The Eternal Smile: Three Stories

By how often my son talks about this book, I suspected this will be the books that had a huge influence on him

Three great, moving short stories. Artwork is fine, though honestly I don't care much about artwork. Plot, theme, and character is what I like; and all 3 stories deliver. All 3 have a twist ending. Not a shocking, Shyamalan-style twist; just something that makes the story make more sense, and have more importance.

This is a graphic novel in which the notion of, shall we say, "escape from reality", is examined.First we have Duncan's Kingdom, originally published as a two issue series by Image Comics. This is the tale of a young knight who seeks the heart of a beautiful princess and must undergo a mission to avenge her father the king's death, but his dreams of a woman and a soft drink bottle may make him realize that nothing is as it seems.The second story is Gran'pa Greenbax and the Eternal Smile which is a Carl Barks pastiche about an Scrooge McDuckesque frog who goes on he terms profitable adventures. Once more things are not what they seem in Greenbax's world.In the last story, Urgent Request, an office worker recieves an e-mail that changes her life in a rather unique fashion.All three tales are done in differing styles and convey their meaning so well.

Lovely life lessons with a hidden meaning that makes the reader explore more of the wise sayings within this comical tale

The stories are well written and drawn. I was hoping to use this in my classroom but the stories are a little to racey

It took this book some time to arrive. However, it was a great deal at a fair price and the book was as describe. I would only purchase from this dealer again if I was not in any big hurry to get my order.

The Eternal Smile is a collection of three short graphic novels. Each is drawn in a very different style, and each has a twist that thoroughly surprised me and made me think about what I want from life.The first is the story of a guy on a quest to win the princesses hand in marriage through slaughtering the frog king. I loved loved loved the art of this one, it almost had a comic book feeling without being as chaotic and scattered as comic books are. The varying color schemes served the mood well. And the twist came totally unexpected! Excellent through and through.The second story was cartoonish and the main characters are frogs. Granpa Greenbax decides to start a religion based on the “eternal smile” as a scheme to make $$$. However, he too finds himself a wrinkle in the plot and the choice he makes was not at all what I was expecting. I liked this story much better after the plot twist than before.The third and final story is the story of an office worker. She lives a boring life and doesn’t seem to often ask for want she wants, nor does she often get what she wants. So when a random email comes through for her, the reader already knows it won’t end well, but we admire her for her hope. Because so much is out in the open with this story, even the drawings are softer and less mysterious, the plot twist is less of a surprise about trajectory of he plot and more a twist on the protagonist’s reaction to reality.I recommend this book. It was a fast read with beautiful drawings and intriguing plots that you can dive right into to be immersed for a short while. My only complaint is that they are short stories and prefer long, but the stories really felt like the perfect length for the ideas that were being presented.

This volume contains three stories that have the odd combination of fantastic and mundane that Rod Serling so effortlessly delivered in his series The Twilight Zone.The first story is "Duncan's Kingdom." Duncan is a young knight in love with the princess. The king is killed by the Frog King and the princess says whoever kills the murderer will marry her. So Duncan has lots of competition. Something odd is going on, because he has a dark secret and keeps running across an anachronistic bottle of soda. Duncan has a love for truth that, like love, conquers all. The twist at the end is bittersweet and psychologically satisfying, a rare thing for a comic book to have.The second story is "Gran'pa Greenbax and the Eternal Smile." Greenbax is an avaricious frog. His great ambition is to fill a pool so deeply with money that he won't bang his head on the bottom. He has various money-making schemes run by an unfortunate flunkie. The flunkie has one last scheme that should put Gran'pa over the top--a smile has appeared in the sky and has given the flunkie consolation in times of self-doubt and sorrow. Greenbax is at first upset but quickly realizes he can set up a Church of the Eternal Smile to cash in on the phenomenon. This story also ends with a big twist, giving Greenbax a Scrooge-like conversion that is wordlessly touching.The third story is "Urgent Request." Janet Oh is an administrative assistant at a tech company longing for something more in her life. She asks for a promotion and is turned down. Her mousy qualities lead her down the path of financing one of those Nigerian princes who email looking for money. A really awkward and heart-breaking story manages to achieve an uplifting ending with yet another big twist at the end.The clearest parallel in these stories to Serling's work is the twist ending that brings the narrative into perspective. The tales are unusual enough that the endings aren't immediately obvious. When the endings come, they are natural and bring thematic focus and dramatic closure. I enjoyed this collection very much.

The Eternal Smile contains three short stories about imagination and escape, told in three different styles.The opener, Duncan's Kingdom, is the slightest of the three stories, and it's also the only one (as far as I can gather) to have previously been published as a standalone comic. In style, the art is reminiscent of 90s Disney, a fitting choice as the setting is a fairytale kingdom in which Duncan, our hero, seeks to win the Princess's hand in marriage by bringing her the head of the Frog King, to avenge the death of her father. Things go awry when Duncan catches a glimpse of a mysterious object -- a bottle of Snappy Cola -- and his obsession with it threatens the otherwise fairytale perfection of his life. A straightforward fable about imagination and escape when you get to the end of it, Duncan's Kingdom isn't bad, but isn't quite the equal of the more interesting tales that follow.Granpa Greenbax and The Eternal Smile sets itself up as a comic based on a kids' TV cartoon about a gold-greedy frog whose one and only dream is to fill his legendary Pool o' Cash so full of gold he can dive into it without hitting bottom. When his overworked & underpaid assistant Filbert shows him a mysterious smile that has appeared in the sky, Granpa Greenbax immediately sets about exploiting it by forming a religion. But, just as you think this is going to be a straightforward fable about greed, the story takes a right-angled turn into Truman Show territory. The result is a far more satisfying tale than Duncan's Kingdom, with the most successful ending of the three stories in this book. After all, anything that can make you cheer as the avaricious Greenbax finally achieves his goal has to be special storytelling.The last of the three, Urgent Request, follows Janet Oh, a nobody employee of soul-crushing Commtech, who, feeling low after having been passed over for promotion, receives an email from a Nigerian Prince urgently requesting help in getting his family's millions out of the country. Suddenly feeling she can be important and useful, she does what no sane, internet-savvy person would do, and agrees to help. But this isn't a story that sets out to further crush its already downtrodden heroine. Like Granpa Greenbax, it has twists enough to lift it above being a simple fable, and ends on an uplifting note.A quick read, with some nice variations of art style and storytelling technique, The Eternal Smile leaves a heart-warming hint of its titular grin with you once you close the covers. A nice little book.

Makes you feel good