Struuwelpeter and Other Disturbing Yet Cautionary Tales by Heinrich Hoffmann

Bob Staake

First off: it doesn't matter that this is a book of nursery rhymes one bit. When you see the imprint "Fantagraphics" on a book, you're not buying something to read to the kiddies to put them to sleep, unless you want to scar them for life with soul-destroying nightmares you can't even begin to imagine, being an adult. Not that Hoffmann's tales were ever really appropriate for the preschool set, but let's remember this guy was writing in the same country whence came the Brothers Grimm, eh? Bob Staake has taken these twisted (and famously politically incorrect) tales, reprinted them faithfully, and set them to pictures that do justice to the rather perverse nature of the tales themselves.

This is one of those reviews where my ignorance of art history is going to come trumpeting down the middle of the lane, so I'll just come right out and say that while Staake's wonderful pieces put me in mind of, well, something, I have no earthly idea what that something is. So imagine I'm telling you that Staake's work is evocative of the something period of artist X, nod your head sagely, call me an idiot, and then buy the book and just pretend you knew what I was talking about all along, okay? Because trust me, if your sense of humor is as warped as mine, you want a copy of this book. It could have been a bit longer, but hey, Staake only had so much source material to work with. Can't fault him for that, can we? What's here is solid from beginning to end, as it is with pretty much every Fantagraphics title I've picked up.