Fables #1 - Chapter One: Old Tales Revisited

So, this week, I'm going to kick off our comic venture with one of my all-time favorite books, Fables. I first got exposed to this book via Wizard Magazine, and I was hooked from the start. I've always had a great love and passion for folk tales and fairy tales, so this just hit the spot for me.

This issue of Fables was written by Bill Willingham(creator & writer of the series; you may know him from a few Vertigo books or from his 2004-2006 run on Robin) with art by Lan Medina & Steve Leialoha.

Now, this is the first time I've done something like this, so I'm not 100% sure how far I should go with spoilers, at least with these older issues (I'll definitely avoid them or put up spoiler tags for the newer issues, but that's a ways away yet), so please let me know if you think I'm giving away too much of the story.

Our story opens in the only way a book about fables could: "Once upon a time. In a fictional land called New York City." Yep, we're not in the old fairy tale world, we're in Manhattan, following a cab speeding through the streets. We see the driver being berated for going too slowly by his passenger, and the cab pulls up to the corner of Bullfinch Street and Kipling Street, home of The Woodland Luxury Apartments, home to the well-to-do fables & the Fabletown government.

Let me back up just a smidgen, though. Those street names are part of the reason why I love Willingham and this book. He named them after two prominent writers, one of whom you probably got, Kipling for Rudyard Kipling, author of The Jungle Book, Gunga Din, Kim, and many other pieces of work. The Bullfinch is for Thomas Bulfinch, author of Bulfinch's Mythology, a series on mythology and legend. I thought it was especially fitting for this book as the first volume of his work is called The Age of Fable, or Stories of Gods and Heroes.

Alright, back to our story. A young man leaps out of the cab, leaving only a $.25 tip, and he barrels into the Woodland Luxury Apartment. We find out that this fellow is Jack. He's heading upstairs to the office of one B. Wolf, Head of Fabletown Security. Yep, Bigby Wolf, otherwise known as the Big Bad Wolf who terrorized the three little pigs, is head of security.

He looks like he's stepped out of a Bogart film or a Mickey Spillane novel; his office is sparse apart from his trench coat hanging on a hat rack, coffee maker on the sidebar, file cabinet and a cork board covered with notes behind his desk.

Bigby and Jack (who we find is Jack from Jack & the Beanstalk; in later issues, we also find he's pretty much every Jack from every fairy tale & story every written) exchange some verbal spars before Jack tells Bigby that there's been a terrible crime.

Cut to the Business Office of S. White. Snow White has got her hands full this morning, dealing with the marital problems of Beauty & the Beast. It seems whenever they fight, his curse comes back and he starts turning all beasty again. This makes for horrible problems for the Fabletown community, as Snow tells the couple, and she informs them that if he can't get his problem under control or if he can't purchase an appearance concealing glamour from one of the witches, they'll be shipped up north to the farm where all nonhuman fables live.

Through the exposition of this scene, Willingham gives us a lot of crucial info to digest in a matter of a couple of pages. The fables all escaped from some Big Bad called the Adversary; the majority of them only escaped with their lives, leaving their fortunes behind. They manage to live in their little community in the middle of Manhattan by segregating the nonhuman fables from the human fables. And, in one of my favorite moments, we find that although King Cole is the Mayor of Fabletown, Snow is the one who really runs things. Cole glad hands and is the face of the Fabletown government, but as soon as its him and Snow, he always defers to her opinion in all matters. Not exactly the Snow White we're used to from the Disney film, and that's why I love it.

Oh, and one more thing about Snow: never mention the dwarves. We don't find out why in this issue, but in the stand-alone book, 1001 Nights of Snowfall, we do learn the full story. I may post some pages from that, if there's an interest.

We get briefly introduced to Prince Charming, Snow White's ex-husband, and he's pretty much everything you'd expect from a fairy tale prince. He's all flirt and flair, but he's kind of hit rough times. As Snow says, "Apparently, he managed to finally wear out his welcome among even the most inbred elements of European royalty."

And then the story goes back to Bigby. He has some bad news for Snow: her sister, Rose Red, is missing and has possibly been attacked. That's the reason Jack came to the offices; he's her boyfriend, and he found her apartment in a mess with blood everywhere (As an aside, reason #2 that I love Willingham so much is he remembered Rose Red; so many versions of the Snow White story leave her out, and this actually comes into play in the book).

Of course, Snow is greatly upset when she sees Rose's apartment. There's hardly a spot that isn't covered in blood, and written on the wall in blood are the words "No more happily ever after." It doesn't look good for either Fabletown or for Rose.

Bigby instructs Jack to keep Snow out of the apartment, telling him to remove her physically if he has to, and, of course & justifiably, Snow doesn't appreciate that. Bigby investigates the apartment, and in a drawer, he finds a hinge and lock that fit onto the holes he found on the freezer door in the kitchen. We don't know why, but this piece of evidence leads him to arresting Jack. Jack, being the ass he is, tries to fight back, but of course Bigby overpowers him, nonplussed. The issue ends with Snow asking, "Is he the one?" and Bigby replying, "We'll see."

Willingham takes all these stories and the tropes associated with them, and turns them onto their ear. I love how he takes these one-dimensional characters like Snow White & the Big Bad Wolf and makes them into fully-fledged characters that we can relate to. I truly feel the characters are the strongest point to Fables. Yes, the stories are amazing, but I come back for the characters. I know a lot of people feel that Fables is not as strong of a book now as it was when it debuted in 2002, but I just don't feel that way. I can't see myself dropping this book for anything.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this exploration of the first issue of Fables. Please leave me any thoughts or ideas of how I could improve this (I'm just winging it right now until I find my groove), and I'd love to hear any ideas you have for this blog. I'm still working out a schedule of what I'm going to cover each day, and, hopefully, I'll get more into the swing of things shortly, and there will be daily posts.