Remember when you were younger and you were introduced to a cast of characters filled with princes and princesses, witches, talking animals and other magical creatures in those fantastical fairy tales? And I don’t mean Disney. I mean something more like The Brothers Grimm or Hans Christian Anderson. If you were anything like me, you fell in love with these characters that led you into a world of action, romance, violence, and comedy; where anything was possible, good always triumphed over evil, and there was always a happy ending. And then we got older and wiser and realized that we wouldn’t be visiting that fairy world for a very long time, if ever again. Or would we? What happened to those characters we fell in love with so long ago?
In the graphic novel, Fables, Bill Willingham introduces the cast to us again in a brand new story where they visit our world…indefinitely...and not by choice. They’ve been driven from their homelands by an anonymous tyrant they only know as, ‘The Adversary’. A group of ‘fables’, both good and evil, manage to escape The Adversary’s growing empire thru a magic portal to our world, more specifically, New York City. It’s here where they have to rebuild and live on.
A number of them are able to pass as human, and create their own community they dub, ‘Fabletown’, but any who can’t pass as human are taken to live at ‘the Farm’, an isolated area in the more rural part of upstate New York. All characters, whether villains or heroes, are given a clean slate, forgiven of any misdeeds of the past. Both Fabletown and the Farm are governed by the fables’ own government headed by Fabletown’s mayor, Old King Cole, who’s assisted by his deputy mayor, Snow White. The laws are enforced by ‘Bigby Wolf’ (a.k.a Big Bad Wolf), the Frog Prince is the building janitor, Boy Blue is Snow White’s secretary…you get the idea. Everyone plays their part in fitting in and getting along with our world.
Fortunately for them, the more their stories are told, the more famous they become, and the more invincible they are; needless to say they’ve been here for a while, and have had plenty of time to adapt to and perfect human living.
But their ending isn’t yet written, will our heroes get their happily ever after?
Bill Willingham does a fantastic job writing Fables, currently available in 11 collected editions or ongoing single issues. Reintroducing us to characters we already love (or love to hate) and placing them in a completely new adventure for all readers alike to enjoy. A coworker introduced me to this series and I fell in love with it, breezing thru volume after volume, and currently anxiously awaiting the twelfth collected edition. The first collected volume is titled Legends In Exile. I’m a bit of a pleasure-delayer, but if you’re impatient to find out what happens next, head down to your local comic shop and pick up the latest issue. I hope you enjoy reading!
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