Trade Waiting Retrospective: Fables

Fables by Bill Willingham

Words cannot adequately express my love for Bill Willingham’s Fables.  I have read the eleven available trades, the special edition book of side stories, and four trades of its spin-off, Jack of Fables, and I find myself incredibly depressed to learn that it will be months before I get another volume.  In recent years, fairy tales have made a comeback in popular literature.  Gregory Maguire has launched a career reworking classic fairy tales, and other authors are following suit.  I even took a college course devoted entirely to fairy tales.  While I hope that this resurgence in interest in classic children’s stories doesn’t become overdone, I’m loving it while its still fun and Fables is one of the funnest comics I’ve ever read.

Fables presents a world where fairy tale characters live in a specific neighborhood in New York City known as Fabletown.  Those characters that can’t pass as human (such as the Three Little Pigs) are forced to live on the Farm, Fabletown’s massive farm in upstate New York.  The series stars an ensemble cast that are slowly introduced over the first few trades, as are bits of backstory and history.  The Fables have been driven from their Homelands by a mysterious and all-powerful Adversary.  The different arcs present the overall goal of all characters, which is to return to the Homelands, and while numerous characters are presented, a few strong leaders present themselves.  Snow White is the deputy mayor of Fabletown, the Big Bad Wolf (now Bigby) is sherrif, Prince Charming is seeking to become the new mayor, Boy Blue is the town’s main errand runner, and Snow’s estranged sister Rose Red is the leader of the Farm.

Fairy tales all follow a pretty standard formula.  There are only a few characters, with very few actually being given names.  There’s the good girl, there is the wicked girl (or stepmother), and a trickster figure somewhere in between.  Most male and female fairy tale characters fall into one of these catagories.  Something traumatic happens, typically with the nice character being victimized by the bad character, the good character flees “into the woods” where he/she faces tribulations typically by threes, learns to stand up for themselves, and returns to assert their new authority and independence.  Fables does not follow this exactly, but similar themes are followed.  All of the characters are various shades of grey, neither completely good or bad.  Willingham even makes characters that you should hate likeable.  Prince Charming is the best example of this.  Thrice divorced, shaking up with any woman with money that he can steal, he is a horrible excuse for a human being.  But he is still immensely likeable.

One great aspect of Fables is that nearly every arc is presented as a specific type of genre fiction.  The first arc is a murder mystery, with the last issue actually being called “The Parlor Scene” where everything is revealed.  The second arc is the story of a revolution, a modern retelling of Orwell’s Animal Farm.  There are romances, there are intrigue stories, there are war stories.  All different story telling methods are employed, but they never seem disconnected from each other.  The whole work flows together beautifully.  As the story progresses, the rules of how the universe works are shown, and they are reminiscent of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods.  The Fables have powers that normal people (we’re known as mundies) believe them to have, and the more widely known the Fable is, the more powerful they are.  A character takes a bullet to the head, but because everyone knows her story, she makes a perfect recovery.  There is another case where characters die, but someone has to fill their place in the stories.  This sort of meta-level examination of literature is fascinating.  Jack of Fables, the spin-off series featuring Jack of beanstalk fame, goes even further, developing a race called Literals, personification of literary devices like the pathetic fallacy (giving human emotions to inanimate objects).

I would recommend this to anyone who loves comics, and to those that have never read comics before.  Because the characters are those that everyone knows, but in new situations, it is immediately accessible and highly addictive.  I recommend this to everyone because anyone who loves to read will find pleasure in thinking about what the characters of their favorite stories are up to after the “Happily Ever After.”  There are some minor language, sexual, and violence issues, but nothing horribly offensive.  The only problem I have known people to have with the series is having to wait for more.  I’ve long said that comics are a deep, dark hole, and amazing series like Fables are the reasons I never want to find my way out.  Until next time, folks.

Airborn

Airborn by Kenneth Oppel

Matt Cruse is a cabin boy aboard the airship Aurora, a dirigible filled with the lighter then air gas, hydrium. He yearns to move up in rank and become an assistant sailmaker, a person who attends and repairs the giant gas cells that keep the ship afloat, just like his deceased father. Matt’s adventure starts when he encounters an elderly balloonist in a dramatic midair rescue attempt. The balloonist eventually dies soon after confiding in Matt about strange creatures hereto undiscovered; creatures that live their whole lives in the open air. Six months later Matt encounters the balloonists granddaughter, Kate de Vries, on a trip to Australia, and discovers that not only does she share his curiosity about the mysterious creatures but plans on finding evidence of their existence. In the meantime Matt discovers he won’t get promoted because a young man of wealth and connection, Bruce Lunardi, has been placed as the new junior sailmaker. To top it off Matt and the airship encounter pirates and are eventually shipwrecked on a uncharted island that may hold the proof of the airborn creatures they’ve been looking for. But the island holds many dangers that will test their ingenuity, courage, and may hasten the end of their mortality.

This was an enjoyable novel that is in the tradition of old swashbuckler movies, and the works of Robert Louis Stevenson. The novel keeps a good balance between its action scenes and character development. The reader not only becomes invested in the plot, the predicaments (of which there are many) that the characters find themselves in, but also in the characters themselves, how they grow and change because of the situations they face. The only defect is that the novel slows down a bit in the middle, but it’s redeemed by a rousing, action packed conclusion.

I’d recommend it for anyone 12 and up, especially those who are interested in pirates and classic adventure yarns.

Eclipse

Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer

What is it about vampires that people find sexy? I’ve never quite understood the fascination with being made the meal of a blood-thirsty creature of the night. Anne Rice certainly made a career out of showing the exotic side of vampires, and now Stephenie Meyer has done the same thing for the young adult audience.

This series is quickly becoming a juggernaut. If it will ever overtake Harry Potter in terms of ubiquitous popularity remains to be seen, but these books are insanely popular. Eclipse is the third in the series, and like Harry Potter, they must be read in order. Twilight, New Moon, and now Eclipse follow the exploits of Bella Swan, who moves to Forks, Washington, to live with her sheriff father. Once in school, she becomes enamoured with a family of extremely beautiful brothers and sisters, and begins a relationship with the most beautiful, Edward. This relationship is immediately the only thing in Bella’s life, and all of her other relationships are jeopardized. Edward’s desire for Bella goes beyond just her personality, as it turns out he’s a vampire, but they manage to make it work. That is until they have a big dramatic break-up, Bella runs off with a friend of hers, Jacob, who turns out to be a werewolf. Thus, the horrible question is presented: which creature of the night will she chose to love?

InterWorld

InterWorld

Neil Gaiman’s new young adult novel, InterWorld, written with Michael Reaves, is a fast paced story involving magic, technology, and alternate universes. What isn’t to like? I read that it was originally written as a television pilot that Gaiman shopped around for a long time but it never got made. It reads a great deal like a television show. It’s very action oriented, fast and loose, without a heavy emphasis on character development.

Our main character is Joey Harker. Joey is introduced as normal kid who suddenly develops the power to ‘walk.’ No, Joey isn’t a really slow learner, he has the ability to walk between dimensions. InterWorld presents an Altiverse where parallel realities exist right next door to each other. There are two ends of this Altiverse, one ruled by magic while the other end is ruled by science. The closer a reality is to either end, the stronger that facet holds sway. Technology doesn’t work close to the magic end while spells don’t work well near the science end. The two camps fight for the realities that are in the middle and are basically neutral. InterWorld is an organization meant to keep the balance. Madness ensues.

The book was a lot of fun. Joey meets lots of his alternate selves, some being female, one is a robot, some have wings and other magic powers. All realities have a Joey that develops the power to walk, and both sides fight to take control of the walkers to power their interdimensional transporters. The set-up of science versus magic is nice, if a little boring. The potential to show amazing, bizarre alternate worlds is great, but the focus of the book is Joey’s training to be an agent for the InterWorld. All sorts of stereotypical cop-movie events happen – Big Mean Seargent: You’ll never be good enough! Older Wiser But Snarkier Rookie: You’re not man enough to fill Alternate Joey #117’s shoes.

This isn’t to say that I didn’t enjoy the book. I’m a sucker for alternate realities, and as such, it’s a fun little romp through a motley of different worlds. There are seeds for further books, but so far Gaiman has not said if there will be more. There are hints at a greater battle coming up, which could be an interesting development.

Final Word: Fun, action-packed romp through alternate universes. Magic versus technology battle is interesting, although it’s been done before. Great start to a potential series. Looking forward to see how the future plays out for Joey.

Snake Agent

Snake Agent by Liz Williams

Meet Inspector Chen, the Singapore police department’s snake agent. A snake agent is the detective in charge of all supernatural disturbances. Chen can literally go to Heaven or Hell, speak with ghosts, and even partner with another detective, one who just happens to be a demon! Chen isn’t like other snake agents though. He is somewhat of free thinker and has even married a demon whom he aided to escape from hell.

Liz Williams has done a masterful job of updating the detective genre. She has mingled it with horror, through the supernatural, and fantasy by drawing on a rich tapestry of eastern mythology, as well a dash of sci-fi with very cool technology. The best part that I personally enjoyed is the dynamic relationship between Heaven, Hell, and Earth. This isn’t a three tiered universe with Heaven above us, or Hell below, but rather all three are next door to one another. Just because you can’t see it, doesn’t mean you might not just step into Hell around the next street corner. Instead of having these realms in a hierarchical scheme, Heaven, Hell, and Earth all contribute to a overall balance. In this light Chen becomes more of a protector of this balance then a harbinger of justice.

On the other hand, this book did take me a while to get into, almost a hundred pages. This could very well be because it is the first of a series and therefore has to set the ground rules of this new literary world. But once I was hooked I kept on wanting to open up the cover and read any chance I could. If this creative amalgam sounds like fun, take a chance and pick up a copy.