Fables: Animal Farm

Comics again this week, and I continue my reading of story lines everyone else read 10 years ago with Fables: Animal Farm, the second collection of the ongoing Fables series.

After introducing us to the likes of, among others, Snow White, King Cole, Prince Charming and Beauty and her Beast in first volume Fables in Exile it's now time to meet those Fables who can't really be expected to blend in to a normal New York setting. Yes, it's off to The Farm, to meet giants, dragons, a certain 3 pigs, and of course some porridge loving bears; one of whom has a more than platonic friendship going on with a certain blonde haired petty thief. Yes, they go there.

Following her actions in the first volume, Snow White decides that Rose Red needs straightening out, so it's family outing time as she drags her wayward sister along for the ride on her annual inspection of The Farm. Before they ever arrive though, Snow is convinced that something is wrong, and when they are greeted by a populace acting very strangely indeed her suspicions would seem to be confirmed. But just what is going on with the non-human fables? And will Snow and Rose be able to set aside their differences long enough to sort things out?

It seems that some of the fables confined to the farm are a little fed up of their lot; if they can't live openly in this world, then they want to return to their homelands. The Fable government won't allow this, at least not yet, so there is only one thing for it; armed revolution.

Having the 3 pigs; or 2 of them at least; as revolutionary ring leaders is, one suspects, one of the easier choices Bill Willingham had to make in the writing of this story but his choices of who else to include within the rebel party may surprise. While some are already villains in their original tales, such as Shere Kahn of Jungle Book fame; or, as in the case of the monkey king from that same tale, at the very least mischievous; others are very much the heroes and/or heroines of their stories. Indeed, one such 'heroine' is portrayed as the biggest psychopath of the entire tale, and it is glorious. She comes this close to stealing the show.

For a story that features the 3 little pigs as major players and has Chicken Little as it's comedy relief, this is pretty dark stuff. The revolutionaries are not messing about, with one minor character from the first book being dealt a nasty death early on, to reinforce that fact, and a truly shocking moment at the climax of the penultimate issue contained in this collection that I guarantee will make you sit up and swear at the page. Not to mention the aftermath; we get a reminder that the worlds these characters come from are not the sanitised, whitewashed, Disney-fied worlds of today's fairy tales when the heroes flat out execute the captured rebels. This is harsh reading.

Snow learns the truth. Or some of it.

One of the major villains gets away at the end; and it's my favourite, so I look forward to their future mis-deeds with some glee; but for the most part we see the status quo restored. One suspects this is a temporary measure however, because many seeds are sown that would seem to indicate troubled times ahead.

More to the point, we get a conversation that would indicate that a Fables immortality may well be linked to how powerful a hold they have over the public consciousness; so if your name is on every pre-schoolers lips and Disney are prepping a blu-ray of your animated classic, you can pretty much rest easy but if not... don't go getting into any duels any time soon. This conversation seems designed, at least to my tired and easily confused brain, to let us know someone major is going to die soon, and set us to guessing as to which major characters within the series are 'famous' enough to be safe. We'll see.

All told, this is another fabulous run of issues from the Fables team, and its easy to see from this just why the series has proven so massively popular over the years since; I for one am looking forward to seeing what new avenues will be explored, now that all of the characters, both human and non-human, have been introduced.

Join me here next week for, in a slight change of pace, The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets Nest. No pigs, bears, or beautiful princesses in that one.

Fables: Legends In Exile

The Big Bad Wolf teams up with Snow White, both under the employ of Old King Cole, to investigate the disappearance and possible murder of Rose Red.


Suspects include Bluebeard and Jack (of Beanstalk fame, amongst other things). Oh, and Snow White herself, for a while.

The pair are distracted by; the return to town of Snow's ex-husband Prince Charming, her having to deal with the marital problems of Beauty and the Beast and him having his sofa invaded by one of the Three Little Pigs; and numerous other bumps in the road.

Are you laughing yet, shaking your head in disbelief at the notion that this story was ever written? I'm sure that was the reaction of many people when the Vertigo comic series Fables was first launched, all those years ago; I know I certainly had less than positive expectations when I first heard about it. Happily though, I am a terrible 'trade-waiter' when it comes to comics and not even a particularly efficient one either so by the time I came to thinking about adding a new series to my reading list Fables had been around a good while and the almost universal praise being thrown it's way convinced me to give it a go. I adored it from the off.

SNOW WHITE
All of these characters, and many more, are being forced to co-exist in a small immigrant community in New York because they have been forced from their respective homelands by a fearsome all-conquering enemy known only as 'The Adversary'. Far from a cohesive race, they are constantly dealing with a lot of old tensions, that no amount of general amnesties can expunge. This means that despite his working as the Sheriff, 'Bigby' Wolf is still mistrusted by many of those he wronged in his days as 'Big Bad Wolf'; the thought of Rose Red having a relationship with Bluebeard (he of the unfortunate wives) rubs Snow White up the wrong way; and the wicked old witch of yore is questioned, lest she have 'grown tired of the taste of gingerbread'. As who-dunnits go, it's a doozy.

BIGBY WOLF
The key to the whole thing is that it is played totally straight. We all know, as readers, that the premise is ridiculous, but this series works because the creators say "yes, it is a ridiculous premise but if it weren't; if these characters were real, what would they be like and if they were forced to live in secret among normal folk, what effect would that have on them? Personally, I'm a big fan of taking the ridiculous seriously; two of my favourite TV shows had premises which, when you read them on paper seemed like something you'd see in a half hour kids slot but when produced, by a team that took them seriously, became fantastic mature drama. I speak of 'the college student who is really a secret agent for the Government' (Alias) and 'the High School student who is actually a crack PI' (Veronica Mars). With that in mind, I probably should have given the creators of Fables more of the benefit of the doubt from the get-go but, you know, we all have our lines in the sand.

This 1st storyline, which comprised issues 1-5 of the ongoing comic, and is collected in the trade paperback Legends In Exile, is a pretty much textbook example of how to kickstart a 'hopefully' long running series, the who-dunnit aspect allowing the reader to be introduced to all (or most; my personal favourite makes her debut in the 2nd arc) of the major players because they are all investigated at one point or another. That aside, it also works as a standalone story. The who-dunnit works as precisely that, with a mystery to be solved, a cast of characters to choose from and a 'while I have you all here' denouement that is not only funny and charming, but also makes perfect sense. All the clues were there (some of them on page 1, you'll kick yourself), the story hangs together nicely, and it's clear that this is a writer who knew exactly what he was doing from the outset.

So, if you can put aside any anti-comics prejudice, and put aside any anti-fairytale prejudice, you could do an awful lot worse than check out Fables: Legends In Exile, for a proper, meaty, clever thriller. And do stick around, because things only get wilder in the 2nd arc.