Peter & Max: A Fables Novel
Posted in Graphic Novels on 12. Apr, 2010
- ISBN13: 9781401215736
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
$11.49
Product Description
A new stand-alone FABLES NOVEL from award-winning and wildly acclaimed author, Bill Willingham.
This story stars Peter Piper and his incorrigible brother Max in a tale about jealousy, betrayal and revenge. Set in two distinct time periods, prepare to travel back to medieval times and learn the tragic back-story of the Piper family, a medieval-era family of traveling minstrels. Then, jump into the present to follow a tale of espionage as Peter Piper slowly hunts down his evil brother for a heinous crime, pitting Peter's talents as a master thief against Max's dark magical powers.
Based on the long-running and award-winning comic book series FABLES, PETER AND MAX is its own tale. Readers don't have to be familiar with the comics to fully enjoy and understand this book.
AWARDS for FABLES:
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
Peter & Max: A Fables Novel
Related posts:
.jpg "Marvel (17)")
I am a fan of Fables. Mr Willingham took one of the stupidest concepts ever and made it into a compelling world that I look forward to visiting every few months when a new graphic novel comes out. This book just proved that Willingham doesn’t need the artists to make up for any weaknesses in his storytelling ability. Peter and Max follows the adventures of Peter and Max Piper, and their ultimate conflict. Bill does a wonderful job of incorporating all of the legends that reference Peter or Pipers in general, he’ll pick a pepper, the pied piper will do what he was famous for etc… If you are a fan of the Fables series I cannot recommend this highly enough, if you are not this is as good a place to start as any, and might be a little less overwhelming as there aren’t that many characters within this book. Also, there is less interaction between the Fables and modernity in this book, it pretty much reads as straight fantasy. Wonderful story that hooked me after about twenty pages, a great read and I highly recommend it.
Rating: 5 / 5
I haven’t read comic books in over 20 years, and had never heard of the Fables comic line this novel is based upon. I also initially wondered why, with all the possible fairy tale characters out there, Willingham had chosen to focus his tale on the tongue-twistered Peter Piper. So, I was a bit skeptical when I first picked this up to read. But, I thoroughly enjoyed it, and was relieved that I didn’t need to have read the comic books to do so!
The story and characters, if not terribly complex, are entirely imaginative and entertaining. And, kept me turning the pages, even when I should have been sleeping. Willingham is somehow able to combine taking his characters plight seriously with a tongue-in-cheek, dry wit that pokes fun at the zany world he’s created – which makes it all the more enjoyable.
While the main storyline is about Peter and his brother Max’s rivalry, a whole cast of fairy tale characters make an appearance (Snow White, Red Rose, the Wicked Witch, Beauty & the Beast, Bo Peep, ….). The fun part is that now they’re all living together in Fabletown in a modern New York, having joined together to escape an evil adversary.
The ending was a little predictable, but it did resolve as a fairy tale should. And, after finishing this quick-read, I felt indeed that I’d just read a good, imaginative fairy tale.
A Favorite Line: “Fable women tend to be ‘the fairest in all the land’, which loses much of it’s cachet when you have hundreds of such beauties crowded into such a small neighborhood.”
Bottom Line: A clever, fun fairy tale whether you read the comics it’s based upon or not. Particularly recommended for anyone who enjoys fairy tale re-tellings like Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (Harper Fiction) or Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister: A Novel.
Rating: 4 / 5
I’m a huge fairy tale fan and being a long time comic book reader as well I’ve been familiar with Steve Leialoha’s work for ages. This is a great combination of beautiful storytelling and illustrations. A bit on the dark side, not probably good for small kids but fine for older kids. No sexual content but some nasty language near the end and one brief graphic murder near the begining.
Wonderful writing and a facisnating tale thorwing all kinds of fairy tales into the mix. What a great read! I’ll be looking into more stuff by this author.
Rating: 4 / 5
I’m pretty certain that almost everyone picking this up comes to it after having first read the ongoing “Fables” comic book series created and written by Willingham. Amazing stuff it is, and thoroughly satisfying on many levels. You needn’t have been following that series to enjoy this current tale, but I believe that your enjoyment will be greatly enhanced if you’ve gone through at least a few of the trade paperback collections. Many of the characters in this novel are new to the world of “Fables”, but a few of them are key players in the series, and your reaction to some of them, particularly Frau Totenkinder, will be more nuanced from exposure to the main saga.
That being said, this tale stands on its own quite nicely. The first few pages seem a bit awkward, but thereafter the story finds its feet, as it were, and then it’s off to the races. The adventures of Peter, Max, and Bo are briskly and efficiently related, and with some periodic degree of whimsy and lyricism. The characters act as their nature as Fables dictates they must–they are not like us, the so-called mundanes, but rather they have vast passions and are quick to act, and fight, and love, and they don’t spend a great deal of time in soul-searching or enmeshed in angst. Max, in particular, is an interesting character, who turns to evil not through malevolent ambitions to conquer or inherent psychopathy or because of a series of tragedies, but almost simply because it appeared to be in his nature and his destiny to become so, since his archetype called for it.
The text is nicely complemented by the Leialoha illustrations–I’ve been a big fan since way back to his work on “Spider-Woman”.
Strongly recommended that if you enjoy this, you pick up the TPBs that collect the “Fables” comic books to date (Vertigo is very good about putting out new volumes pretty frequently, so you needn’t buy the individual issues to stay current).
Rating: 4 / 5
Peter & Max retells the story of the Pied Piper in the Fables universe created by the author. While some familiarity with the series will help on some of the plot points it isn’t absolutely necessary. However, without the connections to rest of the Fables body of work, this is just an average story. The writing is ok but not great but much of the character development of the secondary characters seems geared for those who are already familiar with them from the graphic novels. Overall, its an entertaining if inessential part of the Fables work that could leave those not familiar with the graphic novels cold.
Rating: 3 / 5