Happy Monday and welcome to my stop on the blog tour for OTHER EVER AFTERS: NEW QUEER FAIRY TALES! I’m so excited because today I have an interview with Melanie Gillman to share with you! This book is truly amazing and I’m so excited to for you to find out more about it!
Other Ever Afters: New Queer Fairy Tales by Melanie Gillman Published on September 20, 2022 by Random House Graphic
Genres: Fantasy, Graphic Novels, Queer, Retellings, Romance, YA
Pages: 240
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Author Links: Website, Twitter, Goodreads, Instagram, Tumblr
Once upon a time . . . happily ever after turned out differently than expected. In this new, feminist, queer fairy-tale collection, you’ll find the princesses, mermaids, knights, barmaids, children, and wise old women who have been forced to sit on the sidelines in classic stories taking center stage. A gorgeous all-new collection in graphic novel format from a Stonewall Honor-winning author and artist.
What if the giant who abducted you was actually thoughtful and kind? What if you didn’t want to marry your handsome, popular, but cold-inside suitor? What if your one true love has all the responsibilities that come with running a kingdom?
Award-winning author Melanie Gillman’s phenomenal colored-pencil art creates another "ever after" for the characters who are most worthy of it.
What would you do if you spent the day with your characters? Where would you go to eat, hang out, relax, etc.?
Depending on the character, it’s probably a 50/50 toss-up between “apple picking” and “setting a castle on fire”.
If your characters were to hang out with other fictional characters, who would they be and why?
Hard to generalize in a book of stories with so many different characters, but I feel confident saying if any of my characters spent a day hanging out with Robin Hood, they’d end up kicking his ass.
If there was one fictional place you could travel to for a day, where would it be and why?
Funky Town. I, too, crave a town that’s right for me.
If you buried a time capsule with three items inside, what three items would you choose and why?
If this is a sky’s-the-limit situation, then I’m burying a whole house and moving in, to live out my days like some sort of Redwall mole. In this scenario, item number two is “my own body” and item number three is “a tunnel to the surface only I know about”.
What was your favorite bit of research you ended up not using?
Since this is a book of original fictional fairy tales, research wasn’t really involved! Unless you count me google image searching “cool medieval dresses” a whole bunch of times, and then staunchly ignoring the results in favor of costume designs that’d take less than a week to draw.
What is your favorite quote, scene, or moment from Other Ever Afters?
I’m fond of all the panels in Sweet Rock where I got to draw the main character checking out the Giantess. Very relatable.
About Melanie Gillman
Melanie Gillman is the cartoonist behind this story. They hold an MFA in comics from the Center for Cartoon Studies, and currently live in Columbus, OH. Melanie is also the author of Stage Dreams, a lesbian western graphic novel, available from Lerner/Graphic Universe. They are represented by Jen Linnan, of Linnan Literary Management.
What do you think about Other Ever Afters: New Queer Fairy Tales? Have you added it to your tbr yet? Let me know in the comments and have a splendiferous day!
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