The Alpha Review
By Andrew Uys
I’ve heard that trade paperbacks — a run of comic issues collected into a graphic novel — are all the rage today. But which ones are worth your time? This column aims to put the spotlight on the spectacular trades — at least according to this writer. And just for fun, we will start with the letter “A,” and each subsequent review will follow with the next letter of the alphabet. While you might object to my taste or my opinion, I hope that this column will help save you time and money when you are next buying a trade paperback, as well as effort in alphabetizing.
F is for Fables: The Mean Seasons (Volume 5)
Written by Bill Willingham
Art by Mark Buckingham and Tony Akins
Vertigo Comics, 2005
Fables is one of Vertigo’s best titles and is both a fun read as well as a complex, multi-layered read. There are nine trade paperbacks currently published, with the tenth arriving early in the summer (as well as a collection of short stories that was reviewed on this site here). While I normally review the first volume of a comic run, I thought I would jump into the middle of the story for this series, so as to give a better picture of what Fables is about, and just how rewarding a read it is. That, and while the first couple collections are immensely entertaining Fables goes from really good to absolutely fantastic around the fourth and fifth volume and it just keeps getting better.
Why? Because each arch keeps drawing upon its background to create a deep and fascinating tapestry that propels the overall plot along. Also, unlike many traditional comic stories, where the status quo is often maintained to the point that the characters barely age even though decades have past for us the readers, Fables continually risks itself by redefining its characters. One really has a sense that these people are real — experiencing, growing and changing as time passes.
So what is Fables about?
Imagine that all the characters that we know from our fairy tales and folklore are real. They live in our world, but hide themselves from us, instead existing in their little corner of New York City. These fairy tale and folklore characters used to reside in a series of “kingdoms” beyond our world, loosely created and defined by our stories and beliefs of who they are — Snow White had a wicked step-mother who sent her to die; the Big Bad Wolf hunted both Little Red Riding Hood and tried to eat the Tree Pigs. Then they were driven from their realms by a malevolent force known as The Adversary and his armies. Now they struggle to survive and hope for a day when they can return home. These people are effectively immortal, and sometimes pretty hard to kill, as they fueled and shaped by our stories and dreams. Arriving here, they put aside their previous quarrels and rivalries and form a new home, Fabletown. There is also the Farm in upstate New York, where the Fables who cannot pass for human are forced to reside. As the series moves along we are introduced to more and more fairy tale and folklore characters, and half the fun of the comic is seeing how these characters remain both true to what we collectively know about them from our childhoods and yet also how they are reinterpreted by the amazing Willingham who injects often minor or mediocre fable characters with true depth and personality — connecting us to their foibles and fates. In the second trade, a revolution at the Farm threatens to undo Fable society. As you might be noticing, while these are “fairy-tale” characters, the stories and their sub-text is decidedly both real-world-related and mature, compelling material. As the series moves along, we start to learn more about the Adversary and what forced these people from their homelands, and slowly the greater story takes shape, as the characters fight off an attack on our world by their enemies, and then start planning how to reclaim their homelands from the Adversary’s grasp. This then, brings us to the fifth volume, The Mean Seasons.
Without getting into too much detail this volume mixes wonderful character development with plots about espionage, political revolution, flashbacks, daring adventures, crime mysteries — that’s the broad range that Fables covers as the series progresses. Minor characters rise up — as the latest arc, which is due in trade early this summer, does in grand fashion — and others fall from grace.
I cannot praise Fables highly enough, and this is from someone who grew up on traditional superhero fare and counts Captain America and Batman as his favourite heroes. Fables is a book where after you read it you recommend it to everyone you meet, even complete strangers, At my local comic store if person walks in, looking for a comic and says that they (or the person that they are buying this for) isn’t really into superheroes or comics, and this is the book that is recommended — with the promise, that if the person reading it, doesn’t like Fables, they can bring it back and exchange it for something else. No one has ever brought a copy back. I have never seen a single comic book be enjoyed and sought after by such a broad range of people.
