Fairy Tale Friday | Fables, Part 7: The Last Castle

Fables: The Last Castle was a one-shot special in 2003 that offered more insight to the Fables' homelands; specifically the closing days of the Adversary's invasion, the final stand of the defenders, and the last group of refugees to escape. The series had been slowly teasing out information about the mysterious Adversary and his campaign against the homelands, so the revelations of The Last Castle were a big deal and an appropriate subject for a fancy, stand-alone story like this.

It also answered a question that was on the minds of a lot of fans: With Bigby Wolf such an important part of the Fables series, whatever happened to his legendary prey, Red Riding Hood?

The framing of the backstory takes place because Little Boy Blue is depressed, as he always gets this time of year. Snow White finally asks him about it and he tells her that it's the anniversary of the escape of the final survivors from the homelands. Every year, those survivors gather for a private ceremony and Blue has special reason to mourn the experience.

He shares his story with Snow White and the bulk of the book describes an epic battle full of legendary characters like Robin Hood and his men, the Grimm Brothers' Bearskin, and of course Red Riding Hood, who barely makes it into the defenders' keep alive. All of it is beautifully drawn by P Craig Russell, himself a legend of fantasy comics for his Elric and Jungle Book adaptations, Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde, and various volumes of Neil Gaiman's Sandman.

It's a dark, emotional story and I would have liked it more if it didn't handle Red in a way I don't care for. That's super subjective though and Fables is such an unpredictable series that there's always room for it to come back to her in a way that I like better.

Fairy Tale Friday | Fables, Part 6: Barleycorn Brides

Fables #18 is a standalone story that (like the Jack story in #11) abandons the fairy-tales-in-other-genres format and simply tells a story from the Fables community's past. There's a framing sequence in which a Lilliputian youth escapes the Farm and comes to the city to try to steal some magic barleycorn. He's caught, but when Bigby Wolf goes easy on the sentencing, the Frog Prince questions the decision. Bigby then relates the story of why attempting to steal the magic seed has become a rite of passage for Lilliputian males.

I won't spoil the whole thing, but it has to do with a bunch of male Lilliputians' escape from the Fables' Homelands after the mysterious Adversary took over, as well as the story of Thumbelina. It's a fun, adventurous tale and gives a tantalizing peek at the Homelands and the armies of the Adversary.

Another fun note about the issue is that it was drawn by Linda Medley, who was quite popular at the time for her fairy-tale-inspired comics series, Castle Waiting.

Fairy Tale Friday | Fables, Part 5: Storybook Love

It's called "Storybook Love," but the next arc in the Fables series isn't exactly a romance. Instead, it continues the intrigue of recent events spilling out of the "Animal Farm" and heist stories. Goldilocks, whose revolution was defeated in "Animal Farm" turns up again, hiding out with Bluebeard, whose treacherous nature was revealed in the heist story. When a Lilliputian agent and his mouse steed discover Goldilocks and Bluebeard's alliance, it sets off a chain of events that includes Bluebeard's having to push forward his time table for taking over the Fables community.

To get Snow White and Bigby Wolf out of the way, Bluebeard arranges to have a spell cast on them so that they think they're in love with each other. He also arranges a romantic getaway for them to a remote forest where Goldilocks tracks them in order to murder them.

It's a great story with lots of intrigue in Fabletown as well as the excitement of Snow and Bigby being hunted in the woods by a ruthless killer. Bigby even gets to revert to his impressive wolf form and show off some of the huffing and puffing he's so famous for.

And even though the love spell eventually wears off, the situation sparks some conversations between Snow and Bigby that reveal how they actually feel about each other. It's no romantic comedy, but it does have me starting to 'ship the couple even as a surprising turn of events drives a huge wedge between them.

Fairy Tale Friday | Fables, Part 4: A Two-Part Caper

Picking up the Fairy Tale Characters in Other Genres format again, Fables #12-13 contained what it called "a two-part caper." The arc itself didn't have a name, but the individual issues were titled "A Sharp Operation" and "Dirty Business."

The plot is that a newspaper reporter has been watching the Fables community and thinks he's figured out their secret. He threatens to expose them, but when he presents his evidence to Bigby Wolf (hoping to get more details in an interview), it's clear that he's on the wrong track. He knows the community is immortal and has some kind of supernatural abilities. He assumes they're vampires.

Either way, Bigby isn't taking chances on a story getting out that will bring unwanted attention to the community. So he assembles a heist team to steal the reporter's evidence and make sure he has nothing to write about.

The team consists mostly of characters we've already met: Prince Charming, Jack, Bluebeard, Little Boy Blue, and Flycatcher (the Frog Prince). But in addition to them, Bigby adds Briar Rose, aka Sleeping Beauty, for a particular gift she possesses. I won't spoil how it goes, but it's a fun caper and raises tension by having Bluebeard strongly disagree with Bigby's methods. There's an intense confrontation; I'll just leave it at that. Repercussions are foreshadowed.

Sadly, Snow sits this one out as she's still recuperating from the events at the end of the "Animal Farm" arc.

Fairy Tale Friday | Fables, Part 3: Bag O' Bones

Fables #11 was a departure from the multi-issue story arc format as well as from the genre-hopping nature of the series. Rather than put fairy tale characters in a non-traditional genre like a murder mystery, the single-issue tale goes back in time to retell a couple of trickster stories from the Civil War. Fables has mashed them together and cast them with Jack as the "hero," but it's still straight up folklore.

Not that that's necessarily a problem. If you're familiar with these kinds of stories, Jack's 19th century adventures feel authentic if also not exactly original (because they aren't). The issue's an entertaining diversion with its personifications of the devil and death and Jack trying to outwit both, but I remember being eager to get back to present-day New York for more with Snow White, Bigby Wolf, and their neighbors.

The Fairy Tale Project | Fables, Part 2: Animal Farm

The second story in Fables takes a hard turn away from the murder mystery of the first story. Having established the human community in New York City, the series moves upstate to visit the remote farm where all the talking animals and other non-human fairy tale characters live. And since it's literally an Animal Farm, what better genre to explore than a political allegory a la George Orwell?

The story has Snow White going to check on the farm, because its human overseer hasn't reported in a while. And since the events of the previous story revealed a catastrophic rift in Snow's relationship with her sister Rose Red, Snow takes Rose along with her so that they can talk. Upon arriving at the farm though, they quickly learn that all is not well and that the farm's inhabitants are extremely dissatisfied with the human government of the fables community. Like, full-on revolution dissatisfied.

As much as I enjoy the mystery of the first story, the talking animals in this one are even more my bag. The Three Pigs, Three Bears and Goldilocks, Reynard the Fox, and the Jungle Book characters are all major players in the drama. This was the story that completely hooked me on the series back in the day.

The Fairy Tale Project | Fables, Part 1: Legends in Exile

Writer Bill Willingham wasn't the first to mash various fairy tale characters together into a single story: The 10th Kingdom and Shrek being two notable, earlier examples and from just a year or two before. But he was the first to do it as an exercise that took the original stories seriously and tried to imagine what it might actually be like for these characters to interact in a shared world. Like in The 10th Kingdom, Willingham uproots the characters from their traditional homelands and replants them in modern New York City, but that's where the similarities end.

Willingham is interested in exploring these characters through a variety of genres, starting with a good, old-fashioned murder mystery. As the comic book series Fables opens, the classic fairy tale characters have been driven out of their traditional homelands by a mysterious and nameless Adversary. Some have been able to hold onto their wealth, but many haven't. Those who can pass for human live together in a Manhattan neighborhood called Fabletown. Those who can't (talking animals, gingerbread men, etc.) have to live somewhere else. Willingham gets to that later. The first story, "Legends in Exile," focuses on the human fables and an apparent murder that takes place among them.

The mayor of Fabletown is Old King Cole, but it's actually Snow White who runs the day-to-day operations. And the Big Bad Wolf (changed to human form through magic and nicknamed "Bigby") is the community's sheriff. The plot kicks off when Jack (of Beanstalk and Giant-Killing fame) comes to Bigby with the report that his girlfriend Rose Red has gone missing and there's blood all over her apartment. The story follows Bigby's investigation and it's pretty great as he knowingly hits all the beats of a classic detective story and calls attention to them in a meta way as he does. He doesn't get many opportunities to play this role and he's having as much fun investigating as Willingham clearly is writing it.

But the coolest thing about the series is Willingham's decision to conserve the number of characters by consolidating them when possible. So Bigby was not only the being who tried to seduce and murder Red Riding Hood, he was also the one who terrorized the Three Little Pigs. Any fairy story with a Jack as a main character (and there are a lot): those were the same person. In fairy tales, Snow White of the Seven Dwarfs is a different person from the one in "Snow White and Rose Red," but not in Fables. And you know how Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty all got married to a Prince Charming? Same guy. He may be charming, but he's also super unfaithful.

"Legends in Exile" introduces a ton of characters. Too many to mention them all, but some of my favorites are Beauty and the Beast, the Frog Prince (who works as a janitor at the Fabletown offices), Little Boy Blue (Snow White's assistant), and Bluebeard (the infamous wife-murderer who's still a terrifyingly threatening presence). Former villains like Bluebeard and Bigby are protected by a unity-encouraging amnesty that prevents them from being punished for any crimes they committed before the Exile.

There's a lot here, but it's just a hint at an even deeper world and mysteries that Willingham and his collaborating artists (Lan Medina in this first story) will eventually reveal. I read up to a certain point as the comics originally came out, but I'm looking forward to finally finishing the story as part of this fairy tale project I'm working on.

31 Werewolves | Bigby Wolf

As we head into the final stretch of the Halloween Countdown, it feels appropriate to circle back around to where we started with "Little Red Riding Hood." Bill Willingham's Fables series is all about bringing fairy tale characters into the modern world and his version of the Big Bad Wolf is a grumpy and frumpled, but extremely dangerous werewolf named Bigby (get it?).

As the series opens, Bigby is serving as the sheriff of Fabletown, the community of fairy tale characters hiding in plain sight in their own section of New York. He reminds me a bit of Wolverine as written by Chris Claremont: sullen and feral, but also fiercely loyal and dependable. And because he's owned by his creator, there's no chance that some other writer is going to come along later and ruin him. Fables is an excellent series and Bigby Wolf is a crucial part of making it so.

Heading to Fabletown and Beyond

This weekend I'm planning to be in Rochester for the first ever Fabletown and Beyond convention celebrating Mythic Fiction comics. I won't have a table or anything, I just want to go to show my support and cover the convention for Robot 6.

It's inspired by Rochester-resident Bill Willingham's Fables comic, so he'll be there, but so will other great guests like Mark Buckingham (Fables), Chris Roberson and Allison Baker (Memorial, Monkeybrain Comics), Steve Leialoha (Fables), Kurt Busiek (Arrowsmith, The Wizards Tale), Mike Cary (The Unwritten), Peter Gross (Lucifer, Books of Magic), Adam Hughes (Fairest), Van Jensen (Pinocchio: Vampire Slayer), Mike Oeming (Mice Templar), David Petersen (Mouse Guard), Matt Sturges (Jack of Fables), and over a dozen other good people. It promises to be a unique convention and I've been looking forward to it for a long time. Let me know if you're going and we'll meet up.

In other news, Bleeding Cool did a nice write-up of Emerald City Comic-Con focusing on Jason Copland and Melissa Pagluica. It misspells Jason's last name and misidentifies the writer of Kill All Monsters, but I'm grateful for the attention to the book. Writer Matt Harding talks about "the epic scale of color and explosions that caught my eye as they decorated the full wrap-around cover of this landscape-printed volume. [...] The artwork is fun and clean, yet conveys a sense of drama, therefore capturing the storyline perfectly." Thanks, Matt! (Pagluica's stuff is amazing too. Check out the Beauty and the Beast piece at the top of the post.)

Fellow Robot 6 contributor Corey Blake is also involved with the Comics Observer site and one of the things he does there is a digital comics column called Pixel Pages. He recently profiled Kelly Yates' MonstHer from Artist Alley Comics (where you can also buy Kill All Monsters in digital form) and talked a little about AAC. He calls it "unique from other digital comics distributors in that they let you download a PDF file that you can keep, instead of leasing you a digital file stored by them. They’re still formatted like print comics, so they read best on tablets like iPads, even though they don’t have an app yet (and their website’s navigation isn’t the best despite a nice and clean look). But the low price ($0.99 instead of $2.99-$3.99) and a true purchase are where digital comics should be."

Finally, if you're curious about the Avenger anthology that I contributed to and want to know a little more about the character, Snell gives the Jack Kirby version of him the Monstrobot treatment at Slay, Monstrobot of the Deep. By "Monstrobot treatment" I mean that he shares some panels and talks about the character in a really entertaining way, in this case comparing him favorably to the Punisher.

A kind of commitment to that woman

"Trail of the Astrogar"



By Robert Gibson Jones.

The Chronicles of Ripley?



Sigourney Weaver and Ridley Scott are interested in doing more with the character of Ripley, but wisely think that the AvP movies have devalued the Aliens as serious nemeses. I, for one, am totally up for an Alienless Ripley franchise.

Fables: The Series



In the Best News I've Heard All Week Department, ABC has greenlit a pilot based on Bill Willingham's Fables comic. If you've read it and fallen in love with Willingham's version of Snow White like I have, you totally get why this is Action Girl-related. They should get Rachel Weisz to play Snow White.

I say "totally" too much.

Artist of the Day: Victor Santos

For a while there, Victor Santos was posting a lot of jungle girl art that I couldn't help linking to. This time it's his version of Bill Willingham's Fables.