“Fables” – If you’re not reading this, you should be
I used to be a big comic book reader. I got started rather late in my youth, and really the only reason I did was because a kid in my neighborhood was getting rid of his collection. I think I was about twelve or thirteen at the time, and when I saw his big box of books I was amazed at the variety of stories I saw contained therein. Up until then all I’d read were books, stuff like C.S. Lewis’ Narnia novels and the Xanth series. It wasn’t that I looked down on comics or anything, I’d just never really considered them. I figured they were all super hero stuff, and at the time that wasn’t my thing.
I later learned differently. When I looked into the box of comics he was selling, I saw stuff like Elf Quest, which I never imagined existed. There were also X-Men books and Superman, all of which I came to love too, but Elf Quest blew my mind. It was like all the D&D games I’d played, but in picture form, and I was stunned.
I continued to read comics for many long years after that, right up until I was about 24 or so. And, when I quit, it wasn’t because I no longer liked them – no, it was because I was tired of feeling like a money machine whose sole purpose was to line publishers pockets. It seemed like every issue had to come in either a variety of covers, bagged with collectable cards, or the series had to be rebooted so that a new #1 issue could be released, and being the hardcore collector I was, I had to have them all. Finally it all got to be too much. I stopped reading them, I stopped going to my local comic shop, and I pretty much put them right out of my mind. I didn’t look back for years.
Cut to several months ago. I started listening to a podcast called Geekdrome (it is no longer “on the air” as it were), and in one of their segments they would talk about comic books. I didn’t really paid that part of the show much mind, but when they started talking about comic books for people who don’t like comics they mentioned a title I once loved called Preacher (I’ll talk about that one in another post). That mention caught my attention, so when they talked about other interesting titles, it piqued my curiosity. I decided to research some of the books they were talking about.
Here I need to talk about a related topic for a moment. That topic is trades. See, as you probably know, comic book issues come out once a month, with each book being but one chapter in a longer story. Reading comics by the issue is great if you want to keep up with a story as its published, but once you get behind or come into a story late and want to catch up, getting all those back issues can be problematic, as most shops don’t keep previous issues of most books, and even if they did the cost might be prohibitive. That is where trades come in. Trades are a collection of comic book issues (usually about six issues) bound together in one volume. They are wonderful for a number of reasons. For one, they are extremely easy to get. Most comic book shops keep a healthy collection of them in stock, as do your larger book stores, and Amazon has them by the railroad car load. For another, the price is usually really reasonable for everything that you’re getting. Another thing I like is that I can get concentrated doses of a story without a lot of hassle. So, trades are a great way of catching up with a comic book series if you came to it late in the game or after it finished its run.
I bring all that up because right now I’m in the midst of a fantastic series of comics called “Fables” published by Vertigo (an indie label for D.C. Comics), and I never would have been able to do so were it not for Geekdrome telling me about the series, and for the fact that they are available in trade format. Simply put, Fables is about… gosh, how do you put something like this simply? Okay, here we go. Imagine that all of the fairy tales and mythological stories you ever heard were real. Red Riding Hood, Pinocchio, Old King Cole, Cinderella, all of them, real, and that all of them existed in another dimension, another realm, called the Homelands. And then imagine that one day those Homelands are attacked by an enemy as mysterious as he is powerful, his forces sweeping through all of the lands that the fables inhabit. In the face of certain destruction, every fable that can flees their home. Some stay and fight where they can, but most flee their Homeland, going through portals that bring them to our world. The Fables comic book starts in modern times, with the fables living in a private neighborhood in New York City called Fabletown, where they have lived since the city was first started. They each have lives, loves, jobs, and pretty much do as we “mundies” do, save for the fact that they are practically immortal and have access to powers and spells. The non-human fables, save for those who can change to look human or who have spells cast to turn them human, live in a secluded area in upstate New York called The Farm. All of them have to deal with being magical beings in a non-magical world, and there is always the looming threat of the Adversary, whom they fear will one day come to Earth to get them. But, until then, they have other problems to deal with, and deal with them they do.
The Fables series was created and written by Bill Willingham, and the man is a genius. His ability to write for such a strange and diverse cast of characters is amazing, and he never takes the easy way out in his stories. Everyone seems so real, in spite of the fantasy that surrounds them, and my hat is off to him for weaving such an engrossing story. I am never let down. Ever. One of the best comic book series I have ever had the pleasure to read. Most of the art is handled by Mark Buckingham, and it works perfectly in tandem with Willingham’s prose. Other artists drift in and out of the books, but it is Buckingham who gives the series its style. He marries the real and the fantastic brilliantly. I love looking through each and every panel, because he puts so much detail into them. Every page is a treat.
Anyway, I think I’ve gushed enough for one day. Do yourself a favor, and pick up this series. I do not see how you could be disappointed. I know I haven’t been thus far.
It IS crazy, but often from such madness comes genius, and in this series that is exactly what you get. It certainly isn’t for everyone, though. I would recommend to everyone that they at least get the first trade to try it out. It doesn’t cost much, so the time and money investment is minimal, but the rewards could be huge.
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