Beauty as a Beast (comic story)

Beauty as a Beast was a standalone Jenny Everywhere comic story written by Alex Hernandez and illustratedin full colour by Andres Allocco. It is believed to have been the tenth of the original Barbelith Jenny Everywhere stories to be released (counting both halves of Damn Fine Hostile Takeover separately).

Despite the title alluding to Beauty and the Beast, the parody of classic Disney fairy-tale movies actually principally focused on a mixture of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Sleeping Beauty, with a dash of additional unrelated sword-and-sorcery tropes.

Shifting at random, a foul-mouthed and evidently grouchy Jenny Everywhere lands inside a fantasy realm where the first thing that happens to her is to be accosted by a band of rude, conceited Dwarves. After she escapes their attempts to capture her to bring her to the Sorcerous, she helps Sir Parsifal, a knight, survive an encounter with a ferocious Dragon.

Together, the two journey to the Sorcerous's Castle, where Jenny discovers the evil Queen is none other than an older version of Snow White who, after being left by her Knight, turned to evil and took after her stepmother. Although the wicked Queen tries to turn Jenny over to her side, Jenny rejects her both in word and in deed, ending in a well-deserved punch.

Worldbuilding

Jenny

This story focuses on a thin, Asian, very pale-skinned incarnation of Jenny Everywhere who wears a narrow, yellow scarf and a black parka.
She notes that she “has been a samurai, a ninja and a barbarian in other lives”.

Universes

This story takes place all in one universe, the “magical realm” of Hideea.

Other

Jenny Everywhere refers to the Dwarves as Munchkins, which they find outrageous.
Jenny describes her bare-handed roughhandling of the Dwarfves as “going Jackie Chang” on them.

Continuity

This story addresses Jenny Everywhere's nigh-superhuman fighting abilities, previously introduced in COMIC: Name's Not Down, explaining that she derives them from remembering the skillset of various other incarnations of her who were, for example, barbarian warriors or ninjas.
An actual Ninja Jenny would later appear in PROSE: Second Date and in PROSE: Paying It Forward, where she even interacts with the “barbarian” Jenny.

Behind the scenes

Background

Comparison of Snow White with Disney's Maleficent as seen in in VIDEO: Sleeping Beauty.

The art-style of this story is a loving parody of the style, and loose universe, of Disney's vintage fairy-tale pictures. The Dwarves are drawn in a comparable style to the Seven Dwarfs of Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and are first seen humming “Hi-ho, hi-ho”, the refrain of the Dwarfs' famous working song in that film.

Meanwhile, Queen Snow White's evil garb makes her resemble the villainous faerie Maleficent in Disney's Sleeping Beauty, especially her headdress and her scepter. Her dwelling in a castle guarded by monstrous humanoids of low intelligence also appears to be a reference to Maleficent. However, the Beauty as a Beast Snow White's physical features scarcely resemble the Disney version of Snow White's, and she mentions her former beloved as a Knight rather than a Prince.