Grimm Fairy Tales Animated Series Premiere

Last night Zenescope threw a launch party to show off the results of their successful Kickstarter campaign, and debut the nearly finished Grimm Fairy Tales Animated pilot. I made the trek up to Times Scare in the heart of Times Square to see it. How was it? Read on and find out!

First off, the whole thing was a bit of a clusterfuck. The staff at Times Scare, a year round haunted house themed attraction, had no idea what was going on. I got there early, and they had no idea what I was talking about, like the idea of them holding parties there was a foreign concept. After about a hour just standing around, they finally let me in to the back waiting area for an open bar hour, which turned into a open bar 2.5 hours, because it took them forever to get the theater ready to show. And even then, they didn’t setup any microphones. The opening act of the night was a show by Ink & Paint Club Burlesque, but since they had no microphone, the emcee just had to kinda shout dancer introductions, and one of the acts was a singer. Needless to say, she was a little flustered trying to do her act as no one could hear her over the music.

I would guess that the event was about a 50/50 split of Zenescope staff/guests and paid attendees. Now if the Zenescope guys, who just worked a long day staffing their booth at New York Comic Con, and are presenting their baby to the world for the first time, if they wanna get a little drunk and rowdy, that is acceptable. It is their party after all. However, you, the paid guest in the back row, do not have that same privilege. This type of thing should be my right in my wheelhouse, what with hot girls gyrating around, but frankly, I just couldn’t get into it and was more than a little bored. I just felt sorry for the girls performing, including our friend Murder Nurse. They were all so excited to be performing for the Zenescope VIPs, but the paid guests were just obnoxious. Yelling “Yeahhhhhhhhh! Ohhhhh-Kay!!!” like you’re Li’l John in 2004 every 3 minutes for a hour wasn’t funny then, and it’s definitely not appropriate now. It was fairly obvious most of those being rowdy have never seen a real naked woman up close and they were just flipping their shit (It’s probably why they read Zenescope books in the first place, because boobs). You need to compose yourselves a little better, and maybe you would be able to see naked girls in person on a more regular basis. And this is coming from someone who hasn’t in close to a decade, but I still managed to behave myself civilly, because we are living in a society.

As for the Animated Series, I thought it was pretty good. I was initially thrown off by the animation style, which is in the vein of Metalocalype or the Heavy Metal episode of South Park, but the more I see of it the more it grows on me. I’m only familiar with Lena Headey’s work on Sarah Connor Chronicles, so her British accent kinda threw me, and it’s really British here. It’s not what I normally would think to associate with Sela, but she does a good job. The main story is a pretty faithful adaptation of Grimm Fairy Tales #3, the story of Hansel and Gretel. The battle story though is a little confusing, and wasn’t connected to the other framing story at all really. It wasn’t until I read the credits that I realized her compatriots were supposed to be Rumpelstiltskin and Beast from Beauty and the Beast. If they follow the standard Grimm Fairy Tale’s model of the early issues with a framing story and then the fairy tale, this could be good, and they did that well here. The setup for the battle between Sela and Belinda and the overall backstory of the Grimm universe is a little weak here, but that’s to be expected in a pilot. All in all though, I am very excited to see what else they come up with.

A picture of the print and comic given out to fans at the premiere party

JohnScott is the proud owner of a life size replica Captain Kirk Chair. He is a hoarder of Comic Books, Transformers, and Star Trek action figures. He attended Space Camp as an adult. He has taken vacations to the closing of the Star Trek Experience and the final night Shuttle launch. He has been known to yell at his television when the kids can't put together the damn statue in the Shrine of the Silver Monkey. When not writing for InsufficientScotty, he is a Software Engineer for a major healthcare communications company. You can Email or follow on Twitter @NotEnoughScotty or Facebook