Fables

This volume is all over the place. There is a Christmas interlude, we learn of Rapunzel’s plight, and a series of reader questions answered as 1-2 page comics. But the bulk of the volume is about the eye of the storm in the Fabletown and Adversary relations. Each has wreaked devastations upon the other and now Fabletown must see if their Israel Gambit will succeed. The volume is also about how warfare is also a battle about information. As far as Fabletown knows, Gepetto is OK with peace as he’s sent a diplomatic envoy. The reader, on the other hand, has seen Gepetto’s war council and that he prepares for total war. While Pinocchio is correct that the Fables and the Mundys would be swift with their retribution, the first punch will have already been thrown and the Mundy world would be worse off for it.

At the end of volume 8, we’re just past the 1/3 point without counting the spinoffs. Bill Willingham seems, at this point, to perhaps be following a three act structure. Of course, bear in mind, dear reader, that I’m reading these for the first time with only the knowledge that the mainline series ends at issue #150. Still, while much is setup for future volumes, he does seem to put a bow on all the plot points until now. Snow and Bigsby, who’ve had a will-they/won’t-they and star-crossed lovers arc since issue #1 end up married. Last volume we learned the identity of The Adversary and while it’s not in the storylines, the supplementary materials contain a map that note The Adversary now has an embassy in NY. Rose Red has taken responsibility and is helping raise Snow’s cubs. Prince Charming has also had a Han Solo-esque character arc. And so, since it was mostly clean up, not much happened. Still, there are some ideas to explore in these volumes.

Volume 5 is all over the place, but it does seem to continue to follow Willingham’s trend of providing some thematic respite after a heavy plot. So this volume starts off with the notion of Bigby’s spies around the world, particularly Cinderalla who, with me reading this in 2015, I know will have her own miniseries in which she continues her spy adventures. Cinderella uncovers that Ichabod Crane was selling information to The Adversary. Bigby Wolf kills him, inviting the question of whether this makes sense after he was unwilling the kill the mundy who was going to out the community. After a bit of thought, it’s apparent this is an entirely different situation - Ichabod is committing treason. Additionally, it’s possible Bigby is not quite as ready to compromise as he was before the attack of the wooden army. ...

Fables Volumes 1 and 2 were pretty intense. The first volume has Bigsby Wolf solving the alleged murder of Snow White’s sister, Rose Red. The second volume involved an uprising by the non-human fables at The Farm. All of this wrapped up with an introduction to the world of Fables which, by the way, includes The Adversary taking over all their lands in an allegory of Hitler taking over Europe and appeasement leading to greater damage. So, while it was quite the tonal shift, it was not entirely surprising that the next volume starts with a fun-loving tale of Jack of the Fables. It turns out to only be a short respite from intense stories, but both the Jack story and the Briar Rose story function as palate cleansers while also serving to convey more of the backstory. In this sense, Bill Willingham has mastered storytelling from the very beginning of what would become a 150 issue series (plus spinoffs). I’ll return to the themes of these stories momentarily. The remainder of volume 3 involves Goldilocks, the chief agitator of the revolution on the farm, and Bluebeard attempting to murder Snow White and Bigsby. It then ends once again with a palate cleanser issue that deals with The Smurfette Problem among the Liliputians. Volume 4 opens up with Boy Blue recounting the story of the last set of refugees to make it from the fable lands to the real world. Again, Willingham both tells a poignant story that fits in with the refugee motif while also setting up the story of the rest of the volume. The majority of volume 4 involves an attack launched by the adversary and how the fables repulse it.

Here at Comic POW! because we’re not obsessed with reviews and are, instead, looking at greater themes within the works, we’re able to revisit older stories along with the newer stories. So this blog post kicks off a series focusing on Bill Willingham’s Fables. There has been a huge resurgence in interest in the stories of the Brothers Grimm. On one side we have Disney revisiting their animated films as live action films (as well as others leading to two Snow White films in one year). On the other side we have TV shows like Once Upon a Time and Grimm. But before the ABC show thought of what it would be like to have characters from our fables among us in the real world, Bill Willingham was telling a similar story nearly fifteen years ago.