Fables Vol. 1: Legends in Exile | Bill Willingham | Fairy Tales Take Manhattan: Engaging read!

Fables Vol. 1: Legends in Exile | Bill Willingham | You'll want more.

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Fables Vol. 1: Leg...

	Fables Vol. 1: Legends in Exile Bill Willingham Vertigo, 2002 - 128 pages average customer review:based on 51 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Fairy Tales Take Manhattan: Engaging read!

Fables 1: Legends in Exile by Bill Willingham, art by Lan Medina and Steve Leialoha is a beautifully illustrated tale of fairy tale characters living in New York. The story begins with Beauty and the Beast complaining to Snow White, the deputy mayor of Fabletown, about Beast's inability to go out in public because of his horns and furry face. He becomes less human and more beastly with Beauty's waxing and waning affection for him. Snow tells them to see a marriage counselor as Little Boy Blue escorts them to the door. Then the Bigby, the police chief formerly known as the Big Bad Wolf, informs Snow that her sister Rose Red is missing, possibly murdered, and the story kicks into high gear. The story is a standard crime drama, but with so many fairy tales characters thrown in, it's a wild ride. Cinderella kickboxes with Bluebeard. Rose Red was dating Jack the Giantkiller. Prince Charming is in town and planning to sell his castle and title. All of the fairy tale characters have been exiled from their lands by the Adversary, which explains their settlement in New York. Willingham ties the characters together giving them more backstory than we've learned from the Brothers Grimm or Hans Christian Anderson with rivalries, secret affairs, and fear. As Bigby and Snow work together to find out what happened to Rose, the chemistry between them crackles. The ending is entirely satisfying, and I couldn't wait to read the next book. The artwork is terrific, clean lines, beautiful colors, and the covers are outstanding. A word of warning: there is one completely gratuitous graphic sex scene, and several of the characters spew profanities.

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You'll want more.

Bill Willingham's FABLES series have received immense acclaim in the last few years as an original idea that appeals to all sorts of readers. The basic premise is that all of our favorite characters from the old fairy tales have been driven from their old homes and have taken up residence in New York City. These characters from legend do not always have the personality or history you'd expect from reading the old stories. Prince Charming is a notorious ladies man and moocher, who cheated on Snow White with Snow's own sister Rose Red. The prince who was cursed to live as a frog until a beautiful princess kissed him appears to have picked up some rather disgusting habits during his days as an amphibian (and thus earns the name 'Flycatcher'). Beauty and the Beast have some marital problems with rather dramatic effects on their happiness and the Beast's looks. And so on.. Willingham has created an intriguing world where he can develop characters from old tales into more believably fallible people. The rather risque behavior of some of the characters and the [almost] explicit nature of occasional sex scenes make these stories for a more mature audience than the tales these characters come from.

In this first volume, Willingham introduces a wide array of characters and hints at some extraordinarily entertaining stories to come. The only reason I'm giving this volume a 4-star rating is that the primary storyline (Who Killed Rose Red?) isn't very good, being predicable and non-engaging. It seems that Bill began with this rather dull story to give the reader the feel of day-to-day life in Fabletown and to allow introduction of many or its residents. Snow White and Bigby Wolf are especially well-developed here and will likely take on primary roles in the other FABLE titles.

The most attractive aspect of the FABLES series is the humanization of creatures and characters from storybooks that we read as children. Rose Red as a party girl and the Big Bad Wolf as a chain-smoking, no-nonsense detective are strangely attractive.

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who's afraid of the big bad wolf!?

this was a very interesting read.I enjoyed it, it was a nice change form the typical fairytale story. The art work was descent and had a fare ammount of details.
over all it was good...I can't wait to read the whole series.

And this is a comic book?

First off, I need to come right out and say this book was an absolute surprise. I had heard about the series but no one told me it was in comic book form. I was a little stunned at first,but by the middle of the book I was totally enthralled. The story line is priceless. The author uses every fairytale, fable and obscure nursery rhyme character there is and makes The Young & The Restless look like Leave It To Beaver. I am not going to tell you the plot because it wouldnt do any justice to whats really going on. I have read the other reviews and I still wasnt prepared for it. I've only read the first two books and I cant wait to get the rest of the series. enjoy!

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