I Hate Fairyland - Puberries - P. A. Nolte

1/ Queen Gertrude preens in the mirror, blowing herself a little kiss.  In place of her usual stunted, violent, munchkin body is the form of a voluptuous 33-year-old.  Her proper age.  Around her are piles of ostentatious gowns.  The one she has on is a variation of the pink and yellow dress she usually wears with a little more of Maleficent's angular design sense.  Nearby, her guide Larrigon buzzes unhappily.

Gertrude: Mmmm…

Gertrude: Maybe I won't have to rip your FLUFFING wings off after all, Larry.  Just keep those Puberries coming.  Mama has a lot more dresses to fill out...

2/ Larrigon nervously clutches the brim of his hat.  Gertrude is unpredictable at the best of times, under the best of circumstances.  This is neither.

Larry: Well, uh, Queen Gertrude… I'm afraid I have some, uh, b-b-bad news…

3/ She continues to pose, oblivious to Larry's awkwardness.  Everyone is awkward around Gertrude, after all.  The smile on her face is, for once, non-threatening.  It could be that she's actually enjoying herself in Fairyland for the first time in a long time.

Gertrude: Maybe I'll forget about the Wishing Ale incident.  MUFFIN FLUFFER did you STUFF the bed with that one.

Larry: Yes, well, I--

4/ She holds out an empty woven basket stained with dark juice.

Gertrude: More berries, Larrigon!

5/ Larry, more nervous than ever, tries to avoid eye contact with the volatile queen.

Larry: That's precisely what I've been trying to tell you, my queen.  I'm afraid you've harvested and consumed the entire supply.  Every supply. 

Larry: And with your current tolerance level being what it is, and the violent mood swings you are, forgive me, prone to--

Larry: That is, um--  The effect of the berries will only last--

6/ In a puff of mist, Gertrude looks like a child once more, wearing the oversized dress that mere seconds ago fit her like a glove.  Her hand is firm around Larry's neck.

SFX: POOF!

Larry: hrk!

Gertrude: I. HATE. THIS. FLUFFING. PLACE.

I HATE FAIRYLAND: "Mother Goose" -- David Press.

PAGE ONE.

1.1: A close-up shot on a Duck’s bill with a cigarette hanging out.

MOTHER [O.P]:                    When Diddle Diddle died I had to do something to keep all my kids in cozy dens for the winter.

1.2: On MOTHER GOOSE's feathered hands: she's turning over a TWENTY DOLLAR BILL onto a stack of twenties.

MOTHER [O.P.]:                   That’s when Gert introduced me to her crop.

1.3: Let’s have one more shot of the same size and we’ve teased to the right of the money and we see a PILE of blueish-green-and-pink FAIRY DUST piled on the table.

MOTHER:                              Given all of her horrible crap, people in Fairyland just want to escape the terror and I’m happy to deliver.

1.4: Panning all the way out so we can see MOTHER GOOSE’s face as she smokes the cigarette, counts the money, and speaks to us. She has a scar across her left eye.

MOTHER:                              I mean, shit, we all need a little escapism from our daily horrible realities.

--END--

I Hate Fairyland – Happily Never After – MK Stangeland Jr.

(9 Panels)

Panel 1: GERT swinging her ax around in violence, causing blood and various fairyland body parts to fly about.

GERT: AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!

SFX: wack thwak wak wak!

Panel 2: More of the same from PANEL 1.

GERT: GRRAAAAAHHHHHHH!

SFX: thwak wak wack thwack!

Panel 3: GERT standing in the middle of a battlefield that’s covered in violently murdered Fairylanders. LARRY floats nearby.

SFX: (From GERT) *heavy breathing*

Panel 4: GERT still standing in the middle of the killing field she created.

SFX: (From GERT) *heavy breathing*

LARRY (1): Congrats.

LARRY (2): You have now successfully killed everyone and everything in Fairyland.

GERT (1): No.

GERT (2): Not yet I haven’t.

Panel 5: GERT swings her ax at LARRY, hitting him with the flat end like a giant fly swatter. The result is LARRY getting squished in a violent, bloody mess.

SFX: SPLAT!

Panel 6: View of the ‘killing field’ that GERT stands in the middle of as she starts laughing like a maniac.

GERT (1): He he he.

GERT (2): Ha ha ha ha ha.

GERT (3): Eeh HE HE HE HE!

Panel 7: GERT continues to laugh like an insane maniac as the bodies around her decay and sink into the ground, indicating she’s spent an absurdly long time laughing about her ‘victory’.

GERT: MUAH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

Panel 8: GERT stands in place, looking around with a face of insanity. The land around her is a dead wasteland beyond all question, few signs remain that anything ever lived there at all.

Panel 9: GERT shouts to the sky in anguish as she realizes the full extent of what she’s done and how it’s pretty much left her alone in a world with nothing else left in it.

GERT: nnnNNNOOOOOOOOOoooooo!!!

(END PAGE)

I Hate Fairyland - Writing on the Wall - Grant McLaughlin

1 - We're in a country cottage.  Five figures sit at a table in a room that is filled with books, pens, quills, paper, ink pots, and various other writing tools.  The figures are an owl with a moncole and vest, a clockwork butler, a wise old cowboy, a hobo clown, and a frog knight.  The owl is evidently in charge, as the other four look to him demurely.  All wear serious expressions.

OWL (1): Our noble guild is on the verge of extinction.

OWL (2): Those who haven't been slaughtered at her hands have renounced our life's work.

OWL (3): I put out the call.

OWL (4): We are all that's left of the proud narrating tradition.

2 - Switch angles to focus on the door of the cottage, with the gathered group in the foreground.  A knock is clearly coming from the outside, bringing concern to the group's faces.  The owl rises to answer the door.

SFX: knock! knock!

CLOCKWORK BUTLER: Who could that be?

OWL: Perhaps I spoke too soon.

3 - The owl stands at the doorway, the door open.  He looks terrified, a dark shadow falling over him.  The owl's monocle falls from his eye.

OWL: Maybe there are others who remain--

GERTRUDE (off-panel): Sorry, bub...

4 - Gertrude stands at the door, menacingly holding an axe.  Lightning cracks behind her in the distance.

GERTRUDE: Story-time's over.

I Hate Fairyland - Hornswaggling Hobgoblins - Perry Kent

Gertrude is being made to fetch a unicorn horn so that she can continue on in her quest to blah blah blah. 

Panel One

Gertrude stares out at the reader through a set of binoculars. In the reflection of the binoculars can be seen the silhouette of a slightly lumpy unicorn.

1. GERTRUDE: Heh. Your horn will soon be mine.

Panel Two

Gertrude sneaks across a meadow of tall grass leaving a trail in her wake. She has a large net ready to go. The unicorn is still obscured from sight by the tall grass.

2. SFX (grass rustling): snnnnneeeeaaaaakkk

Panel Three

Gertrude tosses the net off panel with a shout of accomplishment and mad smile of success.

3. Gertrude: Gotcha, you pretentious pony!

Panel Four

Gertrude looks horribly confused as she looks at the what she has captured. The reader is still unable to see the unicorn.

4. Gertrude: Wait. What the hornswaggling hobgoblin?

Panel Five

Full reveal of the “unicorn”, which is not a unicorn at all! Instead, the net has captured a collection of gnomes pretending to be a unicorn. There are five gnomes in total, all holding up cutouts of a lumpy 2D cutout that has been poorly painted to look like a unicorn. The first three gnomes look horribly ashamed, the fourth gnome looks happy, and the last gnome looks stereotypically stupid. All three are trying to speak.

5. GNOME 1 (head): “Uh...”

6. GNOME 2 (shoulders/legs): “It's not what it looks like...”

7. GNOME 3 (stomach): “For a costume party.”

8. GNOME 4 (back legs): “We're cosplaying!”

9. GNOME 5 (butt/tail): “I'm a unicorn butt!”

- END -

Why "I Hate Fairyland"?

Perhaps you are not familiar with Skottie Young's creator-owned work, "I Hate Fairyland".

I Hate Fairyland - #1

The story is about Gertrude, a small girl who wishes to visit Fairyland, a wonderland full of everything magical, majestic, cuddly, and wuddly. And, much to her misfortune, she gets that wish. What starts as a dream come true becomes a neverending nightmare as Gertrude is unable to leave. Cue her languishing in Fairyland for over 20 years. Mentally she matures, but physically she is still the same little girl. As she grows to hate Fairyland so does Fairyland grow to hate her.

So why would I choose this story? Well, why wouldn't I choose a story where a small girl goes around destroying a magical kingdom for personal pleasure and profit?

"I Hate Fairyland" takes a lot of wonderful childhood story tropes and subverts our expectations. We expect to see these stories rehashed and told over and over again. But there is another option. You can take that story, you can blow it up, resurrect it, shop its head off, feed it to alligators, and laugh maniacally as you prance away to wreak more havoc on the annoying little tidbits that seemed to haunt every childhood story.

For this week, take some element of a childhood story and make it silly, unexpected, ludicrous, and maybe just a little dark. A pegasus that's really a cow who likes to cosplay. Shoe elves with perverse fetishes. Cherubs that are just as likely to get you high on Molly as make you fall in love. An adventurer so sick of answering riddles they lose their mind.

Or, if that doesn't sound all that appealing, do something creative with the cast of "I Hate Fairyland". You got a surly adult woman trapped in child-like body, a fairytale queen high on power, a conscience who'd rather be doing anything else, and an endless cast of fairytale riffraff to tear apart.

Have fun.