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Telling Tales
Sweatdrop Studios presents you with a collection of tales adapted from stories well-loved and time-tested. Contained within these pages you'll find fables from near and far; some will shock, some will surprise and some will make you smile. Sweatdrop's artists have scoured the globe for stories that have inspired and touched them in some way, and we hope that they'll do the same for you. Magic, greed, love, friendship, loss and punishment - fairytales have always encompassed a haunting mix of the fantastical and macabre. This anthology, perfect for bed-time reading, will capture all of that and more in Sweatdrop's expected variety of styles and approaches; and the group are thrilled to be joined in this special book by guest creator Svetlana Chmakova (NightSchool/Dramacon).
224 pages, Paperback
First published May 24, 2010
About the author
Faye Yong
5 booksFaye Yong - A former pianist left Malaysia to pursue an Illustration degree in the UK. Faye has a weakness for shoujo manga and anything with a happy ending and is on a lifelong quest to improve her artistic & storytelling skills. Her main influences and inspirations include Japanese manga, fashion & fabulous looking people. She works primarily with Photoshop, Manga Studio, Illustrator and her Intuos tablet.
Faye placed third in the hotly contested Rising Stars of Manga UK & Ireland 3 in 2008 & won the People's Choice Award in the same year.
Faye placed third in the hotly contested Rising Stars of Manga UK & Ireland 3 in 2008 & won the People's Choice Award in the same year.
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
December 19, 2012
This is something I picked up ages ago on a whim from my local manga shop. It is in the non-traditional style (read from left to right, as one reads Western books), and is not one story but incredible retellings of eight fairy tales. I have read it countless times since I got it.
"Alenushka and Ivanushka" is a Russian folktale, here adapted by Svetlana Chmakova. It is captured beautifully by the aesthetically pleasing art and page layout. In the story, Alenushka and her young brother, Ivanushka, are forced to go on a long journey after their parents die. Ivanushka gets thirsty along the way and, despite warning from his sister, drinks water from a goat's hoof, which turns him into a goat. To solve their problems, Alenushka enters a happy marriage with a kind man, but a witch causes problems.
"The Three Sisters and their Glass Hearts" is another anonymous Russian tale, adapted by Emma Vieceli. This is my favourite of the stories. I love its simple message, gorgeous imagery and cunning maiden. In this story, there are three princesses born with glass hearts. The eldest breaks hers whilst overeager, and the second eldest cracks her after drinking hot tea. The doctor can only heal flesh and blood, so the king and queen begin to worry about when their daughters pursue marriage. For this reason, the king announces that anyone looking for his daughter's hand in marriage must be both royalty and a glazier. But the youngest princess is only interested in her train-bearer.
"The Mouse, the Bird and the Sausage" is a Grimm Fairy Tale, adapted by Joanna Zhou. This is my least favourite story, partly because of the art and partly because I just find it stupid. A mouse, a bird and a sausage all live happily in one house by each doing chores that they excel at. After some unwanted words of advice from a friend, the bird decides to mix things up, and tragedy ensues.
Also contained is...
Moroz Ivanovich
The Prince and the Pauper
Little Red Riding Hood
The Snow Queen
The Three Feathers (another one I continuously go looking for)
Overall, it's an excellent read and is generally of very high quality.
"Alenushka and Ivanushka" is a Russian folktale, here adapted by Svetlana Chmakova. It is captured beautifully by the aesthetically pleasing art and page layout. In the story, Alenushka and her young brother, Ivanushka, are forced to go on a long journey after their parents die. Ivanushka gets thirsty along the way and, despite warning from his sister, drinks water from a goat's hoof, which turns him into a goat. To solve their problems, Alenushka enters a happy marriage with a kind man, but a witch causes problems.
"The Three Sisters and their Glass Hearts" is another anonymous Russian tale, adapted by Emma Vieceli. This is my favourite of the stories. I love its simple message, gorgeous imagery and cunning maiden. In this story, there are three princesses born with glass hearts. The eldest breaks hers whilst overeager, and the second eldest cracks her after drinking hot tea. The doctor can only heal flesh and blood, so the king and queen begin to worry about when their daughters pursue marriage. For this reason, the king announces that anyone looking for his daughter's hand in marriage must be both royalty and a glazier. But the youngest princess is only interested in her train-bearer.
"The Mouse, the Bird and the Sausage" is a Grimm Fairy Tale, adapted by Joanna Zhou. This is my least favourite story, partly because of the art and partly because I just find it stupid. A mouse, a bird and a sausage all live happily in one house by each doing chores that they excel at. After some unwanted words of advice from a friend, the bird decides to mix things up, and tragedy ensues.
Also contained is...
Moroz Ivanovich
The Prince and the Pauper
Little Red Riding Hood
The Snow Queen
The Three Feathers (another one I continuously go looking for)
Overall, it's an excellent read and is generally of very high quality.
May 11, 2015
Overall, it was a good short story collection. The art was very different from one chapter to the other, but all stories have the same rushed feeling. With some more pages, some of the stories could have been way better.
Alenuška e Ivanuška by Svetlana Čmakova: ★★★★
Fantastic art and good story. It's probably the best of all contribution to this anthology.
The Three Sisters and Their Glass Hearts by Emma Vieceli: ★★★
The story was very good, the art was OK. Maybe this story suffers because it comes right after Čmakova's work: the first one being so good and full of details and the second one a bit less precise.
The Mouse, the Bird and the Sausage by Joanna Zhou: ★★
SIGH! I didn't like the art because it was too simplistic and I didn't like the story because it was sooo sad.
Moroz Ivanovič by Irina Richards: ★★★
Funny and super-deformed art and OK story. I feel that the happy ending was quite unnecessary. I mean, the bad sister comes home as if nothing has happened.
The Prince and the Pauper by Rebecca Burgess:★★
I didn't like the art that much: it has a sort of unfinished feeling in it. The story was OK. It was also a bit weird because there are no balloons in the panels. There is just a sort of omniscient narrator with captions
Little Red Riding Hood by Marubelle Sinclaire: ★
Awkward art and silly adaptations of the classic tale. The hunter is somehow ridiculous.
The Snow Queen by Sonia Leong: ★★
The art was quite good but the plot feels a bit rushed. The author wants to tackle every leg in Gerda's travel and every character gets too little space. Some more pages and it would have been way better.
The Three Feathers by Faye Yong, Fehed Said, Nana li: ★★★
Good story because there are tons of frogs mainly, ^__^. I actually love the art as well.
Alenuška e Ivanuška by Svetlana Čmakova: ★★★★
Fantastic art and good story. It's probably the best of all contribution to this anthology.
The Three Sisters and Their Glass Hearts by Emma Vieceli: ★★★
The story was very good, the art was OK. Maybe this story suffers because it comes right after Čmakova's work: the first one being so good and full of details and the second one a bit less precise.
The Mouse, the Bird and the Sausage by Joanna Zhou: ★★
SIGH! I didn't like the art because it was too simplistic and I didn't like the story because it was sooo sad.
Moroz Ivanovič by Irina Richards: ★★★
Funny and super-deformed art and OK story. I feel that the happy ending was quite unnecessary. I mean, the bad sister comes home as if nothing has happened.
The Prince and the Pauper by Rebecca Burgess:★★
I didn't like the art that much: it has a sort of unfinished feeling in it. The story was OK. It was also a bit weird because there are no balloons in the panels. There is just a sort of omniscient narrator with captions
Little Red Riding Hood by Marubelle Sinclaire: ★
Awkward art and silly adaptations of the classic tale. The hunter is somehow ridiculous.
The Snow Queen by Sonia Leong: ★★
The art was quite good but the plot feels a bit rushed. The author wants to tackle every leg in Gerda's travel and every character gets too little space. Some more pages and it would have been way better.
The Three Feathers by Faye Yong, Fehed Said, Nana li: ★★★
Good story because there are tons of frogs mainly, ^__^. I actually love the art as well.
May 13, 2015
This was certianly an enjoyable collection of short stories. And they were very short, so much so that sometimes I felt they were lackig s little depth, but maybe that is the point as I think most of the tales were aimed at a younger reader.
The art styles differed greatly from one story to the next (of course, becsuse each is by a different artist). I obviously liked some styles and stories more than others but it was interesting to see all of them together.
There were some truly humorous moments in this book, that had me giggling to myself! On the whole, if you're looking for complexity, this isn't the book for you, but if you're looking for somethig fun and lighthearted, then I would recommend :)
The art styles differed greatly from one story to the next (of course, becsuse each is by a different artist). I obviously liked some styles and stories more than others but it was interesting to see all of them together.
There were some truly humorous moments in this book, that had me giggling to myself! On the whole, if you're looking for complexity, this isn't the book for you, but if you're looking for somethig fun and lighthearted, then I would recommend :)
April 5, 2018
Mediocre, manga-inspired retellings of mostly Russian fables. Not bad, but not really noteworthy.
May 27, 2019
This was fine. The different art styles for each story kept in engaging. Unfortunately, I don't really enjoy fairy tales so this wasn't really for me.
October 28, 2013
A solid collection of a variety of art styles and story types, all retelling famous folk tales by combing manga-style art layouts with interspersed short American-style or European-style comic narrative language. The majority were wonderfully fun to read, others were rather mundane and mediocrely illustrated. My older daughter and I read them aloud together and had a great giggle, a few tears (for me), and a few bored "hmms."
Several were laugh-out-loud funny (the shock value and strong simple and expressive art of The Mouse, the Bird, and the Sausage, the talented contrasting of image-vs-words in The Three Feathers, and the cliche exaggeration of the manly-man hunter and sweet, "innocent" Red in Little Red Riding Hood), and others quickly brought a tear to my eye (The Snow Queen). One verged on trying too hard to be different by telling the tale mostly with images: a somewhat confusing and overly-simplified attempt at The Prince and the Pauper.
If you take the tales for what they are--simple tales told over the centuries to highlight basic human truths--and don't get caught up in the definitively poor social and image messages for contemporary society, this OEL is a fun reimagining of traditional folk tales.
Several were laugh-out-loud funny (the shock value and strong simple and expressive art of The Mouse, the Bird, and the Sausage, the talented contrasting of image-vs-words in The Three Feathers, and the cliche exaggeration of the manly-man hunter and sweet, "innocent" Red in Little Red Riding Hood), and others quickly brought a tear to my eye (The Snow Queen). One verged on trying too hard to be different by telling the tale mostly with images: a somewhat confusing and overly-simplified attempt at The Prince and the Pauper.
If you take the tales for what they are--simple tales told over the centuries to highlight basic human truths--and don't get caught up in the definitively poor social and image messages for contemporary society, this OEL is a fun reimagining of traditional folk tales.
June 18, 2013
love this book! so many enchanting traditional stories, told in the unique manga style of the sweatdrop studios artists. even my sister liked it and she's not even into manga!
May 6, 2014
Nice light read, finished in one hour! Various folklore stories with meaning to some and downright funny with others.
Worth a read.
Worth a read.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews