in the Rackham Illustration Gallery. I have links to book collections of Rackham's illustrations on the right column of the gallery page.

I've also devoted an entire Arthur Rackham Shop to his out-of-copyright work in the SurLaLune CafePress store.

Still, I have to admit, my favorite item I've created has been a pair of shoes on Zazzle. The illustration is for a much more obscure tale, The Old Woman in the Woods. Here's a link to the shoes: No lace and with laces. I don't own these myself yet, but about five pairs have been purchased in the year since I designed them making them a bestseller.

Suburban Fairy Tales

Francis Bonnet is a web comic artist who has recently resumed the web comic, Suburban Fairy Tales, a strip using well-known fairy tale characters such as Frog Prince, Rapunzel, Rumpelstiltskin, Three Little Pigs and others.

The characters are teenagers and while much of the humor is more teen oriented and less directly fairy tale related at times, the characters are fun. I enjoyed my journey through the archives and found a few gems along the way. If you're looking for a few minutes of fairy tale related diversions today, this might do the trick.

Watch This: AT&T Hansel and Gretel Commercial

One of the most frequently discussed subjects on the SurLaLune Discussion Boards is the usage of fairy tales in advertising. Over the years since I launched SurLaLune, I've noticed and watched many advertisements using fairy tales. Tonight I saw one of my favorites to date. It must be recent although I admit I don't watch much television and when I do, I usually fast forward the commercials, so it was fun to catch this one in quick motion and then rewind to watch it slowly.

I think one of the reasons I enjoyed it so much is that it uses a popular fairy tale which for some reason isn't used in advertising very much. Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Frog Prince and the Three Bears are used much more often. I have a hard time remembering any Hansel and Gretel usages and this one fit the bill perfectly.

I'll embed a version I found on YouTube, but I'll still explain that it is for AT&T and they used the Hansel and Gretel story wonderfully. I had to watch it twice and I smiled both times.

And, no, I don't mind the usage of fairy tales in advertising. I find it rather satisfying to see that fairy tales remain a viable part of pop culture.

Fairy Tale Wrecks

Oh, the pressure! I have a growing list of items to share on the blog, but choosing the first one has been a true challenge. I ended up using the reliable eeny, meeny, miny, moe method and came up with a link to Cake Wrecks.

I know just about everyone has discovered Cake Wrecks already, but earlier this year the blog featured beautifully decorated Castles and Fairies cakes. I can’t pick a favorite but I’ve imagined one of these appeared at the imaginary SurLaLune anniversary party last winter. That’s the best way to have one of these cakes because I don’t think I would have the heart to actually cut into one and eat it.

Of course, Cake Wrecks actually specializes in cake decorating disasters. My favorite fairy tale-themed post so far is So What Happens If You EAT the Frog?, an entry devoted to the Princess and the Frog, i.e. The Frog Prince, cake wrecks.