Beauty and the Beast: Act One - Megan Kearney

Title: Beauty and the Beast: Act One
Author: Megan Kearney
Publisher: The Quietly, 2014 (Paperback)
Length: 170 pages
Genre: Young Adult/Adult, Graphic Novel, Fairy Tale
Started: May 17, 2017
Finished: May 17, 2017

Summary:
From the back cover:

A Rose in Winter...

When her father returns from a journey bearing strange stories and stranger gifts, Beauty takes it upon herself to fulfill his debt to a mysterious creature called only "The Beast".

But neither the soft-spoken Beast or the uncanny Castle where he makes his home are what Beauty expects. Both harbour more secrets than she could have anticipated, and neither will give them up easily...

Review:
I came across this artist's webcomic purely by accident while researching Beauty and the Beast adaptations. As many people know, fairy tale retellings are a passion of mine, and Beauty and the Beast is my personal favourite. As a literature major and currently an English teacher, I appreciate the new perspectives these retellings give to the original tales, sometimes to the point where I find the retelling a better version than the original. Megan Kearney's graphic novel adaptation of the tale is one of those. As an artist she not only manages to portray the lush and vibrant magical setting, but also evokes a full range of emotions through the characters' expressions and designs. As a writer, she takes a bare-bones tale and expands on it, giving both Beauty and Beast their own back-stories and motivation, crafting well-developed characters and relationships. Her dialogue between characters is charming enough to reflect the original fairy tale, but is also mysterious and dark to reinforce the more mature route her version takes.

I can honestly of all the adaptations I've read and seen of Beauty and the Beast, this one is by far my favourite (and not just for the pretty artwork and the fact that the artist is Canadian). The original story and many adaptations don't really hold up well to modern expectations of complexity in what we read. We want to know why the Beast demands Beauty for something as insignificant as a stolen rose, why Beauty can't just leave after initially arriving, how can she begin to have feelings for someone keeping her hostage, and exactly what happens to change the nature of Beauty and Beast's relationship. This version addresses all those concerns, and Kearney's answers to them more than satisfy my curiosity and then some. Plus, the little details and flourishes that you only notice on second and third readings are a delight to uncover: the meanings for the flowers drawn on the chapter pages, the classic literature and mythology references, and the latin verses throughout the castle.

Recommendation:
Read it, buy it, and then wonder why it took you so long to discover it. Act One and Two books can be purchased here. The entirety of the comic thus far (including the first few chapters of Act Three can be found here. I can't say enough good things about this, so you'll just have to take my word for it and go spend several hours reading and then wait impatiently twice a week for new updates just like me.

Thoughts on the cover:
It's images like this that make me wish the comic was fully coloured. I love how everything is layered and gradually blends in to the next from top to bottom. I like the detail of Beast's cape being the tree canopy and Beauty's hair being the forest's floor.