This weekend, I started reading a series of graphic novels by Bill Willingham called FABLES, and I think I’m hooked. The concept of the series is that all the characters from the world’s fairy tales and, well, fables, have been exiled from their homelands by some nebulous force called the “Adversary” and forced to live in New York City and surrounding areas.
We find out that things didn’t exactly work out to be “happily ever after”: Snow White and Prince Charming have divorced and he now womanizes female wait staff. Beauty and Beast are having marital issues. Big Bad “Bigby” Wolf is now the Bogartesque sheriff of Fabletown (the underground fable community within NYC), and is investigating the ostensible murder of Rose Red. Jack (of beanstalk fame), her boyfriend, is a prime suspect.
The mix of noir-detective mood with a cast of mythic Shrek-like characters is just bizarre. And bizarre in a really good way. Now I just have to find Volume 2. And 3. And 4…If I’m going to be addicted, I might as well be well-supplied.
-David
Fairy tale characters in New York City? Sign me up!