Review by Frank Plowright

This volume picks up following the battle of worlds in which much changed. There have been casualties, not least those primary advising Sela Mathers, but the bad guys also took a hit and Joe Brusha opens with them licking their wounds and regrouping. Sela is now trapped in Myst and told it’s extremely unlikely she’ll find the means to transport her back to Earth.

Thankfully the art is an improvement on the many hands who drew Volume Eight, although barely any of the artists are the finished article. Anthony Spay’s pages show progress from his contribution earlier in the series, and there’s also progress from Brent Peeples, but his starting point was far lower and his pages remain basic. Dafu Yu (sample art) draws more pages than anyone else, having a good eye for laying out a page, but struggling with anatomy and with having people move convincingly. Everyone looks pasted on in a pose.

Grimm Fairy Tales began as a series where fairy tales, myths and fables were told with relevance to real world activities. Brusha seems to have decided the framing cast and their mythology are strong enough to carry the series, and in some ways he’s right. The world building over the previous two volumes has been extensive, and Brusha’s added viable challenges to an already fearsome line-up of foes. On the other hand, it removes the series USP and leaves it too similar to other creations, and here the plot just wanders. Brusha has one quest lead to another, thankfully told as a brief fairy tale interlude, and the end of the primary quest comes as no surprise. The series is struggling at the moment. Will Volume Ten be an improvement?