Still on the Shelf #23 - Fables

Originally published September 2nd, 2003 on www.ComiXtreme.com. This work is, of course, © Craig Reade.

Having heard little about this comic, I was not at all sure what to expect. Initially, I thought Vertigo’s Fables (for mature audiences) was going to be very similar to Aria, and I immediately had misgivings about this. I find Aria to be simply stunning in the art department, but the storylines are often weak and unintelligible. On the other hand, the idea of a “fable” super-hero team seemed completely outlandish and horrid to me- that possibility also scared me away from this book for the longest time. Thankfully, once I read it, I found that I could not be more wrong about Fables.

This title, as you might guess, features various popular (and some really obscure) characters from a wide range of our own fables. It seems they once had lands of their own, but a mysterious force known as “the Adversary” drove them out. The surviving “fables” have transplanted to modern day New York, where they exist in secret. The human looking fables live in New York City, while all of the animal like ones live in a large farm in upstate New York, where they hide themselves from the prying eyes of the Mundanes, or normal humans.

Cast of Characters

Snow White serves as the Director of Operations and Deputy Mayor for Fabletown: the community of fables in New York City. With the exception of ceremonial duties that are performed by the mayor, King Cole, she wields the real power and carries the responsibility of governing the community. She has long since divorced from her husband, Prince Charming, after he had an affair with her long forgotten sister from the Brothers Grimm fairy tale, Rose Red.

The Fairy Tale version of Snow White was certainly the stereotypical “damsel in distress.” However, over the centuries, she evolved into another stereotype, that of the “independent woman.” While she is undeniably good at the work she does, she exhibits a strong distrust of men, and is averse to asking for help, or accepting advice, for fear it would be interpreted as “feminine weakness.”

Her sister, Rose, on the other hand, is very much the party girl. A lot of what she does is motivated by jealousy over her sister’s success and popularity with the Mundanes. While Snow White’s story is told over and over again to new generations of children, her own story has been virtually forgotten. That popularity over years has made Snow White incredibly resilient, so much so that even a bullet to the head could not kill her. As such, Rose acts in pure self-interest, often doing things simply because Snow would disapprove- such as dating Jack of the Tales, from the “Jack and the Beanstalk” story, and sleeping with Prince Charming.

Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella, it seems, all shared the same husband, and eventually divorced him in turn. Prince Charming is everything you would expect him to be in our world- a pretty-boy in every respect. He has found himself poor in the mundane world, but a man such as he is completely incapable of living anything other than a pampered life. He may be unwilling to work, but thankfully for him, he has the uncanny ability to attract and enthrall women with a mere look. He lives his life by using an endless string of women who support him and perform a wide range of mundane tasks for him. He then moves on to a new girl. As you might guess, he is not thought very highly of in the fable community- nonetheless, he does exhibit rare instances of nobility.

Bigby Wolf is the moniker the Big Bad Wolf now goes by. Storybook villains are not uncommon in the fable community, as most are reformed. After the flight from the Adversary, amnesty was granted for all crimes committed, on the condition that the refrain from any other illicit acts. His days of house blowing and grandma eating behind him, Bigby has taken human form and has taken up the role of a sort of all-purpose detective/constabulary for Fabletown.

Of all of the fables in this comic, Bigby is perhaps the most interesting in terms of character development. As he relates to Snow in a recent issue, his mother is a wolf, but his father was the North Wind. His father granted him the ability to blow gusts of air so strongly that the local winds bow will down to his will. The fables from which we all know him happened when he was but a young pup, and he believes that not even brick house could withstand his breath now.

As a human, he is a very deep character. At first look, he appears to be your typical “private dick.” He smokes like a chimney, lives in a grungy bachelor pad, and maintains a very disheveled appearance. After learning more about his character, it makes perfect sense that he would live something of a grimy existence- much like the animal he is. You also learn that he has highly attuned senses, and smokes copiously to block out the overabundance of smells in New York City which overwhelm him. Without the cigarettes, he would be unable to block enough of them out to save him from insanity. In recent issues, he has revealed his attraction for Snow White- upcoming issues should shed some more light on their relationship.

Goldilocks has become something of the villain in this title. She has become a militant Marxist/Communist, and feels the current Fables governing community has lost touch with the "proletariat.” She helped lead a revolt against the human looking fables in New York City from the Farm, the first step in building an army and beginning the quest to reclaim their homelands from the adversary. Recent issues have seen her seeking revenge against Snow for helping bring an end to the revolt.

Goldilocks is also something of an interesting character on a very superficial level. She is married to “Baby Bear” from the fables, openly, as a political statement that all fables, human and animal looking, are all the same. Closer to the truth are tales of her sexual deviancy, however, as she has proven more than willing to sleep with anyone and anything, be it for pleasure or personal gain. She is a perfect example of a twisted ideologue, and though Goldilocks might seem an odd choice for a villain at first, this presentation of her makes that selection make perfect sense.

Thoughts

Above all else this is a fun, thought provoking title. The relating of the old fable stories can be somewhat cheesy at first, but it is something that you eventually find you need to know. It helps to discover things like why Bigby gets visits from a certain “little pig,” and the circumstances that lead to Snow White’s divorce from Prince Charming. The original fables become little more than appropriate back-story for the characters, and thusly are essential to the book.

The inclusion of even more fables as “bit” characters makes this book all the better. Even if you have only a passing familiarity of these stories from when you are a kid, it makes the background characters in this title all that much easier to recognize. Beauty and the Beast, Shere Khan, Little Boy Blue, and many, many more characters of all shapes and sized pop up in this title. Their “pre-existing” back-story makes it that much easier to give them larger roles in the story without needless exposition. Part of the joy of Fables is wondering what characters are going to pop up next. At times, I wonder what will be done when they run out of Fable-characters to include, but I can’t see that day happening for many, many years to come. Hopefully the title lasts that long.

Recently, Fables won the Eisner Award for best new series. That award was well deserved. Bill Willingham has taken a wonderful idea and delivered in a big way. The stories are fresh, and interesting. He has completely avoided cliché stories like “Red Riding Hood coming back to take revenge on Bigby for eating her Grandma,” something that I can imagine is all-too tempting to do. A story like that would undoubtedly mean doom for this title, which has relied so heavily on interesting, original stories.

The art has been decent. It has remained consistent, even though a couple of different teams have done the job on this title (most recently, Mark Buckingham, Steve Leiaoha, and Daniel Vozzo). It has maintained a “fairy tale”-like tone, with a lot of emphasis placed on the backgrounds rather than the characters. This is not to say that the characters are not distinctive- but hyper-defined characters like those you find in some of the super-hero books of today are not what you will find here. While the art is far from bad, this title is quite the opposite from a title like Aria, which relies on amazing artwork alone. The story makes this book, and the art team on Fables does a wonderful job helping Willingham tell his story.

Bottom Line

This week I was faced with another difficult title to write about. Fables is far more complex than you might imagine, yet everything makes perfect sense when you are reading the story. The highest praise I think I can give this title is to say that I am adding it to my own monthly pull-list. I, like many of you, am on a very tight budget, and I had to promise myself at the onset of this column that I would not add every single new title I covered and liked to my list, or else I would end up broke in the end. This makes the third time during my entire stint on this column that I have gone against that rule- Fables is just too good. Beyond everything I have said about this book, Willingham has made me care about the characters he is presenting, and I can’t think of a higher complement to pay a writer.

As always, I invite all of you to give this title a look, so you too can see what is so good about Fables. To that end, there are two Fables trade paperbacks available now- Legends in Exile and Animal Farm, which collect issues 1-5 and 6-10 respectively. Issue #17 is due out on shelves next week on September 10th. It is currently mid-arc, so after checking out the Legends in Exile trade, I would recommend going back to issue #14 for the start of this new story.