Once Upon a Time...

Once upon a time…which, as all children and people of good heart well know, is when all tales of note begin….there was a war in the lands where fables and fairy tales are true and not just the fanciful imaginings of scribes like the Brothers Grimm. The forces of malevolence prevailed and those who fought on the side of righteousness fled their homelands for life in the mundane world…for life in our world. Using guile and magic and steadfast cunning, the exiles created a community…Fabletown…hidden in plain view…amongst the mortals and thrived while dreaming of the day when they could return to the land of fables and fairytales and overthrow the Adversary (as the ruler of the malevolent armies was known; the Adversary is, surprisingly enough, actually Gepetto, the puppet maker who crafted Pinocchio) and take back the magical lands that are rightfully theirs.

This then is the back story of Fables, the unflaggingly clever, charming, rollicking, and intriguing Vertigo Comics series created and written by Bill Willingham. The conceit of having legendary characters such as Snow White, Little Boy Blue, Prince Charming, Little Red Riding Hood, Old King Cole, and the Big Bad Wolf interacting in an exile community on Earth could have quickly become gimmicky and cloying in the wrong hands but Willingham deftly avoids every false note and tiresome cliché in his sprawling tales of love, life, adventure, intrigue, politics, and intrigue.

With those Fables who can pass for human living in the city and those who cannot (the Three Little Pigs or the Giants, for example) living, sometimes quite reluctantly, on a secluded farm, the avenues for drama are seemingly endless. And with the breadth of mythology and fable to draw from, the cast of characters are likewise bountiful beyond measure.

Many characters take their turn on the stage but at the heart of the series are the fierce Big Bad Wolf, the son of the majestic and haughty North Wind, who can take human form as Bigby Wolf, the erstwhile Sheriff of Fabletown, and his new bride, Fabletown’s former Deputy Mayor, Snow White. Their prickly…and then passionately romantic…relationship is the emotional foundation of the series. Even having given up their positions in Fabletown for a place out on the farmlands with their children, Snow and Bigby remain important players in the Fables saga.

With the Fables title too small to hold his rampaging ego, one character, the amoral but still charming rogue Jack (almost every Jack in fairytales is and was him) struck out in his own title, Jack of Fables (co-written by Willingham and Matthew Sturges), chronicling his own misadventures (both in the current mundane world as well as his many fantastical experiences in the days before the Fable homelands were conquered the Adversary.)

The Fables experience also flowed through the gorgeous pages of 1,001 Nights of Snowfall, a delightful graphic album featuring Snow White in the role of Scheherazade, the clever woman who survived her murderous husband’s wrath by telling him fascinating tales for 1,001 nights in The Arabian Nights. Charles Vess, Brian Bolland, Jill Thompson, John Bolland, and John Bolton are among the artists who illustrated various chapters in the volume.

Fables (and its spin-offs) are full of love, light, laughter, adventure, and magic. Lots and lots of magic. It’s a wondrous thing indeed.