Monthly (Comic) Book Club - February - Fables Vol. 1 & 216803
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Monthly (Comic) Book Club - February - Fables: Legends in Exile & Animal Farm  Fables #1-10 Week 1 (1/31-2/6): Fables #1-3 Week 2 (2/7-2/13): Fables #4-5 Week 3 (2/14/-2/20): Fables #6-8 Week 4 (2/21-2/27): Fables #9-10 Discussion topic ideas: * Thoughts on the story or artwork * Details in the story, artwork, or presentation * References to outside events or other works of fiction * Making of/Behind the Scenes details * Editions you will be reading from * Items in your collection pertaining to this week’s selection |
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| So I like to take every opportunity to show off the custom bound set I had made for my friend for her 30th Birthday. Unfortunately, I don’t have a picture of the fourth book and there’s still no picture of the whole set together since she was moving that year and some of the books had to go into storage. Each one rebinds two or three of the original trades in a quarter-bind with bonded leather spines, marbled paper covers and end sheets, and foil stamping on the spines. The stamps for the large title letters on the spines had to be custom made         |
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 If the viagra is working you should be well over a 9.8.
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| Very nice. | ||
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| I read issues 1 and 2 the other day but didn't get to write about them. I have a softcover trade that contains issues 1 through 5 as well as a prose short story and an excerpt from a later Fables novel. #1 introduces us to a few main characters and sets the stage, as a #1 should. There's a building in New York City where characters we know from old stories really live, having escaped from some other dimension. Snow White functionally runs their government, such as it is, and Bigby Wolf is the sheriff. Snow White's sister, Rose Red, appears to have been murdered, as reported by her sort-of boyfriend Jack (of beanstalk fame). We also see Little Boy Blue, Beauty and the Beast, and Prince Charming. The portrayal of Prince Charming as a guy who skates through life using women is interesting. It's funny in a "get a load of that guy" way, and also a reversal of the old stories. Prince Charming would rescue the fair maiden before sweeping her off her feet; here he has to pick up waitresses just to find some money and a place to stay. On my first time through I was surprised they just call her 'Beauty' instead of Belle. Of course, I realized, the fairy tale has existed long before the Disney version. Willingham picked only public domain characters for use in the series, similar to Alan Moore and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. The building's location at the corner of Bullfinch and Kipling is a shout-out to a couple of famous fairy tale tellers. I can't say anything to point at in particular, but I like Medina's pencilwork. |
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| #2 makes Bigby's connection to the Big Bad Wolf more explicit than the (fairly obvious, especially in retrospect) hints from #1. It continues the investigation into Rose Red's murder/disappearance and introduces some new fables. There's Bluebeard the pirate, known for murdering his wives and taking on new ones, and Cinderella. Seven league boots show up in a lot of stories, including the comic book version of Loki. Plot-wise, we learn that Prince Charming was married to not only Snow White but also Cinderella, and that Rose was/is engaged to Bluebeard, who gave her a lot of money. | ||
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| Issue 3 formally introduces King Cole and starts with what seems like a lazy recap of the two preceding issues, but then we see that there's been more investigating in the meantime. They also talked to the witch from Hansel and Gretel (I guess? they pushed her into an oven in the Grimm story) and Bigby conducted his interview with Snow White. None of them seem to have been very long or thorough from what we see. He also has Boy Blue and Flycatcher (the prince who was turned into a frog) recreating the crime scene to see how much blood it would take. That said, Bigby seems to think he has most of it figured out. He also has big plans for Prince Charming's lands and the Remembrance Day party. I heard of the Vorpal blade when I was young from my dad through Dungeons and Dragons. It originates in Alice in Wonderland, which Snow White references, and in D&D it can automatically decapitate an enemy with a critical hit. |
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| I only vaguely remember how the mystery turns out from reading this before, so I felt a bit compelled to get through issues 4 and 5. It's also going to be a busy week so I thought I should knock them out while I can. Issue 4 jumps ahead to Remembrance Day, where Prince Charming's title and lands are being sold off via lottery. The opening pages reveal an interesting dichotomy between the men and women (or at least some) of the fairy tales; the men were born princes, and so already had/have their privilege and properties and didn't need to be smart or clever to earn them. The ladies were married into that privilege but don't really have it for themselves. Beauty wants to win the lottery to have something of her own, and Snow White takes a shot at Charming by saying that he never needed to think of things on his own. We get to hear some of the story of the invasion that led the fables to escape to New York. Some Adversary began conquering kingdoms and eventually he turned to the fables' lands. The Emerald Kingdom could be a reference to Oz but the picture of the knight and his companion remind me more of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. The Kingdom of the Great Lion seems like Narnia. As is usually the story in cases like this, the fables thought that things were other people's problems until they came to their front door. The survivors eventually banded together and came to New York until they can return home and defeat the Adversary. It's an interesting dynamic, as you might think that such loss and tragedy would bind the fables together. But we see that they have only some interest in an overarching government, and many grievances that were technically erased by the amnesty have not been forgotten or forgiven. Pinocchio, for one, is angry to be a boy forever. The big reveal, lampshaded by Bigby as a feature of all detective stories, is that Rose Red wasn't murdered after all. She was still alive and at the party. I was pretty sure I remembered that she wasn't dead. |
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| Issue 5 is the parlor scene with Bigby revealing whodunit and how. Rose and Jack faked her death, using stored blood to make a mess without actually damaging anything she actually cared about. They did it because Jack had another get-rich-quick scheme go south and they wanted to avoid having to pay back Bluebeard, or have Rose marry him. The resolution is to use Prince Charming's lottery money (the vast majority of it) to pay back Bluebeard; Bluebeard gets his money but loses Rose and any vengeance on Jack; and Rose and Jack will get money for their fines from Prince Charming but have to do community service and are on probation. Basically everything goes back to how it was before story (less all the other people out of their lottery money). Jack and Rose made a number of people unhappy but Snow White keeps the peace, more or less. I think it's a solid first arc. The detective story is interesting enough to keep the plot running, and it introduces a bunch of characters to bounce off each other with various agreements and disagreements. While the payoff sort of reverts things to as if they never happened, there's the possibility down the line that Prince Charming or Bluebeard will hold a grudge. And by the end we see that Bigby has a thing for Snow White, so maybe that will go somewhere. |
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| lol my IRS meeting with tomorrow so I should hopefully be back on the wagon shortly thereafter | ||
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If the viagra is working you should be well over a 9.8.
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| The extra prose story in my trade is called A Wolf in the Fold and tells of how Bigby joined the other fables. When the Adversary's armies started into his lands, he was still fully the wolf. He hunted as he pleased and that was about all he was interested in. When the armies came, he was offended that they came in his territory and, perhaps worse, tasted so badly. He decided to be a thorn in the side of the armies, attacking at different times and with no warning. Despite his success at doing so, he was one wolf against a huge force, and so the Adversary's empire grew. One day he saw a group of soldiers moving a chained-together group of prisoners through a mountainous area. Many people were captured there because they had heard of a witch's cave with a portal to another world. Bigby attacks the soldiers and finds Snow White and Rose Red amongst the prisoners, although they don't know each other at that time. Bigby tells them that he knows where the cave is because he followed the witch one time, and so can find his way past the spells and illusions she placed before she left. But to ensure he isn't being tricked, he has to take a little taste of everyone to make sure they aren't secretly working for the Adversary. Years later Bigby has taken up in the forests of Carpathia. He's purposefully stayed away from other fables so that he doesn't feel an urge to hunt them, and instead has become the basis for the legend of Dracula. Snow White and a mysterious man track him down; while Bigby can 'read' Snow White through his senses, he can't do the same for the man protecting her. Snow White has come to invite the wolf to live with other fables in New Amsterdam, or else the nearby farm. However, the farm won't have him due to his past actions; Snow White is trying to sell the idea of an amnesty but it's hard to convince the fables to band together. Bigby could be the example of how many crimes can be forgiven, especially since he helped so many fables escape, but he would need to pass as human so he could live in the city. They convince Bigby to come, and he is able to turn human thanks to a cursed dagger that Snow White acquired that typically does the reverse. The mysterious man (Feathertop, a scarecrow from a short story) asks Bigby why he joined them. Bigby doesn't answer, but thinks on how he never quite forgot Snow White's scent from when he rescued her in the old lands. |
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| I definitely agree that it is a solid first arc. The premise reminds me a little of Watchmen mixed with League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Both by Alan Moore. The Watchmen similarity not only comes from the general murder mystery storyline but also how the present story is sent after some bygone golden age for the main characters. In Watchmen that was the time before vigilante heroes were outlawed. After the Keane act most heroes are retired or work for the government and only Rorschach remains active. In Fables it’s the nebulous, “Once upon a time” where all the fairy tales we know of take place. That land was invaded by a mysterious and powerful “Adversary” and the fairy tale characters we know were either killed or exiled into our mundane world. That latter point leads to another comparison with Watchmen and that is how they both take a fantastical form of storytelling and place those characters into something resembling the real world. We don’t see a ton of the Fables characters interacting with the real world but we do see some examples of how these fantastical personalities might be expressed in a more realistic world. Prince Charming is a womanizing jerk, who looks and acts an awful lot like Archer. The Beast and Belle have marital issues, and Jack is a bit shady. Seeing these fairy tales translated into a modern setting also highlights how grim those old fairy tales can actually be. As for the characters as they appear now, I think they were all fairly interesting though there wasn’t a whole lot of development quite yet, just introduction. Bigby’s kind of the hard-nosed detective but the fact that he was essentially the villain in the old world and has since reformed is an interesting dynamic that I’d love to see play out. I’m curious to see how Snow White went from fairy tale princess to tough bureaucrat but you get the sense that being used by Prince Charming had a lot to do with it as you briefly see a similar kind of disdain from Cinderella. The art had a very clean look to it. Maybe I was already thinking Watchmen but it does remind me a little of Dave Gibbons’ work. I also absolutely love the lavish painted covers and reminded me that I’ve been meaning to buy the book of covers |
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| In contrast to the first TPB, which has an extra prose story and a preview of an issue that would have been more current at the time, the second TPB just has some preliminary covers and character sketches. Still cool but feels like a step down. Ah well. Issue 6 moves the story to tell us about the animal farm mentioned throughout the first arc. Snow White brings Rose on the trip to see if they can reconcile a bit. The less-human fables on the farm are upset at being stuck there forever and want to go back to fight for their homelands. A couple of mysteries pop up: why exactly Snow and Red drifted apart, why there's a bunch of bullet cases and shells by the farm, and the shocker at the end is why Colin was killed. First guess is the other pigs killed him for failing at his mission in the city, but we'll have to see. Some references from this issue: Weyland Smith is a smith from various stories in the Norse and Germanic traditions. Chicken Little (I assume) panics around quite noticeably, and the three pigs are prominent. There are also flying monkeys, Puss in boots, and various straightforward animals. |
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| Issue 7 lets us in on some secrets. Colin was killed at the urging of (or maybe by) Goldilocks, who's living with the three bears. She at least wanted Colin's head put on the stick as a warning, and as a reference to how long they've been stuck on the 'island' that is the farm. Reynard the fox sees them burying Colin and has to go on the run. Some of the animals are recruiting Red and show her a hidden giant arsenal. There's a hunt for Reynard where Goldilocks reveals that she's more interested in running the farm and Fabletown, but Snow White is missing all the pieces that the reader is getting. Other appearances in this issue are some characters from the Jungle Book, like Bagheera and Shere Khan, and some Br'er animals (bear at least, although I know the story of rabbit best). Reynard the fox is a common folklore figure who's kind of a trickster. There are two literary references. One, relevant to Colin's head, is Lord of the Flies. A group of boys are stranded on an island and eventually devolve into two tribes. One is a bit more civilized and tries to keep up an effort to get off the island. One is less, and attracts boys into their group by promising pig meat and warning of a 'beast' who roams the island. That group puts a pig's head on a stick as an offering to the beast, which prompts the name of the book when flies swarm the head. One of the boys has a pretend chat with the head where it warns him that he will die because he represents Man, and later the boy is accidentally killed when he is confused for the beast. It's a classic story of the nature of man. The other is Animal Farm, which gives the arc its name. Orwell's book is about a farm where the animals rebel against their irresponsible farmer. A pig, Napoleon, eventually takes over and consolidates power by running off his co-leader/rival, taking credit for his good ideas, and elevating himself with lies to the other animals. He also kills animals not loyal to him and keeps other animals on his side by telling them things are still better than under the farmer. Eventually, Napoleon has convinced most of the other animals that a simple, working life is best and "all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others". The animals even walk on two legs, drink, and carry whips. Orwell's book was a repudiation of Soviet communism, with the head pigs representing Stalin, Lenin, and Karl Marx. Orwell himself was a democratic socialist who believed in the power of the collective, and was against totalitarianism and propaganda. Because 'the people' are not really in charge, they trade the farmer's unfair rule for the pigs'. |
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| Issue 8 is more action-based. Snow White and Reynard go on the run but are hunted by Shere Khan. Rose Red is fully on the side of the animals and their revolution. Bigby and Boy Blue figure out that something's wrong at the farm and start to get a group together to head up there. Snow kills Shere Khan and finds Weyland Smith chained up in a cave, but is caught a moment later by Red and the gang. There weren't any new characters introduced, but we do see three giants and a dragon. |
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| I’m traveling out of the country for the next week so I’ll read the last five issues and post my thoughs | ||
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Monthly (Comic) Book Club - March - Shi: The Way of the Warrior Shi: TheWay of theWarrior #1-12 Week 1 (2/28-3/6): Shi #1-3 Week 2 (3/7-3/13): Shi #4-6 Week 3 (3/14/-3/20): Shi #7-9 Week 4 (3/21-3/27): Shi #10-12 |
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| I thought Animal Farm was a pretty intense arc, especially coming after the first arc, which despite centering around a grizzly murder, was more lighthearted. It seemed a bit strange to out a revolt like this pretty much at the start of the series. The first arc was something of a fun murder mystery used to introduce the characters and the world. I guess what this arc does is make the ground under the reader’s feet a bit unstable. Instead of setting up Fabletown as a stable, long-lasting community we get this feeling that, in some ways, it is barely holding itself together. Now we don’t know what to expect in the future. Seems like things could be a fun outing or it can go so far as a bloody revolt. I did think that Snow White was a bit too slow in catching on to what was happening, the bit of the town hall speech she did catch was hardly subtle. Especially after she came off pretty sharp and savvy in the first arc. Although, I guess she was in the dark about the whole situation as anyone and really came into her own when she came in to resolve everything, which kind of happened here as well. I admit that I didn’t recognize Weyland Smith’s origins, however Rose Red’s rant towards the end got me thinking of something. She mentions that she’s all but forgotten in the Mundy world. This got me thinking this was a clever little opening the writer had given themselves. While the story so far has been filled with well-known and recognizable characters, this line does suggest there are others the Mundane world, Us, have forgotten. By this reasoning, the author isn’t actually limited to existing literary or folklore characters. He can create new ones and reason that they are just characters that have been forgotten by us. I’m not sure if this is something he does or has already done in the series. Maybe “The Adversary?” Unless he turns out to be a more recognizable as the series develops. Rose’ explanation about the Mundies’ love public consciousness of the individual characters driving their mortality (or lack thereof) is also an interesting but of world-building. I would imagine then that decapitation might be one of the few ways to kill even a well-known Fable as it seemed fairly permanent for Collin and was the method of execution used for the traitors. I do wonder what the effect, if any, the death of a Fable has on the public consciousness. Do we forget or is there some kind of vacuum in the Fable world, like how the 3 Little Pigs were replaced after the deaths of the original three. Also, given that rule, I would think Shere Khan would eventually revive out there in the wilderness as the Jungle Book is fairly popular, unless he was found and decapitated. As for the rebellion, their reasons do have merit. Being forced to stay in a designated place because of your appearance if you could not or were unwilling to spend money on transformation spells to make you pass as human does create an undeniable class divide. Additionally, some like the giants and dragons were put to sleep to even be kept on the Farm and who knows if that was something they agreed to or if they were forced to. We haven’t seen much of the political discourse of Fabletown to see if the Farm Fables jumped to violent revolt too quickly. They have been imprisoned there for about a century but given the extremely long lives of these characters it’s hard to say if this is considered a relatively long time for them. Finally, I thought that the ending moment with Snow White thinking about Collin was sweet but also a little strange. Collin was definitely a character and the manner of his death was pretty shocking and the fact that you saw tears running from his eyes made it seem all the sadder but we saw him interacting more with Bigby in the first arc. So if someone was going to mourn him then I expected it to be him. I would guess Snow White would have known him since the Fables all seem to know each other but I didn’t see an especially personal connection between the two |
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If the viagra is working you should be well over a 9.8.
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| Happy birthday! This arc is definitely a step up in intensity. I think it flows a bit more naturally than you felt; the first arc focused more on personal grudges but did seem to go out of its way to point out all the divided between the Fables (money, appearance, the fragile state of the government and its taxes, etc.). But still a big jump from someone faking their death in a get-rich-quick scheme. The Animal Farm name is appropriate for not just the location but also the story, as I mentioned before. But in this story the outsiders step in and stop the rebellion before the leaders can really consolidate power. In Orwell's book some other farmers attack but are repelled by the pigs and their followers. I agree that the arc also opens up some comic-world logic questions. If the Giants hadn't been turned into pigs, would Colin eventually regenerate? Is decapitation just final for Fables, like a vampire? What else would be final? Snow White survived a pretty unsurvivable injury. Snow White grieving most for Colin is a little odd, but I think is a mix of character building and writer head-canon. Her taking a private moment to grieve fits in with her tough-exterior vibe, kind of like her stress-buying chocolates in the first arc. And we haven't seen it too much in the comics themselves so far, but the short story I described says that the Fables were together for some time in their world and then have been in our world for at least 100 years as well. Snow and Colin, and any of the characters, have a longer history than we've seen. |
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There aren’t a whole lot of copies of Fables #1 for sale, first prints at least, as the book has been reprinted a few times. I did pick this up for about $40 after shipping and I made out okay. #1 does have several spine ticks but overall it’s in good shape. Especially since there is a copy at reportedly VF listed for $180…but it is being sold by Mile High Comics so maybe that’s not surprising! Fables has had an interesting history in the adaptations that have been attempted. Both a movie and tv series were being developed but neither went anywhere. Interestingly, it was around this time that ABC produced Once Upon a Time, a show with a similar premise as Fables; fairy tale characters living in the real world. I haven’t seen it but apparently it is sufficiently different and I do recall that in the latter seasons it basically became a testbed for Disney to try out live-action versions of its characters. Another interesting adaptation was the Telltale game The Wolf Among Us which is set about 20 years before the comics series. You play as Bigby Wolf investigating a murder which grows into something bigger. The game was then adapted back into a comic for 48 issues which is considered canon to the Fables universe. A sequel to the game has recently been revealed which comes as part of a resurgence in the Fables series. Last year there was a Bigby Wolf/Batman crossover and the original Fables series, which ended at issue 150, is starting up again in May with issue 150 |
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| I haven't been much of a video game player for a while, but I remember hearing about Wolf Among Us now that you mention it. There's also a current Batman/Bigby miniseries; it either just wrapped up or will be soon. | ||
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 The Fifth Golden Girl
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Quote:Originally Posted by xkonk That sounds like it could be fun! BTW....Love Fables! |
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| @xkonk lol I did mention the Batman/Bigby crossover. I wonder if that one is considered canon or not. Even if you don’t play video games I recommend giving the Telltale games a try. They’re more episodic interactive stories than reflex/skill-based games so they are really meant to be played for the story: Aside from Wolf Among Us they have also released a few more comic-related series. Most notably is The Walking Dead (4 seasons + 1 mini-season), Batman (2 seasons), and Guardians of the Galaxy (1 season). @sborock I think I’ve read the first 20 or 30 issues but that was years ago. I definitely love the series and it seems like a pretty expansive world with a bunch of spin-offs that seem to be pretty well-curated, which is part of the reason why I’m wondering about the canonicity of the Batman crossover. Maybe the Mundane world wasn’t our world but the DC comics universe  |
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Quote:Originally Posted by dielinfinite Ah, when you said 'last year' I thought maybe it was a different one. The current one would have started last year, obviously. Or I just lost the thread. It's been a day. |
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