Once Upon a Time Machine
A panoply of creators retells fairy tales, folktales, and stories from classic literature, all with a sci-fi twist. Every tale, from John Henry in a space-pilot showdown to the Billy Goats Gruff told as a girl’s journey through the subterranean sewer beneath a futuristic metropolis to The Three Musketeers with Nigerian swordsmen fighting samurai robots, takes a familiar plot and casts it into an unfamiliar future. While the whole product is a mixed bag, with a few standouts like poignant re-imaginings of Pinocchio and the Puppet Show Man, a strong theme emerges in the aggregate—namely, how humanity interacts with technology, how we give it life, and what it does to our lives. With a few exceptions (including Jill Thompson, who provides a single-image, futuristic take on Santa Claus), these are not big-name creators, and, while the tone ranges from humor to action to heartfelt drama, manga is a fair-sized influence in style and content. With a large array of stories, though, this will provide hours of opportunity for dipping into the future. --Jesse Karp