So I think this makes a first good addition to the home here. As you can see, this Red Riding Hood has no "Little" in her name. As I was walking down the aisles of our local Walmart, I came by her and thought ,"Hmm... this makes me think of a few things for my blog." I also thought, oh what should I say, sexy adult version of our beloved fairy tale character. It made me think, "Ordinary adults of our day still love there characters of old, even if there ideas of them may be a little different than they used to." So I decided to bring her home! (That is, to Clark's Home for Imaginary Friends via mobile phone:)

First thing I have to say is that, if you ever thought fairy tales were out of the minds of our generation, you'd be horribly mistaken. It is, however, easy to say that they're maybe remembered in different ways than when we were 6 years old. We think of Little Red Riding Hood now a days and we think of these scantily clad outfits, or maybe we think of songs like Professor Sexson played, or perhaps we think of movies such as "Hoodwinked" where Red and the Wolf work together to stop the evil Bunny from stealing the secret recipe's of Grandma in order to begin a massive monopoly that would control all the sweets manufactured in the world. That's what our generation's Fairy Tales are now like.

Something that I just realized was very important for everyone in our class to look into was the works of my favorite modern day writer, Neil Gaiman. His ideas of fairy tales for adults are what made me love every book he created so far. His first work he became famous for was his series called "The Sandman". This series of graphic novels was critically acclaimed not only for its amazing artwork, its intense adult themes based in a world of fantasy, and its beautiful prose, but because it was instrumental in breaking the world of comics from their classic goofy, stereotypical heroes and scantily clad vixens. I think anyone who wants to find a great example of the graphic novel genre should go straight to these works and spend a few hours engaged in their dark world.

Neil Gaiman's offerings to our class go even further than his graphic novel examples. Once he became famous for "The Sandman Series", he was able to break out his adult fairy tales. I've read interviews with him where he actually said, " Adults are getting screwed, and deserve their own fairy tales." And that's exactly what he creates in each of his works. The first book of his I read was , "Neverwhere" where a man falls through the "cracks" and becomes invisible, inexplicably consigned to a London of shadows and darkness, a city of monsters and saints, murderers and angels that exists entirely in a subterranean labyrinth of sewer canals and abandoned subway stations. He has fallen through the cracks of reality and has landed somewhere different, somewhere that is Neverwhere.

His second book was "Stardust", which pulls upon many important fairy tale structures such as that of the boy needing to go on a journey of self-discovery (leave the comforts of home) in order to find out where his treasure and self-confidence and maturity really is. He actually made it a point to make sure that Stardust was something that 30-year-olds and 45-year-olds and 25 year-olds and 60-year-olds could all enjoy and get that same feeling of true fairy tale as they had when reading similar stories as children. He also made sure that it was a metaphor for nothing, just plain and simple fun. It also turned out to be quite enjoyable when adapted to the big screen, just being released a year ago now with some big Hollywood names. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED FOR ANY MEMBER OF ENGLISH 304! Check out some people's thoughts on it and maybe get yourself a copy of it at http://www.amazon.com/Stardust-Neil-Gaiman/dp/0060934719 .

My favorite book of his, however, is much darker and rooted much deeper in Norse mythology. It's called American Gods and plays off of the idea of what would happen if, because the gods of old were forgotten by modern society, they became humanoids and walked the face of the Earth in order to remain, many living in our melting pot societies of America. The plot is deep, the characters are giant, and the conflicts are intense. Great Read! His other big novel, Ananzi Boys, was good and based in Indian Mythology, but I didn't like it near as much as American Gods.

He's also published a couple short story volumes of fantasy and fiction, and a children's book called Coraline (which is also amazing, fairy tale turned horrific, just like the ones of old). After reading it I told my good friend Whelen, "This would make an intense movie!" and, lo-and-behold, it's coming out in 2009 as some type of animation that I'm sure will never live up to the graphic nature of the book. I'm excited for it none the less. I'll try and bring a copy of this book to class on Monday if I can remember.

Anyway, the point I'm trying to get at is that people today, like Neil Gaiman, are still creating fairy tales like that of old. Their also finding new and spectacular mediums to bring them into the culture (movies, graphic novels, etc.). What I think is most exciting about people like Gaiman are that they are trying to return us to that place of childhood satisfaction with our fairy tales. By throwing in some adult curves such as some sexual inuendos here or some intense violence there, he is only embracing what was already present in the old fairy tales that we no longer read to our children and bringing it out in new stories so that it can be enjoyed by our generation once again. That's exciting and something I would love to be able to do as an author. So go out and read him and find me in class and please let me know what you think. You won't be dissapointed.