It’s been a good few weeks to be a fan of Bill Willingham’s storybook send-up Fables. Not only did the series finally get the Deluxe Edition treatment (well, the first ten issues did anyway), but Willingham and frequent series contributor Steve Leialoha put together the first-ever prose novel based in the Fables universe. In so doing, Fables joins a pretty short list of DC properties to be brought to prose without first getting a movie or TV deal.

The story of Fables revolves around a group of mystical, mythical characters living in a small, hidden block on New York’s Upper West Side. The Fables’ name is very descriptive of what they are—they’re characters from old fables, bedtime stories and fairy tales, immortal and living in exile from their homeworlds, which were conquered by a vicious dictator known as The Adversary. By now, regular readers of the monthlies will know that The Adversary is—well, nevermind. I won’t spoil it here. At any rate, the identity has been revealed and the Fables of Fabletown and numerous other earthly encampments have already undertaken to combat The Adversary. But for the purposes of the two books reviewed here, that identity remains shrouded in mystery, the battles unfought and, frankly, even some of the relationships that have driven the series for fifty issues largely undealt-with.

It should be said that any reader who intends to read Fables: The Deluxe Edition Volume 1 as their first introduction to the comics, ought to do so before reading Peter & Max, the novel by Willingham that was released a couple of weeks ago. While the writer explains in the foreward that you don’t have to have read any of the comics to understand the book—and it’s true—the reading of the book first will substantially dull a reader’s enjoyment of Fables: Legends in Exile and Fables: Animal Farm, the two graphic novels that compose the Deluxe Edition hardcover. In the first couple of chapters, which set the stage for Peter Piper’s forthcoming feud with his brother Max (The “Pied Piper”), the endings of both of the first two Fables stories are offhandedly referred to. And it’s probably five pages in before the first major spoiler relating to the ending of “Legends in Exile.”

At any rate, the Deluxe Edition format is one that I’ve really liked so far with James Robinson’s Starman, and while Fables doesn’t have the same visual strength (Starman almost feels like it demands a larger format), it’s nice to see certain of the “big” moments in the series in widescreen and I suspect that as the Deluxe Edition Fables collections progress, characters like the North Wind and moments like the Battle of Fabletown will be well-served by the oversized pages. It’s frankly shocking that it’s taken this long to get Willingham’s bestselling title on board, but DC’s trade strategy, particularly as it relates to Vertigo titles, is a little ineffable. I mean—reprinting and renumbering the Transmetropolitan trade paperbacks instead of giving the best-selling first pair of graphic novels an oversized hardcover treatment? Come on. That said, if you haven’t read Fables yet, the Deluxe Edition is the way to go. It’s not that much more costly than just getting the paperbacks, and this book is, I guarantee it, a keeper.

Peter & Max is an odd animal; taking characters who have had little or no interaction with the main characters of the Fables ongoing comic was probably a better choice than singling someone out for attention, and the Pipers certainly had a remarkably interesting backstory crafted for them by Mr. Willingham—but as the chapters toggled back and forth between flashback and “current day” stories of Peter and Max, I couldn’t help but feel like things were happening in the wrong place. I wanted to see a story set in the Fables universe, and instead was treated to a lot of backstory about the Homelands while Peter drove around Germany for 150 pages. The wide-eyed, energetic young man who struggles to survive in the Homelands seemed to have lost his will to live by the time the story began—and while it was later explained how he got to be that way, it didn’t feel like enough was in place to make him feel like the same guy for most of the reading.

The second half of the book—both the part set in the present and the past—was much better than the first, which is great for those of us who hung on but leaves me wondering how many potential new fans Willingham lost in the first half of the book. The ending was brilliant, because it was one that I saw coming on page 40 or so, and then completely forgot that I’d seen coming until after it had happened. It’s exactly what I want in a climax—something natural, organic and even maybe a little predictable that takes you by surprise and pantses your expectations.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 27th, 2009 at 9:42 am and is filed under News & Views. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.