Bill Willingham and Mark Buckingham announce critcally acclaimed Vertigo series, Fables, will end with issue #150
When I first decided to get back into reading comic books some 11 years ago, I stuck to what I knew. I started out reading X-Men comics and then eventually branched out to other Marvel titles, then I meandered over to DC. I really wasn't familiar with independent or non-mainstream comics. I remember there was an article from IGN talking about the best comic series of the moment from both major publishers. Number one on the list for DC was the book Fables. I had never heard of it and I thought I was pretty up on what DC was publishing. Well, I wasn't the well-informed fanboy that I thought I was, because I didn't realize that DC had separate imprint for their more "edgier" titles - Vertigo.
Well, I tracked down all the trades that were out and I was hooked. I loved this grown-up take on the fairy tale characters that I had grown up loving in print and in various Disney movies. A town hidden in New York where Snow White is the deputy mayor and the Big Bad Wolf, now going by the name of Bigby, is the sherriff. Mortal enemies working together, grudingly, due to a treaty that was signed pardoning everyone for crimes committed in the homelands.
Fables is amazing. It is adult, but still whimsical. Some of the characters have been changed dramatically -- The Frog Prince a janitor! Cinderella a secret agent! -- but the core of what makes them who they are still remains intact. The book moves at a surprsing clip, months going by in one arc. Willingham isn't scared to kill off characters, or alter the status quo dramatically if that is what best serves the characters and the story he is trying to tell.
The art by Mark Buckingham is some of the best in comic books. It walks that fine line of looking like it came straight out of a Hans Christensen or Brothers Grimm tale, but still being realistic looking. Willingham and Buckingham are the dictionary definition of a dream team.
Fables has been a resounding success for DC. It has spawned spin-off comic series like Jack of Fables, focused on Jack, from the various Jack fairy tale stores, and the currently running Fairest, telling untold tales of the various princesses from Aurora to Rapunzel to Cinderella. (It was announced that Fairest would also be ending at the same time as the flagship title.) Willingham has wrote prose stories and the first episode of a new video game series from Telltale Games, The Wolf Among Us, was just released.
Why mention these things? Well, because I'm sad, and these things give me hope. Hope that when the series does end, it won't be the last time that I spend with these characters that have been very important to me in the few years. Also, I'm comforted by the fact that I still have a year and a half before I really have to grieve for the end of this series.
So, how do you guys feel? Any Fables fans out there? Let me know in the comments.
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