Freaky Fables

by J.B. Handelsman

Cynicism and wit mark a collection of cartoon fables and their sometimes irreverent and unexpected morals

Genres: Humor, Graphic Novels Comics, Collections

64 pages, Paperback

First published September 27, 1984

Reviews

[Manny · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a collection of cartoons that originally appeared in Punch during the 70s. Most of them are satirical adaptations of stories from Aesop's Fables, hence the title. I find them hysterically funny, and have read the book so many times I pretty much know it by heart. It is a complete mystery to me that it isn't better known.

Here is a sample, which combines the original Aesop story with references to Muhammad Ali and Shakespeare (Handelsman is nothing if not eclectic). I will transpose to dramatic form for convenience.

PROLOGUE

FIRST COCK: I demand a return match in Philadelphia!

ACT 1, SCENE 1

[SECOND COCK is strutting around the barnyard, surrounded by his admiring harem of HENS:]

SECOND COCK: He didn't take no dive/I knocked him out in five!

FIRST HEN: Take me!

SECOND HEN: I'm yours!

THIRD HEN: Forever!

ACT 1, SCENE 2

[An EAGLE swoops down and carries off SECOND COCK:]

SECOND COCK [well off the ground:]: I got plenty of endurance/But I don't carry no insurance.

EAGLE: Shut up.

ACT 2, SCENE 1

[FIRST COCK has reappeared, looking much the worse for wear:]

FIRST COCK: Don't fret, girls! Joe Loser is still here!

FIRST HEN: Why, you crumb! Don't you know that love is not love, that alters when it alteration finds?

SECOND HEN: Or bends with the remover to remove?

THIRD HEN: Oh no, it is an ever-fixéd fight/That stares on tempests and is never Shakespeare!

ACT 2, SCENE 2

[The HENS have clearly thought better of it, because they are now surrounding FIRST COCK:]

FIRST HEN: However...

SECOND HEN: We have to be chicken about it...

THIRD HEN: But we'll hate ourselves in the morning.

FIRST HEN: Make a note, Edna.

EPILOGUE

[Every story comes with a moral. Here, it is presented as a Brechtian subtitle held up by FIRST COCK:]

FIRST COCK [via subtitle:]: Moral. He who comes latest/Is always the greatest.

[Valerie]

Lacking a table of contents (could somebody provide one?), I can't tell which of the Freaky Fables are in this book. The ones I have are directly from Punch. Handelsman is an underrated (almost neglected) cartoonist, who has a gift for phrasing and a wicked insight into how people's minds work. One of my favorites is an individual cartoon from the Nixon years in which a woman laments "People get the kind of government they deserve. I must be a terrible, terrible person." This is still valid if and ONLY if you accept the premise. What if people DON'T get the kind of government they deserve?

[Rex Hurst · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is collection of legends and fables told with an ironic, witty twist. These aren't laugh out loud, gut busting storirs, but they are clever and amusing. However, I certainly enjoyed the stories whose origins I already knew as opposed to those which are a little obscure.

[Eddy Richards · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hilarious!