Willingham, Bill - Fables: Storybook Love

[oyceter]

I am officially in love with this comic now. I liked it a whole lot before, but this one had me smiling and laughing and generally having a wonderful time.

Fables actually reminds me a bit of Sandman, except at this point, it's not quite as broad or as deep. They both have stories at the center, but while Sandman takes everyday life and makes it mythic, Fables takes the mythic and makes it everyday.

This collection is actually framed by two sort-of fairy tales -- the first one is a story of Jack in the Confederate South, and as Willingham puts it, "This story was freely adapted from a couple of the Mountain Jack Tales of American Folklore. In true oral tradition, it's been much altered under my care, which is a polite way of saying that I stole everything I thought I could use, changed a bunch of stuff to suit my whims, and made up the rest." The second is a story of what happens when Thumbelina is the only thumb-sized girl in a city of Lilliputians tale.

Then there's a two-parter, which leads to Storybook Love (actually only four issues). For Who Killed Rose Red? and Animal Farm, I liked the Fables characters, particularly Bigby (the Big Bad Wolf in human form) and Snow White, but now I've just fallen completely for them. Most of the characters are more caricature than character in the beginning books, funny sketches of what fairy tale characters would be like in the real world if they were immortal, but Willingham's started to really make them his own characters by the middle of the second book. There's an interesting mix of ruthlessness and goodness in them, and while the world is by no means warm and fuzzy, Willingham isn't nearly as bleak as Alan Moore can be. And I like how the threads of plot from the first two books tie in and the continuity in general. I'm a sucker for continuity and slow world-building, which is why I like long series and TV shows.

And Bigby and Snow are so cute! I particularly love Snow White and her practical, business-minded self, and Bigby is much in the tradition of Wolverine.

While the first two books of Fables were really good, to me, this one started really opening up the world for side things, like the new folktales, and I'm particularly looking forward to more stories from the Homeland. I really like how the structure of the Fables world supports this, which is what reminded me the most of Sandman. Hellboy's sort of got the same appeal in terms of short stories, but Hellboy's overriding arcs are pretty messy and the characterization isn't quite as neatly drawn.

Sigh. Now I really want to start buying the issues monthly, which is not at all practical.

Oh, also, there are rodent deaths in Storybook Love. Somehow I doubt anyone else on my FL is quite as squeamish about this as me (what with the pet mice and rats), but I sniffled.

Comments

[livinglaurel.livejournal.com]

Wow, those sound neat. Are they bound in book form yet? ((too lazy to go look))

Willingham isn't nearly as bleak as Alan Moore can be

d00d, I think Alan Moore would depress Poe.

[tiffanynichelle.livejournal.com]

sigh, I love Bigby/Snow also. Esp when he told her how he can't block out her sent.

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

I don't know. I'm up to the same point with Fables as you are, but I thought that all the characters were so ruthless I was having a hrad time caring what happened to any of them.

Plus the fact that it strikes me as one of the rarish explicitly conservative-oriented fantasy universes - voluntary taxation, heavy "my old man got on his bike and looked for work" attitude, sneering at liberal attitudes to crime as denying personal repsonsibility. And the air of self-conscious moral brutalism that tends to come out of modern American conservatism. And the fact that the only left-wing character is a power-hungry, hypocritical villain into bestiality.

[angeyja.livejournal.com]

I hate to come across like a sap but I had to table Quicksilver after the dog scene. I just wish they would come with some kind of warning label.

And this series? sounds really good. Thanks.