4-6 Vertigo: Fables

4. Fables 1: Legends in Exile

5. Fables 2: Animal Farm

6. Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall

By Bill Willingham

These three graphic novels include the first two in the "Fables" series, and the "Special Edition" graphic novel. As a begining series, Fables isn't bad, but its not great. Theres a little too much reliance on the clever references and so far, the characters remain shallow. Its as if Willingham is willing to give them a new life with new personality traits which are the result of living for a few hundred years, but they basically remain simplistic and two-dimensional. The murder-mystery plot of Fables 1 gets the story started, but isn't very engaging. The ironic thing is that the most interesting thing about the story are the veiled references to "The Advesary" - the mythical evil force that conquered the fantasy lands drove the Fable characters into the "real world". The few clues we get about this story are enough to continue on with the series.

Fables 2 picks up where the first left off, and is marginally better. The momentum of the series begins in this one when the non-human fables begin a rebellion against the humans who keep them tucked away on a farm. Again, the characters aren't very complex, - it would be more interesting, I think, to have seen these characters in a more human light- a difficult task though, to create a complex 'real' character out of an archetype from a kid's story.

Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall is a different story. This is a beautifully illustrated series of short stories, each one with a different guest artist, including Jill Thomposon and Esao Andrews, who is one of my favorite illustrators. Willingham uses the Sheherezad template to tell the 'inbetween' stories of his fable characters (what happened to them between the fables we know and the comic series). Some of these stories are interesting and fun (like Snow White's Revenge story), some are creepy and uncomfortable (The Frog Prince's family meets an unpleasant end), and some are silly and fun.

The results of the collaboration between Willingham and all of these artists succeeds exactly where Flight 3 failed- the book is a compalation of stories from multiple talents, woven into a single theme. Granted, this book has the advantage of a single author's vision.

1001 Nights is a good read, even if you haven't read the rest of the Fables comcis (or if you only read the first two). The series itself gets off to a mediocre start. I will pick up the next few on my next trip back to the states - it looks like it has potential.

3. Flight 3

The original Flight is a pretty interesting story of innovation - and by that I mean how the actual graphic novel came about. A bunch of web comic artists who met online got together and decided to pool their collective talents to produce their own graphic novel. They used the popularity of their own sites as well as other linking sites to produce the book. Each artist contributed a short story which may or may not have had something to do with the word "flight". At least, it seems to me, that was part of the idea behind the original, but it doesn't seem to say anything about that on the website. Nor does it seem to have become a general theme of the series.

I really enjoyed reading Flight because of the idea of it- and some of the stories were actually pretty good. Flight 2 felt like a bit repetitive and less innovative. By the time we get to Flight 3 we know the deal, its not innovative anymore, and all we're looking for is good art and good stories. Hard to find in this one.

It seems to me that short stories are harder to write than full length ones. There is little time for character or plot development, and without just enough of both they tend to fall flat. The other problem i find is that new short fiction writers are too easily drawn to the Twilight Zone ending. Instead of creating a story that's memorable, they spend the entire plot working up to a memorable ending- which ends up not being that memorable at all. I guess I'm also sort of twist-ending-ed out.

Not all of the stories in Flight 3 relied on that device, but unfortunately, there were very few stories in here that were actually memorable. In fact, I haven't gotten up from my seat to get the book yet, and I'm having a hard time remembering which stories were worth reading.

Some of the stories had beautifully done artwork and some of the stories had intriguing ideas. unfortunately, only one or two of them had both. I was about to go into more specifics about the individual stories, but I think it would just be a better use of our time to sum the whole book up in one word: "meh".