Fables Vol. 1: Legends in Exile
Posted in Graphic Novels on 20. Mar, 2010
- ISBN13: 9781563899423
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
$5.17
Product Description
When a savage creature known only as the Adversary conquered the fabled lands of legends and fairy tales, all of the infamous inhabitants of folklore were forced into exile. Disguised among the normal citizens of modern-day New York, these magical characters have created their own peaceful and secret society within an exclusive luxury apartment building called Fabletown. But when Snow White's party-girl sister, Rose Red, is apparently murdered, it is up to Fabletown's sheriff, a reformed and pardoned Big Bad Wolf, to determine if the killer is Bluebeard, Rose's ex-lover and notorious wife killer, or Jack, her current live-in boyfriend and former beanstalk-climber.
AWARDS:
YALSA: 2004 annual recommended list of Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers
·Willingham, Bill. Animal Farm (Fables series). DC Comics: Vertigo.
·Willingham, Bill. Legends in Exile (Fables series). DC Comics: Vertigo.
YALSA: 2007 Great Graphic Novels for Teens
·Willingham, Bill, Todd Klein, and others. Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall. 2006. DC Comics/ Vertigo
As of 2008, Fables has won twelve Eisner Awards.
·Best New Series in 2003
·Best Serialized Story in 2003, 2005 and 2006 (Legends In Exile, March of the Wooden Soldiers and Homelands)
·Best Anthology in 2007 (Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall)
·Best Short Story in 2007 (A Frog’s Eye View, by Bill Willingham and James Jean, in Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall)
Hugo Award Nomination 2009:
·Fables: War and Pieces was nominated for the first Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story
Fables Vol. 1: Legends in Exile
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This seems to be the latest book, following Planetary and League of Extraordinary Gentleman, that uses pop culture characters that we are all familiar with who’s copyrights have either passed or never existed. Now, instead of turn of the century Victorian Science Fiction characters and analogs of pulp novel men and Godzilla, we get the wonderful and fantastic world of fairy tales. All them adorable scamps and brutish rouges from our childhood all living together in a New York apartment building. Seem interesting enough.
It isn’t.
We’re introduced to this wacky and wondrous world of Disney sorts with the never-fail story type of a murder mystery, that, quiet frankly, fails in totality.
Of the short review that will soon follow, I will only give two story points as I do not wish to go over the whole of the book, but this is the forewarning of SPOILERS here, so take note if you were hoping to avoid them.
The story reads like stereo instructions as it appears to have no soul and plugs on at a tedious and almost mechanical pace. The story is the death of Rose Red who is Snow White’s sister with loose morals. Snow is the current head hauncho of the fairy tale ilk, and though she and her sister disagreed on most things, she still wants her sister’s killer found. This task is left up to Bigby, the big bad wolf now in human form, whose our gruff, constable apparent off to solve the mystery.
At no point is the investigation interesting or engaging, but is rather just an excuse to introduce us to the current incarnations of fairy tales most memorable all-stars, none of whom are all that interesting either. Everyone comes off as quite dull and very much like cliched Soap Opera characters. Its as if the writer thought it’d be interesting to infuse the Brother’s Grimm with Days Of Our Lives. The only character actually given any real meat to their, well, character is Bigby, but for all his bitter, disheveled, chain smoking, unshaven-nous, he just comes of as a generic John Constantine with lycanthropy.
Now for the two story points. I only point these out because they typified everything bad about this book.
See, when Rose Red was killed, all that was left was a bloody mess that covered the whole of her apartment’s living room, but no body. Now, the inquiries done by Bigby lead us from boring interview to boring interview that show reasons why this person or that person might want her dead, none of which are all that convincing or interesting, but the number one point in this story that can only be described as dumb is when Ol’ Bigby actually tries to do some forensic work.
See, the human body only holds so much blood (I believe the number given is 8 pints). Nevermind that humans vary in size, mind you, every human body holds exactly 8 pints of blood. The writer assures us of this.
So Bigby gets himself a clever idea. He gets 8 pints of blood and an apartment thats exactly the same size and with the same furnishings, then tells two hapless idiots to paint up this apartment to look the exact same and if they use more than 8 pints, then they’ll know that the murder was staged. Never mind the 8000 variables that could alter the two rooms blood stainings, the simplest being depth of pooling and that they’ll never be able to get it the exact same.
I hold the mediocrity of this to be self evident. If you just read the above plot point and didn’t shake your head and let out a small groan, then maybe you would actually like this book. But, if you function off of more than just your brainstem, then you see my point.
The second plot point that I will give away is that of the shocking twist ending (DUN DUN DUN). See, I was reading this in the same room as my friend who read it previous to me and I put the book down right before the last part and said “she’s not dead, is she?”
“What? How’d you guess that?”
“Because it’s the lamest thing they could possibly do. It’d be the `shocking twist’ the clever writer would hit his audience with just to show how one-step ahead he is.”
Yep. She ain’t dead. All of it was for naught. There was some reason that her and her lover forged it all, but it escapes me as it wasn’t very memorable. But you read some hundred plus pages of why the harlot was offed just to have the pleasant status quo realigned in Fairy Tale world. The characters seem to give off a horrid “that Rose Red. She got us,” kind of “aw shucks” moment and you almost expect them to laugh in unison like at the end of Super Friends. Its pretty bad.
The fact that this book is lauded by many just reassures me of the entropic state of comics. In a world where people pat this poorly conceived slop on the back and throw its name around with the likes of Watchmen just lends more to the argument that comics are a dying artform and, largely, the only one’s left reading them are the diehards who’d applaud anything just for being a comic. There are still good works out there being published. Read Planetary, 100 Bullets, Hellboy, Hellblazer, Goon and (loathe as I am to admit it) Daredevil. But if you have any respect for yourself as a comic fan, or even just respect for your collection, don’t bring down its total value by adding this crap to it.
Rating: 1 / 5
After years of holding out, I gave in. Friends, acquaintances, and reviewers had gone on and on about how Bill Willingham’s FABLES was the latest greatest thing in comics, so I decided to give FABLES VOLUME 1: LEGENDS IN EXILE a shot. I was severely let down. While Willingham’s premise for this series is very interesting (storybook characters living in present day New York City, exiled from their familiar fantasy lands by “The Adversary”), it isn’t the main focus of this particular story. Instead, this collection of the first 5 issues in the series is a boring and fairly predictable murder mystery; specifically, the investigation into the murder of Rose Red. It’s been a while since I refreshed myself on fairy tales, so I have no clue who Rose Red is, and Willingham doesn’t provide much information on her, or any other characters, in the book. So my main question upon finishing this book is: why am I reading crime fiction in the first story arc of a title called “Fables”? Furthermore, am I supposed to be interested in the murder of a character with whom I’m not familiar? This is not enough to keep me interested in this series. I have told the various people who recommended Fables that I am not continuing with it, and they all say, “Well, it gets much better as you go.” Sorry folks, but I can’t afford to keep dropping money on more trade paperbacks in the hopes that something will get better. On to other titles…
Rating: 2 / 5
100 Bullets had me very interested in the Vertigo comic series, that coupled with the fact the cover had quite nice art. Once I got in I found the concept to be pretty sound: Fairy tales characters all lived in a giant kingdom that was conquered so now they live in modern day new york. All the characters were there too… but despite all this Willingham decides to mess with original stories a bit to make things more interesting I suppose. That set me off from the begining.
I read on, hoping the end would justify the means. However, by the end of the book I felt all the characters were rather shallow, casting aside the myth behind them was fine, but not much work was done to build up the new characters beyond paper-cutter archetypes. I will try the second volume, but my hopes for this series have been violently dashed against the rocks.
Rating: 2 / 5
This is a great read. It is fun seeing childhood storybook characters in real world situations. Totally a fun read.
Rating: 5 / 5
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.
Rating: 4 / 5